http://libertymaven.com/2009/01/28/ron-p…
The evidence is hard to ignore. The stimulus bill that Barack Obama is pushing today is nothing more than the Progressive’s version of the Patriot Act. Ron Paul should peel away the stimulus stamped outer shell to reveal the massive growth of government in the meat of the bill.
There’s even a nod to universal health care in it:
Nurses Recovery funding: $600 million A key component of attaining universal health care reform will be ensuring the supply of primary health care providers – family medicine, internal medicine, pediatricians, dentists, and nurses.
As Mike Miller’s extensive list (posted here this morning) shows, there is little immediate stimulus found in this wrongly-titled bill.
In fact, even the Congressional Budget Office put out a study of the bill showing that most of the provisions won’t even take effect for years.
From an extensive analysis from The Motley Fool:
The CBO said that provisions to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy use would ultimately be spent within seven years. It also estimated that would take five years to spend 85% of the money dedicated to highway and other infrastructure projects. Keep in mind that this is the government’s own estimate as to how quickly the plan will be implemented, which is likely very overoptimistic.
The CBO report even specifically states that “congressional authorizations for sharp increases in spending have typically been followed by a noticeable lag in actual spending.” No Ship Sherlock. The government is a large, inefficient beast. This plan isn’t going to be nearly as stimulative for the economy as many would like us to believe.
So all of this evidence left me thinking: why? Why is Obama pushing so hard for this right now? Well, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Obama’s approval ratings are now at their highest they will ever be. It is his golden opportunity to push through a massive far reaching leftist/progressive agenda rolled up in stimulus wrapping paper, much like it was a golden opportunity for the Bush administration following 9-11 to push the Patriot Act into law.
Let us recall that Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel is on record as saying, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
Well, it looks like the Obama administration is capitalizing on our economic crisis by dressing up a gargantuan leftist spending agenda in economic stimulus clothes. ‘O’ is turning into ”W’ already.
Hopefully this effort is not lost on Ron Paul and other free marketeers in Congress. I will wait to see the floor speeches denouncing this bill. I hope to hear someone call this bill for what it is: Obama’s version of the Patriot Act.
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Do you think Obama is exploiting the economic situation to suit a socialistic agenda?
That is the whole point of this package. To make Government ever larger and take more and more control of our lives.
Yes, he is exploiting the economic situation. Just remember what Rahm Emanuel said, ” You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
Yes.
Nick-nack: Put the news away and look at the record. All the talk of Friedman-style economics remained just that: talk. It was never implemented because politics and pork are eternally inseparable absent the protections of a Constitutional Amendment demanding a balanced budget.
IF government is to spend in deficit, it should be only for measures guaranteed to pay off. And in the NEAR-term. Much like businesses who buy products AFTER they’re sold and the customer is waiting, our government was set up to be at our service with its hand cupping its ears, listening and acting only on our natural demand.
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most likely as that is the change he never revealed while running but will make spread the wealth seem like the only change you shall see
take lookhttp://israeldemocracy.blogspot.com/
You are very wrong my friend. Mr. Obama is very good man, and very smart. He shows his ability to explore and create all of what he said and promise to the people. Just for that I give him one 100% credit .the stimulus package is proving to be a good thing for the economy. The money will go around the public to a variety of things to give a work to thousands of people. However no money will go to the rich. Bush gave the loan to the banks, and all the big shots were paid well, the rest of the people lost their jobs. Did you forget the $4 billion Bush give to the oil companies on the top of 13 billions profits? Did you forget the five dollars per gallon gas you pay? That was for the lobbyists of the oil companies to pay the money that bush received. It seems to me that you people have a short memory. Not one Republican vote. And do you know why? Nothing of that stimulant package goes to any rich companies, and I’m very glad for that. I have to stop, because the more I think about Bush the more I am getting aggravated. That bum.
It’s pure neo-Keynesianism and it is the only thing to drag America out of the nightmarish idiocy brought on by 25 years of stupid monetarism and economic advisors who worry more about making the world fit graphs rather than the other way around.
Worry more about deflation rather the tedious bogeyman of “big government”. You can’t run a complex country with a staff of 3 and some part-timers and the utter failure of Friedmanite neo-classical doctrine shows that there are some things that simply can’t be left to markets.
Absorb these facts and move on.