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PrintFebruary 19, 2009
Porkulus notes
The porkulus bill just passed by Congress, and signed by the President after his President's Day vacation was over, contains a provision that will make it much more difficult for government whistle-blowers or watchdogs to uncover waste, or fraud. I am sure there will be little of that in the biggest spending bill ever passed by Congress. Wonder how this item got into this bill?
By the way, if, as Obama told us, 20,000 jobs are lost each day, and it would be a catastrophe not to pass the stimulus bill, why did Obama wait 4 days to sign it? He did find time for a day of playing basketball pickup games and watching the NBA all star game.
We know why Pelosi needed to get the bill passed in Congress so quickly -- she had travel plans for a junket to Rome. No member of Congress had time to read the bill before it passed. But lobbyists did, since the draft bill was circulated among left wing lobbying groups during the conference committee discussions.
Remember the new transparency we were going to see in this administration, and the end of earmarks? That is nonsense. The last provision into the bill was for an $8 billion monorail type train from Disneyland to Las Vegas, sure to please Harry Reid. Obama owed Reid a big one, after suggesting that any company that had a conference in Las Vegas was really conducting a boondoggle.
Vegas was already suffering -- now there are many more cancellations that have occurred. Do you think it will be cheaper for companies to hold events in San Francisco or New York? Or was this comment designed to move convention business back to Chicago, which has done a good job driving it out with absurdly high union wage rates for convention setups, and the highest sales taxes in America? (thank you Todd Stroger, Obama's man running Cook County).
One more thing about the stimulus: it will likely create few jobs, but save some. Which ones will it save? Silly question. Those in state government, particularly those in states that spend way too much and have big deficits. Just as GM and Chrysler need a bailout ,but Ford so far does not have its hand out for one, some states can do without stimulus cash, and others need it to prevent layoffs.
The lowest unemployment rates in the country (2-3%) are with government "workers", many of them unionized. So we in the private sector will for years be paying back in taxes (or the Chinese will be buying our bonds ) to finance the spendthrift states that can not live within their means.
Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, published a whopper the other day: that 574,000 teachers would be laid off without the stimulus bill. That would mean 1 of every 4 teachers in America would be laid off. The Times no longer has any standards whatsoever as to fact checking their columnists, including those who are paid to write regular columns.
If 1 of every 4 New York Times editorialists and op ed writers were laid off, the paper would improve.
