OP
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/stimulus_pork_spending/2009/01/29/176503.html
I know I know, it's Newsmax. But that doesn't make the list of pork on there any less disturbing. The only one I'd disagree with is the billion to Amtrak, as this is supposed to be for improving infrastruction and creating jobs. But the rest of it is just pork and you have to wonder how $75 million for anti smoking programs is going to stimulate the economy.
Update 1 from Sen. Coburn
There's some info from Sen. Tom Corbon put out yesterday on some of the more pork in the bill.
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/ind...ecord_id=3db704c6-802a-23ad-406c-a424db591389
update 2, passes house.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96AU3H80&show_article=1
signed!
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=20264246
The $1.17 trillion stimulus bill passed by House Democrats on Wednesday bears little resemblance to the bill originally proposed by President Obama, with less than 5 percent of the funds now going to repair America’s deteriorating infrastructure.
GOP critics point out the bill is loaded with tens of billions for items ranging from Amtrak subsidies to sexually transmitted diseases to the National Endowment for the Arts -- much of which won’t actually flow into the economy until long after economists expect the current economic crisis to subside.
In late November, Obama promised: “It will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America, and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges,” modernizing schools and stimulating development of alternative forms of energy.
Even some Democrats are now objecting that the measure contains too few highway and mass transit projects. Moreover Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, says most of the infrastructure spending in the plan won’t occur until 2010 or later.
Provisions of the bill that many legislators are questioning:
$1 billion for Amtrak, which hasn’t earned a profit in four decades.
$2 billion to help subsidize child care.
$400 million for research into global warming.
$2.4 billion for projects to demonstrate how carbon greenhouse gas can be safely removed from the atmosphere.
$650 million for coupons to help consumers convert their TV sets from analog to digital, part of the digital TV conversion.
$600 million to buy a new fleet of cars for federal employees and government departments.
$75 million to fund programs to help people quit smoking.
$21 million to re-sod the National Mall, which suffered heavy use during the Inauguration.
$2.25 billion for national parks. This item has sparked calls for an investigation, because the chief lobbyist of the National Parks Association is the son of Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wisc. The $2,25 billion is about equal to the National Park Service’s entire annual budget. The Washington Times reports it is a threefold increase over what was originally proposed for parks in the stimulus bill. Obey is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
$335 million for treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. $4.19 billion to stave off foreclosures via the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The bill allows nonprofits to compete with cities and states for $3.44 billion of the money, which means a substantial amount of it will be captured by ACORN, the controversial activist group currently under federal investigation for vote fraud. Another $750 million would be exclusively reserved for nonprofits such as ACORN – meaning cities and states are barred from receiving that money. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., charges the money could appear to be a “payoff” for the partisan political activities community groups in the last election cycle.
$44 million to renovate the headquarters building of the Agriculture Department.
$32 billion for a “smart electricity grid to minimize waste.
$87 billion of Medicaid funds, to aid states.
$53.4 billion for science facilities, high speed Internet, and miscellaneous energy and environmental programs.
$13 billion to repair and weatherize public housing, help the homeless, repair foreclosed homes.
$20 billion for quicker depreciation and write-offs for equipment.
$10.3 billion for tax credits to help families defray the cost of college tuition.
$20 billion over five years for an expanded food stamp program.
Republican leaders say the stimulus package will add 32 new government programs at a cost of $136 billion. They object that many of the programs, once established, are likely to continue indefinitely.
Most media outlets are reporting the cost of the package at $819 billion. As Newsmax revealed yesterday, however, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that the interest on the debt generated by the bill’s spending will cost another $347.1 billion, making the total cost approximately $1.17 trillion.
Of course, the measure contains hundreds of billions in tax cuts and infrastructure projects that conservatives will find palatable. But as House Minority whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., told the media Wednesday, “This was not a stimulus bill. It was a spending bill.”
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/stimulus_pork_spending/2009/01/29/176503.html
I know I know, it's Newsmax. But that doesn't make the list of pork on there any less disturbing. The only one I'd disagree with is the billion to Amtrak, as this is supposed to be for improving infrastruction and creating jobs. But the rest of it is just pork and you have to wonder how $75 million for anti smoking programs is going to stimulate the economy.
