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Where is the Outrage??

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RELStuart
Post subject: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 1:22 am
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(CNN) -- On Monday, Congressional Republican leaders put out a list of what they call wasteful provisions in the Senate version of the nearly $900 billion stimulus bill that is being debated:
The Senate is currently debating the nearly $900 billion economic stimulus bill.


• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

CNN's Dana Bash contributed to this report. From http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/ ... index.html


To me looking at this and walking away thinking Democrats bad and Republicans good is waaaay to simple and misses to many substantive issues.

WHY is there so much pork in this bill? (Note: the last one was pretty bad too. I didn't realize it until after it passed and I read about it. Made me angry.)

This bill is spending monies I'm not sure we even have. It is according to the way it has been marketed to the public an effort to help save the economy. By giving Amtrack $850 million??? By building a new Homeland security building? And millions to furnish it?

Tons of people are out of work. States are looking at running out of money to fund unemployment. And the answer is $150 million bucks for upgrades to the Smithsonian? $650 million for the coupon program for changing the TV station to HD?

I can see the history books of the future.... Times of great economic hardship at the turn of the century were solved when Congress saved the nation by issuing coupons allowing the people of the land to tune into high definition television broadcasts and granting movie producers monies to purchase film. :bang:


Edited to fix URL

Seriously?? These people seem to be out of touch here. I would seem this is so out there public protests would be pretty loud. Am I just missing it?

(Can anyone find the full text of this bill?)

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 1:30 am
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Building new building = jobs? Just sayin'...

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Feredir
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 2:08 am
 
 
Ohh, it's happening. Things are getting scaled down as we speak. It'll still have pork but not nearly as bad.

freddy


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 2:16 am
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What counts as "pork" and what doesn't? I genuinely have no idea what that term is meant to mean despite hearing it all the time.


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Holbytla
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 2:33 am
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I don't know why this is any more deserving of outrage than anything else that has gone on in Washington for umpteen gajillion years. This is how Washington politics has been run and I see no reason why it would change now.

Whether it is part of a bailout package or just everyday legislation, it is still taxpayer money and always has been. I just think people are so beaten down by it all, that this is just another brick in the wall. Nobody really expects anything different.

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RELStuart
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 2:34 am
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Riverthalos wrote:
Building new building = jobs? Just sayin'...

True. But this seems like a very short term solution. When it comes to the Homeland security where have they been housed all this time? In my area we have had several hundred people out of work. And I know there are worse off areas than ours. I would sooner see this money go to States in an effort to fund their unemployment funds rather than build a building for an organization that has gotten along this far without it.

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 3:12 am
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Well, maybe their current building sucks. Maybe it's cold all the time and smells like sewage (don't laugh until you've lived it :/). Or maybe their politicians are better than your politicians at wrangling money out of Congress. Federal funding is a disaster zone. I live at the far downstream end and even out here it's an epic mess. There's the money you apply for, there's the money you're actually awarded, and then there's the money you actually get because the funding agencies don't actually end up with as much as they thought they would so they award more than they could and yeah... :blackeye:

That said, I just did the math. Before everyone gets all panicky, this list comes out to ~$19 billion. That's a whopping 2.1(ish)% of a $900 billion stimulus package. This list is toenail clippings. What's the other $879 billion?

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 3:29 am
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Fruit pies.


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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 3:39 am
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Lovely.

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 3:54 am
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It was the only thing the left and right could find agreement on: everyone likes fruit pies.


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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 4:06 am
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Will they come with ice cream?

ETA: No, seriously, what's with the other 98% of the bailout package? That's the part I'm most interested in.

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elfshadow
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 4:08 am
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Depends on the flavor, of course.


And yes, some of those items could definitely be deleted. But some of them make a lot of sense. Rural waste management? Sewage improvements? Flood reduction plans? Funding for fire departments? Wildland fire management? Those all seem like pretty important things to me. I'm a lot more upset at the hundreds of billions going to bail out finance corporations that took idiotic risks, lost big, and then came crying to Uncle Sam to give them money.


