What is going on?! Our nation is in an economic downturn and now our elected BIG government wants to throw tons of money into the fan of panic and chaos, using the justification that "Americans expect action NOW." As if, expeditiously throwing ALOT of money out there overrides the need to ensure to that the stimulus money is being spent in ways that will effectively and expediently stimulate our economy.
Let me see ... Didn't we just do that: dump beau coup bucks into our economy via banks and the auto industry? Has that helped? NOPE! New companies are announcing thousands of additional job layoffs each day. Even Microsoft, which has no history of mass layoffs, last week --for the first time ever -- announced at least 5,000 layoffs. If the treasury had stuck to the original plan of buying up toxic assets -- and auctioning them off to investors for pennies on the dollar --we might have seen some movement. But instead, the money was given directly to the banks, with no stringent requirements as to how it had to be spent. So, the banks are just sitting on the money -- aside from the money they are sure to dole out, in the form of huge bonuses, to their CEOs and other executives who ran the banks into the ground in the first place!
So far we've (via our government) spent at least $650 billion dollars and we have nothing to show for it! Now, the government wants to spend an additional $819 billion?! Doesn't this concern the average, hardworking, American citizen? It should!!!!
Furthermore, contrary to popular -- and stupid -- belief: THIS AIN'T FREE MONEY!
Our children will inherit this financial burden and debt. They will have to work twice as hard and sacrifice more than twice as much as you and me in order to pay for this "expedient" and wasteful spending. Don't we owe it to our children to slow down and make sure that we are making the right choices? I applaud the Republicans for sticking to their principles and not voting -- not one single House Republican -- for this ludicrous piece of legislation. I also applaud the 11 House Democrats who had the courage to stand up to their own party and reject this recent stimulus legislation package.
Hopefully, reason will prevail in the Senate and this pitiful excuse for a piece of legislation will be lain to rest, so that effective, reasonably priced, solutions that will truly stimulate our economy in the short term can be put forward and into action.
Two parts of this most recent stimulus legislation package that passed in the House were:
1) $600 million for purchase of federal vehicles -- haven't we already given the Big 3 Auto makers a huge chunk of change ... and just recently?
2) $400 million for global warming research
Why not just give the federal workers a bicycle, or moped, and setup carpools. Then, call the latter a contribution to "global warming research/reduction" and spend the money allocated for 1 & 2 (above) somewhere where it can truly do some good and have an immediate, positive, impact on stimulating our economy:
Job cross/retraining, vocational training, grants for advanced and college degrees.
Investing money in unemployed workers -- who would then have new and marketable job skills -- coupled with corporate tax cuts linked to requirements of bringing jobs back to the United States, will create new jobs and workers to fill them. Voila: the economy is moving again! And it will end up costing our children less in their future as well.
Stop drinking the Kool-aide people! Wake up and smell the roses! They ("the roses") aren't smelling too great these days.
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