Update 1 from Sen. Coburn
Initial Coburn Amendments to Stimulus bill:
1. Require that all money in the bill given to states be a loan that must be repaid.
2. Strike $246 million “Hollywood earmark” for the purchase of motion picture film.
3. Strike “biggest earmark of all time” – $2 billion for FutureGen clean coal power plant.
4. Sense of the Senate that the Congress should support President Obama’s “Plan for Restoring Fiscal Discipline.” (Specifically relating to cutting costs and inefficiencies of government.)
5. No funds shall be used for casinos, aquariums, zoos, museums, golf courses, or swimming pools (mirror House language).
6. No more than $1 billion may be spent on projects for federal agencies inside the beltway.
7. Require that any contract that is awarded must be competitively bid.
8. Convert $9 billion for broadband into loans for internet service providers/telecom companies to build infrastructure in market-sustainable areas.
9. Prohibit any Corps construction funds appropriated in this Act from being used for initial construction projects until all unfinished Corps projects have been completed.
10. No funds from the Federal Building Fund may be used to construct new federal buildings until the government reduces its inventory of surplus/excess real property by 50 percent as of the date of bill passage.
11. None of the funds made available for the National Park Service may be expended unless such funding directly reduces the deferred maintenance backlog.
12. Strike authority for the Director of Indian Health Service to spend all health information technology funds ($85 million) at his discretion, regardless of current law (competitive awards, bidding, etc).
13. Cut $3.25 billion in funding for Workforce Investment Act programs since WIA has not been reauthorized and GAO has found duplicative job-training programs across 8 different federal agencies.
14. No funds in the Act may go to a public or private institution of high education that has an endowment of more than $15 billion and/or spends more than $100,000 on lobbying annually.
15. Make the “making work pay” tax credit non-refundable (the plan to give $500 or $1,000 checks of every family).
Wasteful and Non-Stimulus Spending Provisions
• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Dept. of Energy defunded last year because the project was inefficient
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film
• $650 million for the digital television (DTV) converter box coupon program
• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship)
• $448 million for constructing the Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters
• $248 million for furniture at the new Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees
• $400 million for the CDC to screen and prevent STD’s
• $1.4 billion for a rural waste disposal programs
• $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
• $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
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities
• $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 NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
• $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service
• $5.5 million for “energy efficiency initiatives” at the VA “National Cemetery Administration”
• $850 million for Amtrak
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint
• $75M to construct a new “security training” facility for State Dept 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.
• State Medicaid Bailout: $87.7 billion Through 3 different mechanisms, the bill would provide additional federal funds to state Medicaid programs over the next 3 years. This is nearly $70 billion more than the governors asked President Obama for in December, and should be a loan to be repaid by the states.
Questionable Policy
• Eliminates fees on loans from the Small Business Administration, thus pushing private capital toward unproductive businesses and away from productive businesses.
• Increases the definition of “youth” for certain summer job programs from age 21 to age 24.
• $160 million to the Job Corps program at the Dept. of Labor, but not for job programs – rather, to construct, alter or repair buildings.
• Requires a government study on the impact of minimum wage laws on the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.
• $79 billion State Fiscal Stabilization (slush) Fund to bailout the States by providing billions of dollars for “education” costs of any kind.
• $47.843 billion is appropriated for a variety of energy programs that are primarily focused on renewable energy development and energy conservation/efficiency. Not one dollar is appropriated to make fossil fuels more affordable in the near future. More than $6 billion of these funds go to environmental clean ups.
• Increases eligibility for “weatherization” assistance to households 200 percent above the poverty level.
• The “Making Work Pay” credit of $500 to every individual making less than $75,000 (or $1000 to couples making $150,000 or less) would pay people whether they are productive or not – akin to welfare.
• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP – food stamps) would temporarily suspend the 3-month limit for non-working adults to receive SNAP benefits, thus giving incentives not to find a job.
• Installs government as the creator of broadband deployment regardless of whether the specific local/regional market can sustain it.
