What GOP Leaders deem wasteful in Senate stimulus bill

[Ozoned]

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

How about rules that all drivers of public vehicles must cease from idling their engines for long periods of time?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

How about they use their own personal transportation for shit that isn't work related,,,, like getting there and back for starters.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Notice how they call it "Pork", but don't get more specific than that? What if it's Bacon? Does that change your view on it??

Depends. Was the bacon woven into a mat and wrapped around a log of pork?

 

[Xavier434]

I'm ok with most of that list being cut out to be honest. There is some stuff there that I might wish to see in a different bill in the future though. Other stuff I could completely care less about.

The two major things that I wish would not happen even though the GOP wants it is cutting out the education funding and more tax breaks for wealthier citizens earning income at a bracket higher than what is listed.

 

[theeedude]

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: dainthomas

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
$75 million for "smoking cessation activities."
Earmarked Pork

Wrong. Healthier workers are more productive, thus make more money and stimulate economy. Plus lower insurance premiums = good

$25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction
Same as above

Same as above. People who aren't alcoholics make more money and stimulate economy.

Everything else aside, these are just an idiotic arguments.

Originally posted by: senseamp
Realize that for every Million you save, that's 10-20 jobs gone.

I don't see hardly any items in this list that would create significant jobs. I see spending going to government workers, I see going to government agencies, I see spending going to vague outlines of initiatives, and I see spending going to building new government buildings.

How many jobs will you create on furnishing a new government building?

How many jobs will you create with "smoking cessation activities"?

How many will you create trying to help Indians stop boozing?

You might make the case that some of this spending will help people keep jobs that they may otherwise lose, but to try and claim this will stimulate the economy is intellectually dishonest. It would take a long stretch of the imagination to turn most of these into anything but agenda-driven "because we can" spending.

I didn't know furnishings built and installed themselves. It all creates jobs. Furniture makers, activity coordinators, counselors, etc. But if you'd rather pay those people unemployment to do nothing, by all means proceed.

 

[waggy]

silly me. i thought the package was to save the ecnomoy and not shit that a lot of it is going for. many of those are not going to make any new jobs. most of those are bloat and pork.


granted many need to be passed. but not in the stimulus package.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: senseamp
I didn't know furnishings built and installed themselves. It all creates jobs. Furniture makers, activity coordinators, counselors, etc. But if you'd rather pay those people unemployment to do nothing, by all means proceed.

So you're an advocate of trickle down now?

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
From CNN

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

Fvck Hollywood!

Actually I work in Hollywood along with tons of other middle class upper middle class and upper class people (this isn't just for fat cats). I will tell you that the industry is drying up. Normally credit is used to finish films and buyers now want to see complete films before purchase. This puts a huge strain on the system because who can work for free and get reimbursed when something sells? We need incentives for people to BUY the movies.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: senseamp
I didn't know furnishings built and installed themselves. It all creates jobs. Furniture makers, activity coordinators, counselors, etc. But if you'd rather pay those people unemployment to do nothing, by all means proceed.

So you're an advocate of trickle down now?

If you think the government spending money to furnish buildings is 'trickle down' economics, you should probably go re-read what 'trickle down' is.

 

[JSt0rm]

Let me also add that "hollywood" isn't going to be outsourced. It is here in this country and here it will stay. That money will stay in our economy.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I absolutely love the Repuglican's sudden concern over fiscal responsibility. It's as if they hadn't encouraged the country to lever up to the hilt over the last 8 years. Hey, wasn't the national debt at 6tr before bush and is now almost 12tr?

Who approved that? Ohh wait, almost all under the Repuglicans!

These fuckers are only pandering further, it's disgusting to think that they spend like drunken sailors when they want to spend, but when somebody else does, they're suddenly Scrooge.

Agree 100%.

But certainly no excuse for the crap in this bill. This is the kind of shit that proves our government is out of control.

Obama should promise to veto the bill if they keep this pork in there. That's the kind of change we need.

 

[GroundedSailor]

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

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

This would save/create jobs if the boat is built in the USA, would it not? Ditto for the F22 Raptor production.

This is just allocating funds for the design. How many jobs will that create? How long will it take to design? How long after that will it take to begin production? This is hardly going to provide any meaningful stimulus.

It takes a whole team of naval architects to design a polar ice breaker. Remember these are not regular run of the mill ships. Once the basic design is done, a scale model has to be built.

That scale model is then run through test tanks to analyze the design parameters and its performance. If needed tweaks are done. Then starts the process of producing detailed drawings for construction. The whole process can take many months.

Also USCG ships are built in the US.

Ice breaker are useful ships which keep shipping lanes open and thus help commerce. Now if the money was being set aside for a Navy ship I would call that a waste in these times. We have enough warships. But a USCG ice breaker is needed to replace the aging ones.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Notice how they call it "Pork", but don't get more specific than that? What if it's Bacon? Does that change your view on it??

I bet you if you asked all the people screaming about 'pork' what they thought the 'pork' was in this bill, you would end up with a whole load of different answers. It's just an easy political talking point to repeat... and it's standard operating procedure for the minority party opposing bills in Congress regardless of who is in the party.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: GroundedSailor
Ice breaker are useful ships which keep shipping lanes open and thus help commerce. Now if the money was being set aside for a Navy ship I would call that a waste in these times. We have enough warships. But a USCG ice breaker is needed to replace the aging ones.

