**** Once more I bring you Ron Paul's Texas Straight talk. He brings out some things in the stimulus package that are less than stimulus. Congress needs to spend some time going over it one item at a time and make it a stimulus, not a give away to special interests.
Texas Straight Talk
A weekly column
Stimulus for Who?
This week the House is expected to pass an $825 billion economic stimulus package. In reality, this bill is just an escalation of a government-created economic mess. As before, a sense of urgency and impending doom is being used to extract mountains of money from Congress with minimal debate. So much for change. This is déjà vu. We are again being promised that its passage will help employment, help homeowners, help the environment, etc. These promises are worthless. This time around especially, Congress should know better than to pass anything of this magnitude without first reading the fine print. There a many red flags that I have found in this bill.
At least $4 billion is allocated to expanding the police state and the war on drugs through Byrne grants, which even the Bush administration opposed, and the COPS program, both of which are corrupt and largely ineffective programs.
To help Big Brother keep a better eye on us and our children, $20 billion would go towards health information technology, which would create a national system of electronic medical records without adequate privacy protection. These records would instead be subject to the misnamed federal "medical privacy" rule, which allows government and state-favored special interests to see medical records at will. An additional $250 million is allocated for states to nationalize individual student data, expanding Federal control of education and eroding privacy.
$79 billion bails out states that haphazardly expanded their budgets during the bubble years, but refuse to retrench and cut back, as their taxpayers have had to, during recession years.
$200 million expands Americorps. $100 million goes to "faith-and-community" based organizations for social services, which will further insinuate the government into charity and community service. Private charities are much more efficient and effective because they are directly accountable to donors, while public programs tend to get rewarded for failure. With its money, the Federal Government brings its incompetence and its whims, while creating foolish dependence. This is sad to see.
Of course the bill is rife with central planning projects. $4 billion for job training, much of which will be used to direct workers into "green jobs". $200 million to "encourage" electric cars, $2 billion to support US manufacturers of advanced batteries and battery systems, which is yet another function of government I can't find in the Constitution. Not to mention $500 million for energy efficient manufacturing demonstration projects, $70 million for a Technology Innovation Program for "research in potentially revolutionary technologies" in which government, not supply and demand, will pick winners and losers. $746 million for afterschool snacks, $6.75 billion for the Department of Commerce, including $1 billion for a census.
This bill delivers an additional debt burden of $6,700 to every American man, woman and child.
There is a lot of stimulus and growth in this bill - that is, of government. Nothing in this bill stimulates the freedom and prosperity of the American people. Politician-directed spending is never as successful as market-driven investment. Instead of passing this bill, Congress should get out of the way by cutting taxes, cutting spending, and reining in the reckless monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.
Posted by Ron Paul (Jan 26, 2009, 12:53:53) filed under Civil Liberties, Monetary Policy, Privacy
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Comments: 23
we shall see.
We need to stimulate the free market to repair itself, not more government control which started this mess in the fist place.
Like Ron Paul says, this package needs cool heads to go over it and see that help is given where it will do the most good. That is if there is to be a stimulus at all.
guess all that deregulation really worked it's black voodoo magic! what did the republican mantra say? oh yes........Government is the problem....deregulation is the solution.....guess you have no rules when you drive either......hmmmmmm
Trickle down economics don't work as we know because of greed in the upper management of business. I see no reason trickle up would not work.
Interesting thing. They claim that the banks are hording their money. I am still getting e-mails and regular mail begging me to take out a loan at very attractive interest rates. I get probably a dozen a day.
The bill will pass but I hope some people will note its vast claims and compare what it actually does.
You remember the 90s and Clinton and saw nothing wrong Louis? Then maybe this problem will all just go away since at least some of the roots of this current mess stems from him and the others before and after him.
You also must have a pretty selective memory too.
Well, surprise, surprise!
This is definitely not true and frankly disingenuous, Col. I attended a presentation the mayor of my city did to my Rotary group last week. These mayors and state governors are in a major bind. Do you think that just because the economy is bad these people can just stop picking up garbage, plowing snow, educating children, mending water mains, shoring up levees, fixing broken streets? Our mayor laid off 15 employees last week - it killed her. She is looking for pennies everywhere. I am sick of this type of rhetoric. Just because there are some government workers who are corrupt, it doesn't mean the majority of them are. The people my investment firm works with in local and state governments are dedicated, ethical people. They are committed to service and often take much lower salaries than they would be able to get in the private sector.
I'm also sick of people not looking at this from the return on investment perspective. Everything is money going out. Investing in green technology, assisting people who want to switch their homes over, creating tax incentives for small businesses to develop in this area - this is the type of investment that will produce returns in the future. We are such a drive-thru fast food nation - we have gotten fat and lazy and unimaginative, as the rest of the world has surpasses us in these areas, much to our economic detriment.
Yes, you can nitpick some of these included expenditures and claim that they are 'pork' or waste, but the majority of it is going to benefit us in the long run. Tax breaks do absolutely nothing if people are out of work and not paying taxes, or if nobody has money to purchase goods and businesses no longer make profits to tax. How did the high-income tax breaks Bush gave us help the economy? They simply put more money into the pockets of the rich so they could buy more homes, more cars, open more off-shore accounts.
Let's stop the ridiculous notion that 'government is all bad', and start looking realistically how we can stimulate long-term growth, not just short-term income, how we can save the jobs that exist short-term, and create new industries long-term in technology and green initiatives.
If tax breaks are so bad why is 40% of the current stimulus package tax breaks.
As to the states. Not all states are in that category. Last year Montana had a surplus in the treasury and gave us property owners back a nice check.
Take your state, How many illegals are they supporting? How about your city? It is time for many of them to cut off the frosting and reduce their budgets of the sugar.
green initiatives are going to do what besides burden the taxpayer to pay for them?
I'd also like to point out that despite the right-wing rhetoric, illegals actually pay taxes. And they are not eligible for the government programs so many right-wingers scream about them benefitting from.
I'd like you to look my mayor in the eye and tell her that there is 'frosting' in her town. Don't talk like that unless you can really justify it. It just sounds ignorant...and I know you aren't. These sweeping generalizations are not based in fact - there may be instances you can site here and there, but overall, you do not have the facts to back it up. It's Rush Limbaugh-talk - purely to incite people.
Green initiatives are going to get us off the dependence on foreign oil. Do you think it's healthy that Russia can simply cut off gas to Europe in the middle of winter and have such a devastating impact? It's time we started looking into the future and stopped catering to the oil companies' greed for short-term profits. I'm sick of being at the whim of the oil-rich, unstable nations. I'm sick of pouring unhealthy substances into our air and water that are destroying our environments and our children's health. I want us to start acting responsibily towards future generations. That's what long-term investment is going to get us. It may not put $500 in your pocket right now, but it may mean the difference between peace and all-out global war for your children's children.
Sheryl O. said it !!!
I just LOVE them !!!!
You mention green initiatives then switch to long term investment. Which is it? Weither you like it or not this nation is still dependant on oil for a vast number of things. You are like everyone else and think energy is the only product from oil. That is far from accurate. Until a new source of plastic, tires, asphalt roads, various medicines and a lot of other things is discovered we will remain dependant on oil. It is as fact of life learn to live with it.
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