• Funds new “green jobs” job-training program without eliminating inefficient job-training programs or consolidating duplicative job-training programs.
• $890 million to the Social Security Administration without any provisions to reduce improper payments, or any plan to increase solvency of the trust fund.
• Nothing requires the products that are purchased with these funds be here in America. Lithium ion batteries, for instance, are primarily made in Asia.
There's some info from Sen. Tom Corbon put out yesterday on some of the more pork in the bill.
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/ind...ecord_id=3db704c6-802a-23ad-406c-a424db591389
update 2, passes house.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Handing the new administration a big win, House Democrats passed President Barack Obama's $787 billion plan to resuscitate the economy on Friday despite a wall of Republican opposition. The bill was approved 246-183 and sent to the Senate, where a vote was scheduled late Friday afternoon.
That vote was to be held open for hours, waiting for Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, who was attending a memorial service for his mother and then flying back to cast the deciding vote.
Senate passage would meet a deadline of sending the bill to Obama before a congressional recess begins next week.
The 1,071 page, 8-inch-thick measure combines $281 billion in tax cuts for individuals and businesses with more than a half-trillion dollars in government spending. The money would go for infrastructure, health care and help for cash-starved state governments, among scores of programs. Seniors would get a $250 bonus Social Security check.
Told that no Republican backed the measure, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reacted by citing another number: "3.5 million jobs that we look forward to saving or creating."
Seven Democrats voted against the bill.
Republicans said the package won't work because it has too little in tax cuts and spreads too much money around to everyday projects like computer upgrades for federal agencies.
"This legislation falls woefully short," said House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio. "With a price tag of more than $1 trillion when you factor in interest, it costs every family almost $10,000 in added debt. This is an act of generational theft that our children and grandchildren will be paying for far into the future."
The final $787 billion measure has been pared back from versions previously debated in order to attract support from three Senate GOP moderates—Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Their help is essential to meeting a 60-vote threshold in the Senate, required to overcome a Republican objection that the bill adds to the deficit.
The bill originally passed the Senate by a 61-37 tally, but Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., suffering from brain cancer, is not expected to vote this time.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who withdrew his nomination to be Obama's Commerce secretary, said he would vote against the bill.
Democrats lavished praise on the measure, which combines tax cuts for workers and businesses with more than a half-trillion dollars in government spending aimed at boosting economic demand.
"By investing in new jobs, in science and innovation, in energy, in education ... we are investing in the American people, which is the best guarantee of the success of our nation," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The plan is the signature initiative of the fledgling Obama administration, which is betting that combining tax cuts of $400 a year for individuals and $800 for couples with an infusion of spending for unemployment assistance, $250 payments to people on Social Security, and extra money for states to help with the Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled will arrest the economy's fall.
Local school districts would receive $70 billion in additional funding for K-12 programs and special education and to prevent cutbacks and layoffs and repair crumbling schools. There's about $50 billion for energy programs, much of which goes to efficiency programs and renewable energy.
Some $46 billion would go to transportation projects, not enough to please many lawmakers.
Negotiators insisted on including a $70 billion tax break to make sure middle- to upper-income taxpayers won't get hit by the alternative minimum tax and forced a reduction of Obama's signature tax break for 95 percent of workers.
The AMT was designed 40 years ago to make sure wealthy people pay at least some tax, but is updated for inflation each year to avoid tax increases averaging $2,300 a year. Fixing the annual problems now allows lawmakers to avoid difficult battles down the road, but economists say the move won't do much to lift the economy.
Republicans pointed out a bevy of questionable spending items that made the final cut in House-Senate negotiations, including money to replace computers at federal agencies, inspect canals, and issue coupons for convertor boxes to help people watch TV when the changeover to digital signals occurs this summer.
"This measure is not bipartisan. It contains much that is not stimulative," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's rival for the White House. "And is nothing short—nothing short—of generational theft" since it burdens future generations with so much debt, he added.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96AU3H80&show_article=1
signed!
DENVER: President Barack Obama signed into law a $787 billion economic stimulus plan Tuesday, predicting the package of spending and tax cuts marked "the beginning of the end" of America's worst economic slide since the 1930s-era Great Depression.