Also, the Department of Homeland Security building? Yeah, the neighborhood it's in is currently a shithole. ;) Maybe building a better DHS headquarters will help improve the community a bit.


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laureanna
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 4:19 am
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Well, I've been scrambling and working overtime (unpaid) to get $2 million of that package into our town, to repair two of our main streets. It may be pork to you, but it's bacon to me, as in bringing home the bacon, paying my wages and the wages of a large number of tradesmen to replace asphalt and concrete.

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RELStuart
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 5:52 am
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I do see things on that list that do sound like good things to me. But I also see some that should not be here in the stimulus plan. It is arguable that none of these belong in this bill.

I do realize that this may be how things have been working in Washington. I'd like to see some change I can believe in though. I don't like to see things log rolled like this. On the last bail out I saw people getting up and talking about how congressmen and women that were considering not supporting it should think of the next generation and the children and how that bailout bill could help save them from economic hardships. Then I read things like this and that rhetoric sounds at best like hyperbole and at worst dishonest.

What about the next generation? We had to borrow money for the big tax refund last year that was supposed to boost the economy. Then we had the first big bailout bill pass. And now this one is working it's way though. How many generations will have to pay for this? And if we are talking about this kind of commitment then lets weed it down until we have the essential things.

I work for a State agency and I know all about underpaid and overworked unfortunately. In fact they tell us we're one of the worse paid state employees compared to other states. In addition last year they gave raises to Administrative staff (which was good) and they are now paid better then people with college degrees in my field. I'm sure with the economy once again this year there will be no raise. But I know that several hundred people in my county have lost their jobs. At least I am fortunate that I am not one of them.

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The OG Borry
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 7:36 am
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Heres the most recent and full text of the bill. Good luck reading it though ;)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c ... c111HL7C6F:" target="_blank:
Borry

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 1:19 pm
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Oh, I'm outraged. But I'm reserving it for the people who created the mess rather than the ones trying to clean it up.


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Feredir
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 2:09 pm
 
 
Dave,
Who do you think made the mess? It's the one's who are trying to clean it up. They forced banks to make high risk loans and guess what?!?!? These people who normally would have been denied a loan because it was too high of a risk, they didn't repay their loans. Hmmmm, funny how loan businesses were fine until the government forced them to make high risk business decisions. Then it all trickled down.



-$400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.
How does this help the economy?

-$248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.
HUH?

- $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.
Please.

- $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.
Very much needed but not in this package.

- $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
Here's the way to reduce this, quite building houses in wetlands and this won't happen. There's a reason they are called "wetlands."


OK, I'm done. It's too early to get my blood pressure up this high.


freddy


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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 2:49 pm
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There is plenty of blame to go around. It probably won't help your blood pressure, but in the context of government I put the lion's share on the former executive leadership for it's abysmal failure to fulfill its duties over the last eight years. Society always has been and always will be full of shady characters looking to take advantage of the system in order to make a quick buck. The government, and in particular the executive branch of the government, is oath-bound to keep those elements in check. But the utter contempt our executives showed for law they were charged with enforcing--and indeed for the very concept of rule of law--created a culture of lawlessness where the crooked elements were free to loot and pillage without having to worry about repercussions. Now the lackeys of the same contortionists who spent the last eight years with their backs firmly turned in every direction are busy attacking the poor sap they stuck with the cleanup job. He may well botch the effort--it's hard to see how any plan could succeed under the circumstances--but Congressional Republicans have no business mocking and nitpicking while the party leaders, CEOs, and investment bankers who enabled the fiasco are still walking around un-tarred and un-feathered.


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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 3:19 pm
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If you want to be outraged....go look at the bonus' of the top bank CEOs that GWB gave handouts too without any strings attached. The same CEOs Obama is now trying to bring in line with limiting their salaries to $500k a year.

Those are your tax dollars paying for the fat cats big parties at Citibank, Wells Fargo, ect.

Oh and this isn't going to happen, this already happened.

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Thu 05 Feb , 2009 3:33 pm
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And everyone in St. Louis, Freddy wants you to move. Thanks. ;) :D

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