Stuff the GOP hates about Obama's Stimulus Package

[GilloD]

 (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 the nearly $900 billion economic stimulus bill.

The Senate is currently 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. I'd say this was goofy IF YOU DIDNT UNDERFUND THE PROGRAM THE FIRST TIME

• $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. This one is seriously goofy. Get this the fuck out

• $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." WHERE IS THE JOE CAMEL EMOTICON

• $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. KATRINA, THIS DISASTER SO NICE WE HAD IT TWICE

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

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

• $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. THIS IS THE MOTHERFUCKING POINT

• $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.

Some of these are fucking goofy. Some of them may not be stimulus. But some just seem fucking nefarious to go "MONEY FOR KEEPING LEAD PAINT AWAY FROM CHILDREN?! PREPOSTEROUS!". Some of this seems only tangentially related, but a lot of those environmental spendings are likely to reap strong savings in the future. OKAY DEBATE START NOW

[dammitmattt]

Fuck Amtrak

[Bocsius]

The GOP and some more conservative democrats have a point on some. The stimulus package should be things that have a immediate impact on the economy. Of course, I'm sure the GOP has added their own pork which kind of negates their whole argument. There should be a Common Sense Council that can remove the obvious pork since Congress isn't capable of it. Stimulate the economy on this bill, get your pet projects implemented in the next budget.

[Mr. Gundam]

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

This needs more than $25 million.

[ToxicAdam]

My only problem with the bill is that we are only spending 30 billion on infrastructure. It was one of the main thrusts of the Obama presidency and he is only devoting <5% of the entire package to it.


== ==


All this shit you listed is just stuff that is going to get "tucked into" other bills throughout the course of the year. If this stuff offends you, you need to follow government more closely.

[Mandark]

There have been similar criticisms from Democrats.  This is the big chance to push through high speed rail, etc.  The problem with infrastructure spending in a bill like this is finding shovel ready* projects that are also good long term decisions, and doing so in a very short timeframe.

Physical infrastructure is something we're stuck with for a long time after it's built.  I'd rather they take the time to get it right.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

a lot of this stuff is kinda infrastructure-y, I'm seeing lots of projects that will either strengthen local communities or government services.  Yeah, sewage treatment plants, canal inspection, and STD and smoking initiatives aren't sexy like new roads n shit, but they can greatly help overburderned local programs and save money in the long run.

Maybe I've got my liberal blinders on, but I'm not actually seeing that much pork in that list there.

[TakingBackSunday]

The GOP and some more conservative democrats have a point on some. The stimulus package should be things that have a immediate impact on the economy. Of course, I'm sure the GOP has added their own pork which kind of negates their whole argument. There should be a Common Sense Council that can remove the obvious pork since Congress isn't capable of it. Stimulate the economy on this bill, get your pet projects implemented in the next budget.

I don't really understand economics very much, but what are some things that could be done to have an "immediate impact" on the economy?  Isn't that fairly impossible to do, or are you talking relative time frames (immediate=a couple months)?

[Mandark]

A quick tally has the total cost of that list at $19 billion.  Not a small amount of money, but in the context of the stimulus bill it's about 2%.

Are they saying they're okay with the other 98%?

[demi]

Forget all that, do we get another free check like before?

[Ganhyun]

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

I don't see why We need to pay for Hollywood studios to buy film when they make plenty of money to do it themselves.

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

They need this much to buy furniture? Really? Must be a HUUUGE building, or expensively decored.

$600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

Why? Don't most of them already have cars?


But as Mandark said, in total, that is a small amount of the stimulus's total amount being spent.

[AdmiralViscen]

Scrap the Hollywood one, keep the fleet update one

[Phoenix Dark]

And don't I feel like a dumbass. While much of that list could be trimmed off it is only 2% of the package.

forgive me mandark, for i have sinned

[siamesedreamer]

Some of that stuff is ok. Like the $500M for flood prevention on the Mississippi River, the $500M for fire stations, the $6 billion for greening federal buildings, and the $448M for the DoHS headquarters. Seems like those would provide immediate job help. 

