Obama's Stimulus Spending Package

Below is a verbatim quote of the publicity release issued by Dave Obey (D-WI) on the historic and monumental "Stimulate Our Serfs" (S0S) package presented to the House of Representatives this past week (after withdrawing the birth control and condom provisions supported and defended by House Speaker Pelosi) as found at http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/PressSummary01-15-09.pdf:

"SUMMARY: AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT

Action and Action Now!

The economy is in a crisis not seen since the Great Depression.

Credit is frozen, consumer purchasing power is in decline, in the last four months the country has lost 2 million jobs and we are expected to lose another 3 to 5 million in the next year.

Conservative economist Mark Zandi was blunt: "the economy is shutting down."

In the next two weeks, the Congress will be considering the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009. This package is the first crucial step in a concerted effort to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and begin the process of transforming it for the 21st century with $275 billion in economic recovery tax cuts and $550 billion in thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in.

The package contains targeted efforts in:

Clean, Efficient, American Energy

Transforming our Economy with Science and Technology

Modernizing Roads, Bridges, Transit and Waterways

Education for the 21st Century

Tax Cuts to Make Work Pay and Create Jobs

Lowering Healthcare Costs

Helping Workers Hurt by the Economy

Saving Public Sector Jobs and Protect Vital Services

The economy is in such trouble that, even with passage of this package, unemployment rates are expected to rise to between eight and nine percent this year. Without this package, we are warned that unemployment could explode to near twelve percent. With passage of this package, we will face a large deficit for years to come. Without it, those deficits will be devastating and we face the risk of economic chaos. Tough choices have been made in this legislation and fiscal discipline will demand more tough choices in years to come.

Since 2001, as worker productivity went up, 96% of the income growth in this country went to the wealthiest 10% of society. While they were benefitting from record high worker productivity, the remaining 90% of Americans were struggling to sustain their standard of living. They sustained it by borrowing... and borrowing... and borrowing, and when they couldn't borrow anymore, the bottom fell out. This plan will strengthen the middle class, not just Wall Street CEOs and special interests in Washington.

Our short term task is to try to prevent the loss of millions of jobs and get our economy moving. The long term task is to make the needed investments that restore the ability of average middle income families to increase their income and build a decent future for their children."

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What has been left unsaid, of course, is that this is a manipulated crisis, due in large part to the overspending and freewheeling ways of quite a few Administrations before this current one especially with respect to the financial markets after the 1980's S&L/Keating meltdown, and also due to what can only be called a fraud upon the public in some of these "bankruptcies" of the financial sector who were merely calling in their loans to the members of Congress who borrowed large sums from most of the private banks involved in the way of campaign contributions in order to fund their 2008 campaigns. That was fairly clear in the manner in which the vote was split on that 700 Billion Bailout Bill. It passed just over the 2/3rds majority needed in the House for it's passage, and also after having been pressured by the Senate who one upped the House in quickly putting their stamp of approval on the bill after it had stalled in the House. Then, of course, unconstitutionally affording the Executive Office, rather than Congress itself or the federal bankruptcy courts, to oversee the claimed "restructuring" of those "failed" financial institutions.

As far as the quote from the economist, Congress shut down the economy, the fraudulent "financial collapse" did not shut down the economy. The Federal Reserve, unregulated by Congress in any manner, did when it created this crisis to begin with in refusing additional credit to it's American subsidiaries (since even some of the owner banks of the Federal Reserve such as Lehrman Brothers were also claiming bankruptcy) in order to manipulate the markets and the American people, and also take the focus off the true issues that were still unanswered in the last presidential campaign with respect to the War and the real concerns of Americans prior to this bogus financial collapse. This "bubble burst" was primarily so that the movers and shakers on Wall Street that had made massive gains in the bull market which has occurred since the minor collapse after 9/11, could continue to increase their stock portfolios and worth with some great deals, and also in order to effectuate, it appears, quite a few "behind closed doors," mergers outside the SEC and other Congressional guidelines. At the present time, the only true money around is that of foreigners whose currency is now much stronger than our dollar, and would gather that a great deal of the restructuring that is going on involves even deeper and further investment in our banks and infrasture by foreigner investors. This is a guess, but is based upon the secrecy and speed with which the September bailout occurred, and all the questions still which remain unanswered.

The second paragraph details that some of the money will be used for "thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments." I am scratching my head over that one. Just where in the Constitution does it give Congress the right to invest public sums for the American people, rather than simply collecting the tax revenue needed and necessary in order to perform their Constitutional functions? They have the power to borrow on the full faith and credit of the United States, but to invest in "priority investments?" This is the language of a CEO for U.S.A., Inc., not that of a public servant and holder of the public purse and public trust.

Suffice it to say that #8 means nothing more than "expanding government" at the general public's expense. There is so much pork in state budgets and corporate welfare handed out indiscriminantly that almost every single state in the country's biggest need is a red pen in order to cut taxpayer costs and some of the superfluous government jobs that are draining the American citizens also at the local level. Instead, these states are threatening cutting NEEDED services, instead of discretionary "pork" projects. Saving public jobs is not the founders view of limited government, and limited taxation. Limiting public sector jobs to that which is necessary to carry out their governmental duties and functions actually is. This focus on job creation, especially in the public sector, is not the reason the state's united to begin with, and concentrating all power in Washington has created the monster and distant government now that is in it's own bubble, unaccountable, and thus unable to even connect with the true and individual needs of the states. The needs of Oregon are different than Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Montana or Arizona in fundamental ways. It is an upside down approach to government.

Mr. Obama's solution appears to be that in order to save an estimate 2-3% differential in what economists are predicting will occur without the spending package, the American people and their posterity should and need to incur over 1 trillion in debt (adding the interest) in order to save those select industries (including apparently public sector jobs). Freezing wages and trimming down benefits packages most likely would have the same overall effect, which I guess Mr. Obama has some aversion to maybe even rolling back his own salary, pension plan, health & dental benefits, or the budget to redecorate the White House, and customize the limo.

As far as the profits remaining at the top even though productivity levels have increased, did Mr. Obama or Congress consider possibly regulating some of the major corporations in this country, especially those which are traded over the stock exchange, and instituting effective legislation that would call for executive compensation to be approved by the people who own those corporations actually - the stockholders? And also legislating that any and all bonuses and severance packages in the future must meet with stockholder approval? That might just get some of those monies trickling down to the employees, or in reinvesting in their corporations in order to build up equity for the stockholders. As has been the historic governmental response since Wilson transferred essentially all economic decisions to the privitatized Fed without any oversight or regulation, it has been much easier and politically expedient to throw the monies at economic reversals they themselves create by their negligence in performing their Constitutional functions, and indebt our children and grandchildren for years to come rather than to hold some of those corporate entities accountable and "regulate" them as the founder's intended, especially if the huge conglomerate national or global concerns.

It appears most of these solutions will benefit the public sector, and select industries again in corporate welfare in one way or another, not help or assist middle class Americans put food on the table, especially since the inflationary taxes that will be the result of this tremendous debt will eat away any gains they might make in a career change or in downsizing to more affordable housing, if they can even get a loan after the foreclosure tsnami that has already stripped many of their credit rating and abiity to purchase another home anytime in the near future.

If this is representative of "change" in economic policy, I think some of these solutions have been tried before as noted, after the S&L crisis of the 80's, for example. Only not to the tune of 1 trillion dollars.

And contrary to the conclusion, I don't think our children will be thanking us for the generous gift that this current generation will be leaving them. Do you?