So maybe for every little bit of "pork" we see here someone can show the valid use to some American industry? We are in some serious doo doo. We should not be arguing about this package now. During the good times we should of payed off some debt, reduced spending and not given huge tax cuts. That was then and this is now. Get on board.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Less of a stimulus bill than a borrow and spend bill. Typical DC politics.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

Originally posted by: GroundedSailor
Ice breaker are useful ships which keep shipping lanes open and thus help commerce. Now if the money was being set aside for a Navy ship I would call that a waste in these times. We have enough warships. But a USCG ice breaker is needed to replace the aging ones.

So maybe for every little bit of "pork" we see here someone can show the valid use to some American industry? We are in some serious doo doo. We should not be arguing about this package now. During the good times we should of payed off some debt, reduced spending and not given huge tax cuts. That was then and this is now. Get on board.

We also "didn't have time" to discuss the first bailout, and look how that worked out. There is always time to discuss spending $900 billion. This is going to affect all of our lives in 30 years when the debt to China comes due.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: joshsquall

We also "didn't have time" to discuss the first bailout, and look how that worked out. There is always time to discuss spending $900 billion. This is going to affect all of our lives in 30 years when the debt to China comes due.

True, but with this one we have a list of where the money will be spent. The last one was a black hole into the banks but I'm not so sure thats a total bad idea. Thats above my pay grade.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: joshsquall
Less of a stimulus bill than a borrow and spend bill. Typical DC politics.

You realize that a stimulus bill is almost by definition a 'borrow and spend' bill, right?

For it not to be either the government would have to have been sitting on an enormous pile of cash (which wouldn't make sense), or they would have to raise taxes to pay for the bill. If they did that they would be taking the exact same amount of money out of the economy that they were putting in with the bill, giving a net injection of zero, and completely defeating the purpose.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

Originally posted by: joshsquall

We also "didn't have time" to discuss the first bailout, and look how that worked out. There is always time to discuss spending $900 billion. This is going to affect all of our lives in 30 years when the debt to China comes due.

True, but with this one we have a list of where the money will be spent. The last one was a black hole into the banks but I'm not so sure thats a total bad idea. Thats above my pay grade.

It's starting to look more and more like the bank bailout was a good idea. Sure there's been waste involved (as there will be with any swift and large expenditure), but from what my friends who work in finance tell me and from what I've been reading, the credit markets that the bank bailout was intended to unfreeze are doing significantly better now than they were in September/October.

Of course how much of that is due to the bailouts done by governments and how much is due to whatever else won't be known for a long time, but the area it was intended to help has certainly improved, and that's a good sign.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: joshsquall
Less of a stimulus bill than a borrow and spend bill. Typical DC politics.

You realize that a stimulus bill is almost by definition a 'borrow and spend' bill, right?

For it not to be either the government would have to have been sitting on an enormous pile of cash (which wouldn't make sense), or they would have to raise taxes to pay for the bill. If they did that they would be taking the exact same amount of money out of the economy that they were putting in with the bill, giving a net injection of zero, and completely defeating the purpose.

Correct. The idea here is to get people to start buying and circulating money.

 

[retrospooty]

Damn... thats alot of bloat... It better be cut out before the Senate passes it.

 

[Xavier434]

I posted this is the other thread too but for those following this one:

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Just because I know people are curious and also lazy I went ahead and summed all of those figures up. The grand total is 24.6 billion rounded off.

I believe the bill is estimated to be 900 billion right? So that means 2.7% of it is pork according to CNN's list.

 

[BMW540I6speed]

The point of stimulus spending is to spend counter cyclically. In other words, when the economy goes down the govt. should spend more, and when the economy goes well, the govt should spend less. This is not only good for the govt. it's good for the economy. If the govt. increases spending during a downturn, it softens the downturn by keeping more people employed. That keeps demand up for other products, which keeps employment up, which keeps demand etc. It's good for the govt. because if they are spending counter cyclically, they get projects done cheaper because there is less private demand to compete with.

The problem isn't stimulus spending. The problem is that politicians (mostly Republcians) ignore the second part of counter cyclical spending. The govt. should spend less in boom times. This keeps the economy from overheating, and the end result is a moderation in the boom/bust cycle. This is good for the govt. as well, because they spend less in more expensive times. Unfortunately it's become "ah the economy is in the crapper, cut taxes!" and "we have a surplus, cut taxes!".

Stimulus spending makes a whole lot of sense if you balance the spending with running surpluses.

 

[JSt0rm]

ok so its 2.7% and we can't agree that all of that 2.7% is pork. So where are we?

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
ok so its 2.7% and we can't agree that all of that 2.7% is pork. So where are we?

Personally, I would rather have everyone take a step back and spend more time taking into consideration the remaining 97.3%. We all dislike pork and it deserves some attention, but I don't believe it deserves to be in the spotlight.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I posted this is the other thread too but for those following this one:

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Just because I know people are curious and also lazy I went ahead and summed all of those figures up. The grand total is 24.6 billion rounded off.

I believe the bill is estimated to be 900 billion right? So that means 2.7% of it is pork according to CNN's list.

Yup, percentage-wise, it doesn't look big. But regardless, it is still a lot of money, and most of it completely unnecessary and bogus.

That's a big problem we have in Congress, they see a few billion dollars as chump-change. Or in this case, $24.6 billion, even worse.

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
ok so its 2.7% and we can't agree that all of that 2.7% is pork. So where are we?

Personally, I would rather have everyone take a step back and spend more time taking into consideration the remaining 97.3%. We all dislike pork and it deserves some attention, but I don't believe it deserves to be in the spotlight.

I agree here.