[Mandark]

So you get all outraged by the bogus WSJ editorial, then give the okay to nearly half a billion for furniture?

[Brehvolution]

Other than the Hollywood BS, I'm not losing any sleep over the other stuff.

[TVC15]

Yeah, what's the justification for the hollywood bullshit?

[siamesedreamer]

So you get all outraged by the bogus WSJ editorial, then give the okay to nearly half a billion for furniture?

I don't see where I listed the furniture as OK.

[GilloD]

Yeah, what's the justification for the hollywood bullshit?

To be fair, this could be for tax credits to film in some locations. A number of jobs on location are non-union freelance gigs. My friend was a PA in new York, he's moving back home because he can't get work here anymore. Tax incentives could bring films to useful locations and create jobs.

[max_cool]

$600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

Why? Don't most of them already have cars?

I'm sure most do, but we either provide them vehicles for official use (work related use only) or we pay for the wear and tear on the cars they privately own.  Most federal agencies will require that you use one of their vehicles for travel if you are driving.

[TVC15]

Yeah, what's the justification for the hollywood bullshit?

To be fair, this could be for tax credits to film in some locations. A number of jobs on location are non-union freelance gigs. My friend was a PA in new York, he's moving back home because he can't get work here anymore. Tax incentives could bring films to useful locations and create jobs.

It doesn't say that though.  It says:

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

[Beardo]

How much of this is actually stimulus that will be spent in the next year or two?

[border]

I'm kinda guessing that the celluloid film industry is in trouble, given the switchover to digital cameras and such.  Whether it's worth giving them an indirect bailout is probably debatable -- though as a film fan I'd certainly hate to see celluloid die.

[Cheebs]

How much of this is actually stimulus that will be spent in the next year or two?

Most of that stuff on the list seems rather immediate, did you read it?

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

How much of this is actually stimulus that will be spent in the next year or two?

Most of that stuff on the list seems rather immediate, did you read it?

Does Beardo read anything?

[Beardo]

I dont see a date next to anything except the 2010 census.

[Van Cruncheon]

http://wonkette.com/405954/gop-against-stimulus-part-of-stimulus-bill

So the Republicans are all for a good Economic Stimulus bill, meaning one that would stop taxing the rich and stop any corporate taxes and also, somehow, further ruin the environment and whatever. As a result of this clear “small government” philosophy the big-spending corporate-welfare closeted homosexuals adopted last week, GOP congressional leaders have found the parts they just can’t tolerate in the Economic Stimulus legislation: the parts that would create jobs and build American infrastructure. Yes we can’t!

Look, whatever anybody’s uninformed opinions about this Rescue the Economy package, you should at least be able to reconcile “support for economic stimulus legislation” with “support for legislation that will throw a bunch of money at the economy, in the form of money paid for goods and services, manufacturing and labor, and other traditional uncontroversial gears of Capitalism.”

So, here are some specific things the GOP will not condone, in this bill they’re not going to vote for, anyway:

A billion dollars extra for the 2010 U.S. Census, which is going to pay good money to many jobless people in every American town — and shore up Lockheed-Martin, which is getting $500 million to build the data systems and run the machinery.

$75 million for FBI employee salaries, because why would you want to pay America’s top cops to do law enforcement and investigations, in America?

$500 million for Mississippi River flood control projects, which would employ thousands of laborers and keep dozens of construction companies in business, because nothing makes Republicans happier than seeing a Katrina repeat on the teevee every other hurricane season.

$200 million for green vehicles on U.S. military bases and $600 million to replace the federal fleet of cars with hybrids, because only a gay communist could see the economic benefits of $800 bmillion in sales for U.S. auto manufacturers while simultaneously cutting the government’s gasoline bill by billions per year.

