Republicans Object to Being Out of the Loop on "Stimulus Package"

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling for a much closer look at the trillion dollar spending bill the Democrats are throwing together so that it can be passed soon after President elect Obama is sworn into office. This $850 billion plus stimulus package in the opinion of much of the public is nothing more than a grand stand play to celebrate Obama's inauguration. The final massive volley of fireworks at the end of the party, and like fireworks is likely to burn up and fade away with no, or very little little, impact on the economy.

The one thing that is sure about this particular "fire works display" is that it would saddled the country and tax payers with an unsustainable debt. Read again Ross Perots's "Suicidal Spending" where he predicts the course of government spending to this very end in the near future. The end where the country can no longer even pay the interest on the debt thus resulting in bankruptcy. I imagine however that even Mr. Perot did not anticipate it coming so soon. http://perotcharts.com/challenges/

McConnell ( R), asked, "Surely the Democrat leadership in Congress doesn't plan to spend a trillion dollars of taxpayer money -- nearly $10,000 in new debt for everyone who pays federal income tax, charged to the credit card for our children to pay -- without safeguards, without appropriate hearings to scrutinize how tax dollars are being spent,......" or "an open amendment process to give the GOP opportunity to alter the bill as it heads to the Senate floor." That last is of course the crux of the matter; the Republicans want their share of the pot and are not being allowed to participate in the divisions being worked out by the Democrats alone.

The Democratics who controlled Congress want no input from the Republicans. They want no checks and balances to oversee how and where the money is spent as they have contributors to pay back for their very successful 2008 Congressional campaigns. They want the same kind of hastily thrown together bill as the giant $700 billion bill (TARP) passed in October. And the same lame excuse is being used for the haste: The country is in dire need of a massive bailout and quick action is needed to stave off the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. A fear tactic that didn't work with the public in the first give away where the White House's and Capitol's communication systems were over loaded and broken several times by incoming tax payer calls in the weeks leading up to the passage of the $700 billion bail out of the financial institution. The calls according to several Congressman were running 90% against the bail out and yet Congress still passed the bill.

Remember Rep. Barney Frank (D) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D), President Bush (R) and his Treasury Secretary Paulson telling the country in early October 2008 there was a crisis and credit would be frozen which would bring business to a halt causing massive job loss. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! The sky is falling and we need to prop it up by getting all this money to the banks and financial institutions whose bad business policies got the country into the "crisis" in the first place. Then remember how the bill wasn't passed in the House of Representatives, but was sent to the Senate where the bill was loaded down with another $2 billion in pork to get the Republican Senators to sign on?

After the bill was passed the Treasury suddenly became slow to parcel out the money. But the lack of speed getting the money to the institutions so much in need really had no impact on the economy. This was predictable by anyone who was astute enough to have observed the previous actions of the supercilious financial lords. Only half of the money was parceled out and with no oversight naturally because these financial barons would not stand for anyone, least of all the tax payers whose money it was, looking over their shoulders. The money that was to "stimulate the economy" was instead hoarded and used for business as usual with huge salaries and bonuses to the very people, CEO's, who had led their companies into this crisis. When reporters began asking in December where the money had gone the answers were blunt and to the point. This one is typically representative: "And the answers are all quite the same as given by all those who have been asked to date and typified by this one by Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money (when he said), "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to." (http://BrendaBowers.wordpress.com ---under category "national politics")

Has this massive $700 billion bill to save the economy saved anything? Well yes, it saved the banks and American International Groups, INC. (AIG) and other financial giants that were deemed "too big to fail". It didn't however keep businesses from going out of business and people from losing their jobs or homes due to mortgage foreclosures.

So now we have another crisis, but instead of the financial barons getting the money it is going to be parceled out to the various agencies in the government to be parceled out to the various states to be parceled out to the various counties and cities for various "infrastructure projects". Naturally every hand the allotted funds passes thru will get a share of the spoils so when it gets to the point of actually paying for any projects the amount will be a fraction of what was intended. And even this faction will not need to be justified or explained. That's probably good since my city plans to use a portion of it's fair share to build a 4.5 mile bike path euphamistically called a "greenway" thru downtown that won't be used because the downtown was brought back to life with restaurants and night life not day time businesses. And night life will be the first to die a quick death in a poor economy. Just business and government bureaucracy as usual.

When President elect Obama announced his plan for this huge bail out (called a stimulus package) the feeding frenzy began. The National Governors Conference in mid-December conferred on nothing else. Cities and counties all over the country began writing up their wish lists. It is a holiday atmosphere with that dear jolly old elf coming with a sleigh full of dollars; beautiful freshly printed dollars. Now we have the question of just where are these dollars are coming from. Why they are being printed of course just as fast as the presses can turn them out. Each dollar printed then devalues all the dollars that had been printed previously, but this doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone in our Congress. I will lay heavy odds however that China and Japan and the United Kingdom who hold the greatest amounts of US Treasury Notes are taking notice of the devaluation of the dollar, and therefore their investments. I wonder just how long it will be before they put pressure on our government to stop the hemorrhage as their economies too have been direly affected by the stupidity and greed of US financial institutions in starting this world wide decline?

I predict: The Republicans both in the House and the Senate will hold out for a time since the mood of the public is against any more bails outs of any kind. They will put up a good show, but since Obama wants this to be a bipartisan "stimulus package" so that the blame is shared by both parties, I have no doubt that it will eventually pass after the Republicans in Congress get their share of the pork that the Democrats in Congress are now stuffing into the bill. BB

Reference:

1) Politico----The Crypt

December 29, 2008

Categories: The economy

McConnell questions Obama stimulus plan

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1208/McConnell_questions_Obama_stimulus_plan.html

2) Blog http://BrendaBowers.wordpress.com Under categories: national politics, national stories from October thru to the present. All blog post are referenced individually.

3) http://perotcharts.com/challenges/ Ross Perots has charted our countries ultimate demise showing the facts and figures that chart the path of federal spending from the 1930's to the present, but concentrating on the last 40 years.