Wednesday, January 28, 2009

On Record

I've never been a supporter of government spending, duh I'm a Republican. But I can live with spending that is necessary if it is efficiently managed - something that hasn't happened for a while, and usually never happens in governments.

I was against TARP and still believe it was a mistake. I don't think it's done anything for us the consumers, but apparently it's done wonders for the companies that received the money. Only they can't tell us what.

Now we have the stimulus bill which according to the WSJ is not much of a stimulus but a lot of spending.

There are quite a lot of billions that I'd take out of that bill. For example the Arts Endowment, the Global Warming research fund, the carbon capture fund, the government getting new cars, the money for the Smithsonian, that income-transfer fund, the $54 million going to programs who don't pass a basic audit, and the $66 billion in Education.

I'd keep the rest, including Amtrak (only because many people depend on it to let it go) and the renewable energy, help for the lower income families (unemployment, coupons, EIC, etc.). But is all this necessary NOW?

At a time, where even student loans are in danger where in this bill is the money to ENSURE that students can get their loans next year?

I don't think this bill should be all tax cuts, but I don't think all this spending will help the economy nor create jobs. This is not the right time for this. You want to increase spending, wait until we are past the recession and then run the deficit as high as you want. But please, in a time where the President says that we will cut out the programs that don't work, and basically in his inaugural speech tells us to gird our loins for the economic mayhem facing us, shouldn't this bill be geared towards helping the economy create jobs and move forward?

As it is the infrastructure projects, which do create jobs and are much needed, won't move the economy in the immediate short term (6 months).

I know Republicans came up with a bill of their own, but have not been able to find any links.....so if anyone out there has one, please forward so I can review.

In the meantime, I'll let my senators know exactly how I feel. I don't think it will make much difference, given they are Democrats and this looks like a party line vote.

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