$1.4 billion for rural garbage-disposal and recycling programs, because who but an Islamo-Fascist would want to provide much-needed jobs for the Red State countryside while keeping toxic garbage out of those people’s drinking water?

$125 million to rebuild the broken, rotten, third-world sewer system of our Nation’s Capital. You give the blacks this, and who knows what they’ll want next! And by “give,” we mean “pay a decent wage to laborers in D.C., to rebuild their sewers.”

$6 billion to pay dozens of big regional contractors, hundreds of local businesses and tens of thousands of American workers to retrofit federal buildings so that they’ll be energy efficient.

$200 million for computer centers at community colleges, because if poor unskilled workers want to “learn the computer,” they should just go to Stanford instead of complaining.

[Van Cruncheon]

also, i say we give every female teenager $500 to get knocked up and another $1000 to get an abortion. $5000 more if they wait until the third trimester, film it, and mail the footage to fox news

seriously, teens spend frivolously -- we'll kickstart the retail sector, and power through with ABORTIONS

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

How much will you give them to abort themselves

[patrickula]

Wonkette

Though Ken Layne wrote that article... I don't think Ana Marie Cox writes for them (her own site) anymore.

[Van Cruncheon]

"ravage my holes, you naughty conservatives! ravage them!"

[Flannel Boy]

She can stimulate my package.

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[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Dog Days was shit

[Beardo]

Clearly you have a point. If we spend more money and go even more into debt it will somehow magically make the economy better. I'm not sure how, but it will work as long as we scare everyone into voting for it.


I heard the USSR spent all their money on government projects too. My history is a little rusty so I'm going to brush up on it and see how that worked for them.

[Beardo]

Did you guys know that the USSR declared bankruptcy in 1992.  How can that be? Maybe spending tax-payers money so frivolously isn't the answer. Just a thought though.

[Brehvolution]

If we spend more money and go even more into debt it will somehow magically make the economy better.

Ever hear of 'return on investment'?

They are banking on these improvements saving money in the future.

[BlueTsunami]

Yeah, I know, Big Government should put all their monies in a piggy bank.

[Flannel Boy]

Did you guys know that the USSR declared bankruptcy in 1992.  How can that be? Maybe spending tax-payers money so frivolously isn't the answer. Just a thought though.

In order to keep up with the Americans, the USSR was spending a ton of money on the military, something near 20% of their GNP. 

[Mandark]

Clearly you have a point. If we spend more money and go even more into debt it will somehow magically make the economy better. I'm not sure how, but it will work as long as we scare everyone into voting for it.

Internet Rhetorical Gambit #147:  The Magical Pejorative

You can quickly and easily impugn someone's logic with the use of the adverb "magically" to describe their mechanism of causation.  It requires no argument, just the implication that your point is completely obvious and theirs is just as completely fantastical.

"Oh, I'm sure that because only some fish survive, one of them magically evolves into a nuclear physicist.  :rolleyes"

My favorite example of this was a thread on GAF where someone asked why white people don't use scrubbing items in the shower.*  "Do they think soap will magically clean them by itself?"  drohne, typically, had the best reply, pointing out that cleaning power was not magic, but a key property of soap.

Wonkette

Though Ken Layne wrote that article... I don't think Ana Marie Cox writes for them (her own site) anymore.

I don't know why I haven't been reading Ken Layne regularly.  He's an awesome polemicist and wrote one of my favorite blog posts back in 2004 (more at the link):

"But," Tim sputtered, "Kerry clearly claimed he was in Cambodia several days before he was in Cambodia. It was seared--"

"Stop that," I said, poking his neck with the corkscrew worm. "Listen to yourself. What are you doing, again? That's right, you're reminding people that the other guy fought in Vietnam. Have you become so brain dead that you think this helps your girly boy Bush? Do you honestly believe the coward boy can beat the War Monster?"

Blair tried to shake the confusion from his head. Then his eyes brightened for a moment and he said, "Four months! Kerry was only in Vietnam for four months!"

