The New Symbol of the Porkulus
Recent news gave me a cause to reminisce. Nearly six years ago, my company sent me to North Carolina for training. My wife was able to come along, so we set off on our twelve hour drive to the south. After ten hours of the drive, we were both tired and suffering from “highway hypnosis.” I was driving the last leg, and we were winding through a rural area when the following exchange occurred.
Wife: Piggly Wiggly.
Me: Whaaaaat???
Wife: Piggly Wiggly!
Me: (The poor woman has finally lost her mind, but I had been married long enough at that point not to verbalize it.) Uh, honey, what are you talking about?
Wife: (Now pointing for emphasis) PIGGLY WIGGLY!!!!!!
And indeed, off to the right, was a Piggly Wiggly store, apparently closed for the day.
Now friends, as you might guess, the recent “stimulus” bill gave me a good chuckle, but here is a summary and some commentary. I’ll be quoting from a national review story found here.
Let’s look at some of the pork in this bill….
- $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts-Starving artist bailout?
- $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program-Not a stimulus.
- $300 million for grants to combat violence against women-We already have this, it’s called PRISON!
- $2 billion for federal child-care block grants-Send your kid to a poorly run government daycare.
- $6 billion for university building projects-Makework so leftists can have new buildings in which to hate America.
- $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships-Not a stimulus.
- $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24-I don’t know about you, but these “youths” can enlist in the military and vote. How many of this age are already in the workforce, graduated from college, and have families??
- $1 billion for community-development block grants-Translation: This money will be sucked into a hole never to be seen again.
- $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”-Can anyone tell me what the hell this is??
- $650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”- at $40 a pop, that’s 16,250,000 MORE coupons for boxes that cost about….$40!!! We need 90 mil to educate people on how to connect wires? Ever get a dvd player? They already come with a easy to read diagram and color coded wires. You don’t even have to read!!!!
- $15 billion for business-loss carry-backs-Not a stimulus.
- $145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits- Nice slogan, no substance!
- $83 billion for the earned income credit- More tax credits for people that already do not pay taxes, how inventive!!
- $150 million for the Smithsonian-The evil Conservatives want the dinosaur fossils to be homeless, vote yes to save the velociraptors!!
- $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters-Great, some bureaucrat gets new carpeting!
- $500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities-Makework.
- $44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
- $350 million for Agriculture Department computers- at $1000 a pop, that’s 350000 computers.
- $88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building-Are they building as well? That’s a helluva lot for movers.
- $448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters-Dick Cheney’s “undisclosed location??”
- $600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids-It’s not easy (or cheap) being green….
- $450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)-Does that include calibrating them incorrectly so as to “prove” that global warming exists??
- $600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)-Build more flawed computer models, like the current ones that cannot predict the weather reliably for more than two days in advance??
- $1 billion for the Census Bureau-facepalm!
- $89 billion for Medicaid-Not a stimulus
- $30 billion for COBRA insurance extension-Not a stimulus
- $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits-Not a stimulus
- $20 billion for food stamps-Not a stimulus
- $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Stimulates nothing other than the bureaucracy.
- $850 million for Amtrak-FLUSH!!!!
- $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship-WHOA THAR!!!! I thought “global warming” was going to make the polar ice caps melt!!!! Do we REALLY need this ship???
- $1.7 billion for the National Park System-Stimulates nothing other than the bureaucracy.
- $55 million for Historic Preservation Fund-Stimulates nothing other than the bureaucracy.
- $7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”-What is this???
- $150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases-Not a stimulus.
- $150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”-And these need help why???
- $2 billion for renewable-energy research ($400 million for global-warming research)-Al Gore bailout (“An inconvenient porkulus”)??
- $2 billion for a “clean coal” power plant in Illinois–Not a stimulus
- $6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program–Not a stimulus
- $3.5 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants–Not a stimulus
- $3.4 billion for the State Energy Program–Not a stimulus
- $200 million for state and local electric-transport projects- is this for public transit that no one will ride??
- $300 million for energy-efficient-appliance rebate programs-Not a stimulus
- $400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments-Not a stimulus
- $1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries- Because the people that have been working on this for years can’t do it without the Fed?? How much have cell phone batteries improved in the last 10 years??
- $1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees-Not a stimulus
- $8 billion for innovative-technology loan-guarantee program-Not a stimulus. What exactly qualifies as an “innovative technology.” Do you actually have to create something to access these funds??
