I hear the saying, "Better go do something....even if it's wrong" commonly on jobsites. Well, yesterday, the House passed an 825,000,000,000.00 bill that followed the same principle.
Yeah right. That will work. (Just curious, has anyone reaped any benefit of the last bailout? If so, please comment below, I would be interested to hear the circumstances.)
I wanted to know what this "stimulus" involved, so I did some checking, hoping to ease my mind. Not so much. I went to a lot of sites to try and gather information. To find a summary, just google "2009 stimulus package summary." To read one in it's entirety, click here.
Some highlights.....
-$6 billion for broadband and wireless services in underserved areas
-$1.9 billion for physics research
-NASA: $600 million, including $400 million for climate change research
-$900 million to prepare for a pandemic influenza and other health threats
-$600 million for satellite development and acquisitions
-$430 million for new direct lending and loan guarantee authorities to make loans more attractive to lenders and free up capital
-DTV Conversion Coupons: $650 million (MORE) to continue the coupon program and advertisements through summer - (since one year to prepare apparently wasn't enough.)
-$400 million so fed and state governments can buy new vehicles that are more fuel efficient.
-$6.2 billion to help low-income families weatherize their homes
-$6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes.
-$87 billion for a temporary increase in the Medicaid matching rate.
-$43 billion for increased unemployment benefits
-$20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit
A few of them sound fine. To me, I know most of that allocated money will never, ever actually help out the people that really need it.
How about keeping more of your tax return? Put more money in the hands of those who can spend it to actually stimulate the economy instead of pet projects and pork.
Just do something, even if it's wrong..........but at least has a chance of helping.
1 comment:
did i ever comment to you about that guy i saw on cavuto who suggested that rather than a stimulus package, which is going to cost 825 billion dollars, to allow everyone in the u.s. a tax holiday this year and receive all of their income tax back, which would amount to 700 billion, if i remember correctly. it would be cheaper and the people who actually need help would get their money back. maybe not the best idea, i don't know, but it sounded good to me.
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