Death, War, Death, War ... Worship Me"See? You did it again. You people can't stop reminding everybody that Kerry was in Vietnam, taking lives like your boy eats cookies. Killing people, saving people, holding Life & Death in his hands like a savage gift. He kills the Viet Cong or anybody else he chooses, he saves a U.S. sailor who fell out of the boat, he walks the halls of the Senate deciding who he'll kill or who he'll save. In Vietnam, Kerry is a death's head of gruesome power, while your Bush hides in Alabama, a scared little girl. And what did little Bush do in Texas?"

Blair grinned, foolishly thinking the ball was again in his court. "He killed many people in Texas. All those executions ...."

"Ha! Your girly Bush killed nobody. He signed off on lethal injections. He's a middle manager in a cubicle at the suburban branch of the Bank of Death, initialing memos he doesn't even know how to read. What kind of Texas oilman is your little girl? You ever see 'Dallas'?"

Blair nodded. Everyone has seen "Dallas," all over the world.

"Then you know how a Texas Oilman is supposed to act. What do you think J.R. would do if his wife told him to stop drinking?"

Visibly wilting, Blair stepped deeper into the shadows.

"That's right," I said. "J.R. would've thrown his glass of scotch at her goddamned head, and then he would've laughed and poured a fresh double on the rocks while she whimpered behind the sofa, fearing for her life. Laura Bush tells your beloved wuss to stop drinking and he just stops drinking? Who's the wife here? Not Laura Bush."

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*Yes, someone did point out in the thread that the OP had apparently been watching white people shower.

[close]

[BlueTsunami]

Beardo devastated, once again

[Van Cruncheon]

Clearly you have a point. If we spend more money and go even more into debt it will somehow magically make the economy better. I'm not sure how, but it will work as long as we scare everyone into voting for it.


I heard the USSR spent all their money on government projects too. My history is a little rusty so I'm going to brush up on it and see how that worked for them.

you'll also want to brush up on their ruinous flirtation with democracy and capitalism

[Cheebs]

Wonkette

Though Ken Layne wrote that article... I don't think Ana Marie Cox writes for them (her own site) anymore.

No she doesn't write for them anymore. She appears on MSNBC like every single day for The Rachel Maddow show though.

[Mandark]

Did you guys know that the USSR declared bankruptcy in 1992.  How can that be? Maybe spending tax-payers money so frivolously isn't the answer. Just a thought though.

I heard that Argentina followed the IMF's Chicago school recommendations of deregulation, privatization, and fiscal austerity in the 90's and wound up deep in crisis and defaulted on all its international debts.  Whoopsie!

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I was going to use the term "neoliberal" but figured it would confuse Beardo too much.  Now I'm worried that "Chicago school" will get him turned around, since everyone knows Chicago = Obama = librul.

[close]

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

You're probably going to have to explain to him what "IMF" means as well. 

[drozmight]

I thought this was for building infrastructure.


Also, I donno... if you're going to build a new HS headqua--wait, why don't they just nix that program, lol.

[recursivelyenumerable]

"Do they think soap will magically clean them by itself?"  drohne, typically, had the best reply, pointing out that cleaning power was not magic, but a key property of soap.

the old version would've worked better but i can't seem to find it

[Mandark]

The righteous Christian student nonplussing their secular college lecturer with a devastating argument has become one of the most popular rubrics for conservative email morality plays, up there with the apocryphal cabdriver and the untipped waiter.

I wonder how many fundie freshman try this in Bio 101, only to get dismissed by an annoyed professor who doesn't want to waste time on undergrads in the first place, much less deal with this crap.

[Phoenix Dark]

insert Beardo posts into globe

[ToxicAdam]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUKTRE5135MN20090204

Looks like the "Buy American" clause could hold this thing up for awhile...

[Brehvolution]

With as little as America actually makes, I find it humorous that other countries may take offense to it.