A bill like this actually should be filled with pork, if by pork they mean construction projects and funding for things that may create jobs, even if they aren’t “essential”. The point is to get people working. Sometimes pork does just that…and that’s why Congressmen love it so much.

being chief of police!

line item vetoes are great, they just dont exist for the pres.

your so close to a decent post, then BLAM!!!, political science slaps you across the face.

Very little is being spent on infrastructute. A whole lot is being spent on wasteful projects or pure back scratching. This plan will not work.

I think they are just kind of protest propositions by some R’s that are backfiring.

Being in Cali, the state-aid is a very interesting debate. The issue is not that that money will reach people, it is that many of these states are in huge debt. It is not out of the question that California will have to default on loans in the next year if there no help. This would be a disaster for both California and the financial institutes that lent California the money. I see bailing out states not as a cash-infusion, but rather as saving the entire structure of state-level government (and these states should be shamed for over-spending the way they did).

There is a lot of nonsense in the bailout – I think far more should be going towards infrastructure or funding federally sponsored research programs (energy, health care, etc) – things that would give both a cash infusion and make the country better off long term. A lot of it really is just government expansion stuff that D’s like to do. But the alternative by the R’s is a non-starter as well.

you cant trust their op eds, not like friedman at the times.

The Moonies own that paper:

The Washington Times is a conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., and it calls itself "America’s Newspaper." The paper has an average daily circulation in excess of 100,000 readers. The Times was founded in 1982 by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church), to be a conservative alternative to the larger and older Washington Post. To this day, it is widely perceived as maintaining a generally right-leaning editorial stance.

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge

just a few things, but i SERIOUSLY doubt that many politicans in DC “take their marching orders” from rush. in fact, the majority of the republicans out there dont even listen to him

also, if this was some wonderful, transcending bill dont you (and everyone/anyone else) think that it would have passed by now?

i mean ZERO votes from one side when your talking about the economy should speak pretty damn loud..it should also say a lot that the senate is working together on the issue after pelosi’s “we won, get over it” stuff.

if this was as wonderful as people want it to be, then why isnt it getting passed by huge majorities in both the house and senate?

Daley refuses to release stimulus project list

Mayor Richard Daley said today Chicago has compiled a wish list of “shovel-ready projects” to spend federal economic stimulus funds on should Congress approve a plan.

Unlike hundreds of other cities, however, Daley said Chicago won’t make its list public.

“Yes, we do, we have our list, we’ve been talking to people. We did not put that out publicly because once you start putting it out publicly, you know, the newspapers, the media is going to be ripping it apart,” Daley said.

“It’s very controversial. Yes, we have ready projects from the Board of Education to the City Colleges to the Park District to the CTA and the city of Chicago. Oh yes. Us and New York decided not to do that. We thought we could go directly into the federal bureaucracies and the different departments,” the mayor added.

Later, Daley was asked why he wasn’t being more transparent.
 
“Read some of your newspapers. Heh heh,” he replied

If other states have a program similar to Virginia, we’ll be paying five guys to watch one guy working instead of only four guys.

President Barack Obama and Congress have a great opportunity to produce reforms that do return Americans to work, and that provide a foundation for sustained long-run economic growth and the opportunity for all Americans to succeed. These reforms should include very specific plans that update banking regulations and address a manufacturing sector in which several large industries — including autos and steel — are no longer internationally competitive. Tax reform that broadens rather than narrows the tax base and that increases incentives to work, save and invest is also needed. We must also confront an educational system that fails many of its constituents. A large fiscal stimulus plan that doesn’t directly address the specific impediments that our economy faces is unlikely to achieve either the country’s short-term or long-term goals.

good quote

but…you mean the “new deal” wasnt a success? GASP
FDR wasnt a perfect president? GASP
the new deal wasnt all FDRs idea? GASP

blasphemy!

(but seriously, a good read)

saying the downturn of 36 was because the government didnt continue its economic stimulus after 33-4 (ie push through another stim a couple years after 33)

Murdock and Co. are pushing hard the philosophy that the new deal didnt work. It ignores that as the depression took hold, capitalism was in serious risk of complete collapse. Look at the percentages of voters who turn to the fascist and communist parties in that era, they are ridiculously high and its kinda mindblowing. In order to save Capitalism and free market economics, socialist mechanics were forced to be put in place.

Its scary stuff and it shouldnt be forgotten.

was that it reminded him of Jimmy Carter.

the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

It was a stimulus, fool. If the government had not backed off its stimulus in the mid-30s the depression might have ended sooner.

Please read this:

that itgot in at all