"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State House, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society."
The Stimulus Plan includes two provisions modeled after the Act that finance high-speed rail development. First, the Stimulus Plan provides a $2 billion grant for high-speed rail projects that will remain available until September 30, 2011. The grant will be distributed among applicant states, interstate compacts, public agencies having responsibility for providing high-speed rail service and Amtrak for capital projects associated with inter-city passenger rail services reasonably expected to reach speeds of at least 110 miles per hour. The Secretary of Transportation will have discretion to award grants based on an extensive set of criteria, including the legal, financial and technical capacity of the applicant to carry out the project; compatibility with relevant national plans; and anticipated economic, environmental and transportation effects.
Above is a map from the US Dept. of Transportation showing high-speed rail designations. Do you notice something missing from it? Yup, you're right, nothing connecting Las Vegas!
Many businessmen claim that, the right to profit is theirs by virtue of what they've risked and, to some extent this is true, they're correct. The small businessman who mortgages his home in order to create a startup business SHOULD be rewarded for his effort. He works hard and should be able to profit. And, in a free market that doesn't subsidize his competition in the form of tax breaks to larger businesses that can afford campaign contributions (i.e. bribes) to the public officials who write them, that would be true.We've been doing this for the past 30 years with various forms of corporate welfare and currently the bank bailouts. For years, big business has wanted government out of the way, and for the past 8 years that's what they got, and look where their "laissez-faire" economics got us. Now, the same crowd who wanted free markets, deregulation and smaller government involvement are begging for welfare because they are "too big to fail".
Our problem isn't that we practice socialism. It's that we allow the socialization of risk while not requiring a directly proportional socialization of profits.
Is the President finally getting a backbone on this stimulus thing? Given his recent speech, I think he might be. The way I see it, he tried to play nice with the Republicans (see my earlier post) and what did they do? They all voted no, which is pretty much a big slap in the face! Well, today it seems he's finally putting them in their place...In the last few days, we've seen proposals arise from some in Congress that you may not have read but you'd be very familiar with because you've been hearing them for the last 10 years, maybe longer. They're rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems; that government doesn't have a role to play; that half-measures and tinkering are somehow enough; that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges -- the crushing cost of health care, the inadequate state of so many of our schools, our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.So while our lawmakers are taking their sweet old time as our economy burns, let's take a look at a few meaningful things in this bill that are being held up with their pissing contest:So let me be clear: Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed. They've taken us from surpluses to an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, and they've brought our economy to a halt. And that's precisely what the election we just had was all about. The American people have rendered their judgment. And now is the time to move forward, not back. Now is the time for action.
The GOP does not want Obama or America to move forward, what else can they run on in 4 years?What about jobs being created and long-term savings by the $6.7 billion for energy-efficient renovations and repairs to federal buildings...
Why didn't a single House Republican vote for the recovery package? One high-ranking congressional aide opined to the Huffington Post, "It wasn't because of family planning funds or preserving the National Mall or whatever Rush Limbaugh and Drudge's talking points were. It's because this legislation is the clearest repudiation of Bush and Congressional Republican economic policies yet."
It is, in a way, a public relations coup that the stimulus has been boiled down to, as one Hill Democrat puts it, "funding for the arts, funding for the mall, and funding to fight AIDS." Those aspects of the legislation, as the White House points out, constitute a mere 7/100th of one percent of the entire package.
"I don't think people realize what a big deal weatherizing the federal buildings would be. The government wastes millions of dollars every year on buildings that are old and need to be weatherized," said a high-ranking Democratic aide. "We have windows that leak and have bad insulation. These are buildings all over the country and we are going to go in there, weatherize them, create jobs and save money down the road."The Republican ideology and the Bush years have left this country's economy in such a state of collapse that most economists say we have to think big. This is true on a broad level, where the middle-class saw its purchasing power drastically diminished during the past 8 years as their income remained stagnant while productivity and profits grew! The economic growth of the Bush years was funded by debt on the backs of the middle-class. So what if this bill props up dormant federal programs? The policies of the past eight years were hardly stimulative.
"We cannot move forward without understanding what created this crisis," said Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel. "This recovery package is the beginning of a longer-term investment in America's middle class, our small businesses, health care, renewable energy technologies and a new infrastructure to reinvigorate our economy so that American workers and businesses can compete and win in the 21st Century."
What the hell is wrong with the "buy American" provisions in the proposed stimulus bill? The European Union's panties are all in a bunch because of this...Under the “Buy American” clause passed by the US House of Representatives, American iron and steel must be used in construction projects that form part of the recovery plan. The US Senate wants to extend the scope of the clause before the Bill goes to the White House for approval.To me, that is just common sense! If you are going to be using American taxpayer money to fund American construction projects, it only makes sense to use American iron and steel for those projects, doesn't it? I don't think there is a single person in this country that wouldn't be pissed if our tax money was being used to purchase imported steel for these projects.
Another Obama administration nominee with tax problems! Nancy Killefer has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government due to a failure to pay employment taxes on household help for a year and a half.The AP reported that on March 7, 2005, the D.C. Department of Employment Services slapped a tax lien on her home in the tony Wesley Heights neighborhood. The local government alleged that just three years after she left the high-powered Treasury post she began to fail to pay unemployment compensation tax for a household employee. And she failed to make the required quarterly payments for a year and half, whereupon a lien for $946.69 was placed on her home.You know, if these officials, lawmakers and other fat cats actually paid their share of taxes like the rest of us, maybe our federal budget wouldn't be in such a crisis.
Here's a quick question—why do the Republicans all of a sudden have such a problem with deficit spending to help this county get out of its economic mess? The reason I ask this is because they didn't have any problem with deficit spending for the last 5 years to help a different country out of a mess, and that country was Iraq! They didn't have any problem with Bush's year after year deficit spending for his entire presidency! The national debt grew over 77% during Bush's presidency, more than under any previous president, including FDR who is their poster-child for spending! So if they didn't have a problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the reconstruction effort in Iraq, why do they have a problem doing the same for our own country?
What is going on with these Democrats lately? Two of Obama's cabinet appointees seem to have trouble paying their taxes! First there was new Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who failed to pay Social Security taxes, even though he was paid extra to compensate for those taxes. Now we have Tom Daschle who has been picked to head the Health and Human Services Department. Apparently he failed to pay more than $120,000 in taxes! No wonder Democrats have no trouble raising taxes, they don't intend on paying them anyway! Look guys, if you want to get out of paying your taxes, do what the Republicans do, USE LOOPHOLES!