Speaking in Denver, the city where he won the Democratic presidential nomination last August, Obama said the stimulus package — one of the most costly pieces of legislation in U.S. history — cleared the way for Americans to begin "laying claim to a destiny of our own making."
By signing the bill outside of Washington, a highly unusual move, Obama signalled he would continue taking his message directly to the American people as he tries to stay above the partisan tensions still gripping the Capitol. Opposition Republicans in both houses of Congress were nearly unanimous in voting against the plan that Democrats hope will save or create 3.5 million jobs.
Shortly after signing the bill, Obama issued a long-expected order to boost U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban has retaken much of the ground it lost early in the seven-year-old war. The additional brigades would add about 17,000 troops to the slightly more than 30,000 U.S. forces currently in Afghanistan.
"This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires," Obama said in a statement.
That was a slap at his predecessor, George W. Bush, whom Obama has accused of slighting urgent national security needs in Afghanistan in favor of the war in Iraq.
Obama's stimulus passage, despite stark opposition, was a major legislative victory for the new president, who was closing out his first month in office under a storm of economic bad news and public pessimism.
Even with the promise of a huge infusion for the economy, the stock market tumbled about 4 more percentage points Tuesday as investors continued selling off equities in a retreat to safer ground.
At least one state, Missouri, quickly began putting the promised funds to work. Construction crews began work on a replacement for a rural Missouri bridge minutes after the bill was signed. Officials said they believed it would be the first project supported by stimulus funds.
With the stimulus measure in place, Obama now must take vigorous steps to prop up the deeply troubled financial system, ease the pain of Americans facing home mortgage foreclosures and save the teetering auto industry.
Automakers General Motors Corp. and Chrysler, now kept afloat on a combined $13.4 billion in federal emergency loans, said Tuesday they'll need billions more in government loans than they predicted just two months ago. The two automakers also plan further job cuts and additional curtailment of auto production.
General Motors on Tuesday said it could need up to $30 billion from the Treasury Department to keep operating. Included in that amount is $13.4 billion the company has already received. Previously, GM had said it could need as much as $18 billion.
Chrysler said it needs $9 billion of total government financing, compared to its original request of $7 billion. It has already received $4 billion in government loans.
Both requests, submitted to Treasury on Tuesday, were part of restructuring plans the two automakers owed the government in exchange for earlier loans.
GM also said it would cut 47,000 jobs worldwide and shutter five more U.S. factories in its massive restructuring plan. Chrysler plans to cut 3,000 jobs and eliminate three vehicle models.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling to Denver with the president on board Air Force One that he would not rule out bankruptcy for Detroit automakers, even as the administration looked forward to reviewing the companies' restructuring plans.
Gibbs said it was important for the economy to have a strong and viable auto industry, adding it was up to automakers to make choices about what is most helpful to their recovery.
Gibbs also said the administration was keeping an open mind about a second stimulus effort. He stressed, however, that there were no plans currently in the works for one.
In remarks before signing the bill, Obama cautioned Americans not to expect a quick or dramatic economic turnaround and said government intervention was not at an end.
"I don't want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic troubles," Obama said before signing the legislation. "Nor does it constitute all of what we going to have to do to turn our economy around. But today does mark the beginning of the end."
Obama used the signing ceremony at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science to underscore investments the spending plan will make in "green" energy-related jobs. Colorado is one of the leading U.S. states in the shift to renewable energy sources.
The White House announced a Web site, http://www.recovery.gov, that will allow tracking of where the stimulus money is spent. The White House press office also announced job growth projections for each state and congressional district.
On Wednesday, Obama will be in Arizona to unveil plans to help millions of homeowners avoid looming home mortgage foreclosures.
That will be a next and likely very costly move, designed to further bolster the stimulus program to pump federal money into infrastructure projects, health care, renewable energy development and conservation.
The stimulus plan will have to break through a stone wall of economic troubles. The unemployment rate is now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years. Analysts warn the economy will remain feeble through the remainder of the year.
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=20264246
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