- $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects-Not a stimulus
- $4.5 billion for electricity grid-Not a stimulus
OK, that’s enough. Here’s a total for just what is in this post:
$463,821,000,000 I apologize in advance in my Windows Calculator screwed up the math, perhaps they should throw about a billion at that too. Of course, in Nancy Pelosi math, the total is $15969782268455576874546.
On a serious note, the vast majority of this is not “stimulus” at all. It’s pork and pet projects. Even the “makework” isn’t a long term solution, because the jobs go away once the project is completed. Expansion of social welfare programs are not stimulus by their very nature, and it is, at the very least, disingenuous to refer to that spending as stimulus. The President would have done better to offer the social welfare spending first as a separate bill. Given the current circumstances, he may have had quick victory, as well as political capital he could have used for the next round of spending. As it happened, the people are starting to find out that the stimulus is really the pokulus.
So, thanks to the President, and the Democrats in Congress for reminding me of a funny story, I just don’t think it should cost a trillion.
Later!
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Matt
I believe that future generations should have the same opportunities that myself, and those that came before me, had. My parents taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do. I don’t want to have to tell my daughter, “You can do whatever the government tells you to do.” We are at a crossroads in this country; are we going to be free, or are we going to be slaves to the nanny state. I choose freedom.
Welcome to the blogo…(blago!)…sphere. Now you get to feed it, and it will want more…and more…and more.
Beyond the actual mind-boggling expenditures (Sen. James Inhofe — a Republican…of friggin’ course — pointed out that Porkulus is 93% pork and 7% stimulus), this abhorrent thing is the biggest single federal power grab in the history of post-Constitutional America. The mind numbs at the idiocy of this Democratic wishlist, at the fervency with which it was adopted, and at the stupidity with which the American people let it happen.
We’re not dead yet…no…but we’re not really alive either. And just wait for the NEXT round of bailouts (did I not say you will need to feed this thing?).
Got oxygen anyone?
I would tend to agree, however I have not the hair to pull off “blago.”
As a childcare provider I would like to elaborate on the childcare block grant and the poorly run government daycares as mentioned above. The grant has been divided into catagories such as CCIS, Keystone Stars, Pre-K Counts, Headstart, etc… This money does not go directly to privately owned daycares unless they are a part of Keystone Stars which requires a disruptive amount of paperwork for childare directors and staff, taking away precious teaching time, supervision and general one-on-one care from children. Although Keystone Stars’ ideals sound good, an owner would have to hire extra staff, a director’s assistant and a person to do nothing but Keystone Stars updates to keep up with a Star 4 rating, driving the rates up for struggling parents.
I see no difference in Headstart and Pre-K counts, but hey, lets have another government preschool. They are free to parents which is wonderful but they do not provide transportation. Their hours are 9 to 3 so if you work between those hours, no problem. What about the 9 to 5ers. Also to add this program to your privately owned daycare you must be atleast a star 3 rating with Keystone Stars among other criteria. Once again, hire more people, take away time from children and drive those rates up for before and after pre-k counts care that parents can’t afford a free goverment program.
Now CCIS is a great program which pays the majority of daycare fees for families under their income guidlines. With these blockgrants dividing the money between so many programs, CCIS and working parents loose out. There are currently monthes long waiting lists for these parents, requiring them to work and pay for childcare privatley with a minimum wage job until an opening appears with CCIS. Sorry kids, it’s mac-n-cheese for dinner until someone gets kicked off CCIS and opens a slot for us.
Priority people!! Bet there would be less violence, drug abuse, child abuse, and so on if people were able to get help to WORK. Hey that would even free up some state money from these other catagories listed on the stimulus.
[...] For those of you who use the same math as Nancy Pelosi, or are a recent graduate of a public school, the number is 1,654,986,653,657. Dr. Lockjaw continued: The disorder manifests itself in several interesting ways. One, of course, is the complete denial of being sick. The afflicted tend to state that they believe in “change.” However, when questioned, the afflicted cannot really state what this “change” is-other than that the aforementioned “change” will “change” the world for the better. The intelligence of the victim is either low, or is made low by the illness, however we are unclear as to whether or not this is due to exposure to public education. The other, and perhaps most devastating symptom is the delusion that the government makes things better, not worse. Victims are rendered incapable of understanding that the Carter and the Clinton administration is to blame for the housing failure, as well as the resulting banking failure. They also seem to have delusions that spending government money in a random fashion benefiting polit… [...]