Looking for cover

I just read an article saying that Obama is meeting with members of the GOP and telling them to keep politics to a minimum and quickly pass the stimulus bill. Proving once again that his definition of bipartisan is "everyone thinking like me."

The question here is why is he even bothering with the GOP. As he has already told them, he won in November so he trumps them. Obama and his Democrat buddies have all the votes they need for the stimulus bill without getting a single Republican vote. So why not just push it through? Then, if it's as good for the economy as he claims it's going to be, he can use the fact that the GOP didn't support it to drive the final nail in their coffin.

Could it be that this pork-laden mess isn't going to stimulate the economy and he knows it? We saw this during the Clinton administration when the Democrats had congress. They pushed budget measures through and when they fell flat, the Contract With America was born.

This is why he's looking for GOP support. When this $825 Billion barrel of pork fails to bring back jobs and in some cases, potentially puts more people out of work, he wants to be able to point at the GOP and say, "They voted for it, blame them."

Take a look at the bill and you can easily see my point on its potential for stimulating the economy...



According to the Congressional Budget Office, only $26 billion — just over 3 percent — will be spent this year. Another $110 billion — or 13 percent — will be spent next year. By the time President Obama's term is halfway through, only 16 percent of the money will have been spent, and if you read deeper into it, you come to realize that, assuming Obama wins in 2012, some of the money still won't be spent when his second term is over.

Then, look at the infrastructure projects that Obama touts as being the key to new jobs. A total of $90 Billion is slated for infrastructure - that's about 10 percent. Only a third of that is tagged for transportation projects like roads and bridges (he touted the rebuilding of roads and bridges through the campaign). Of that $30 Billion, only $5 Billion is due to be spent in 2009-10. That's a nationwide figure, which works out to $100 Million per state. Which means that you will maybe see an improvement on one road or bridge per state in 09-10.

That's just a quick look. Then add on the fact that there are all kinds of other spending such as $20 million for sod in Washington, another $20 billion for the program formerly known as food stamps, $1.0 billion for programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
$11.1 billion for housing assistance programs administered by HUD... the list goes on and on.

Finally, as a result of this stimulus package, the country's interest payments will increase by nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars this year and over 2009-2019 the interest cost will be $347 billion. Also, CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1 would increase budget deficits by $526 billion over the 2009-2010 period (about 19 months) and by a total of $816 billion over the 2009-2019 period.

The Representative for my district is Marcy Kaptur. On her website, she says that we don't need a fast stimulus, we need the right stimulus. This is neither of those. I contacted her office who told me that they are not authorized to tell her constituents her positions until after she votes, but I'm pretty sure she'll fall right in line behind Obama.

Hopefully, the GOP will continue to stand strong against this pork-laden non-stimulus, and not give the Democrats cover for when it blows up.