Let the indoctrination continue.

A Spending Bill is not what we need, but I won't judge it all until we see it in action. Now it's time for the waiting game... again.

What a fucking JOKE. Here is the $288,000,000,000 in tax releif

* Tax Relief - includes $15 B for Infrastructure and Science, $61 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $25 B for Education and Training and $22 B for Energy, so total funds are $126 B for Infrastructure and Science, $142 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $78 B for Education and Training, and $65 B for Energy.

So let's actually figure this out.
288-15-61-25-22-126-142-78-65 comes out to what?
It comes out to some fucking retard educated by a teacher's union member is what it comes out to.

If I wanted to see failure in action, I'd watch football or baseball news. This is just sad.

At least my local congressmen/women all voted the right way on this thing. Too bad it still passed.

Hell, I even was generous and decided to add in the *144 billion for state and local and it still comes out to -$102billion. WTF kind of transparency does Barack Obama give us that Stalin, Kim Jung Ill and the rest of the fascist dictators of the world do not give us? This is unbeleivable!

Like anyone is going to believe anything posted on this website. FEDERAL agencies will be providing the figures! If private firms were handling this, then I might have some confidence in the idea.

Oops, I suxors...
I missed the fine print part of it,,,
Actually it is $288 billion tax releif minus just....
includes $15 B for Infrastructure and Science, $61 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $25 B for Education and Training and $22 B for Energy,
So that means that nice big $288 billion bar is really just $165 billion. And I am certain that there is an ** an *** and probably a **** attached to even that paltry sum of money.

If Private Firms where posting them then i would trust them less.

The New Deal didn't happen overnight but this is a first step.

-G

I hate to be yet another person that gripes about typos, but seriously...it's just too consistent on Tom's these days...

"Barak"?

The New Deal didn't end the last depression, and even if it did, it took how many years? You can't really prove it either way, so no point in using it as a model.

Will they be require to provide proof as to what they spent the money on or are they just gonna report false figures? Just a thought.

Not perfect, but a huge step forward from all past administrations.

I like the kind of precedence this will set.

The "Big Brother" picture is freaking me out. It looks like he is looking at you through the monitor with a hidden smile.

This is so bad for our future. It keeps the money in circulation, but devalues the already overvalued dollar. We need the recession to balance out the productivity level of the country versus what the dollar is actually worth. We have not increased our value/production twofold in the last 8 years, so the value of the dollar needs to reflect that; the value of the dollar NEEDS to fall for our economy to stabilize.

So you feel safer if the party performing the act (i.e. the goverment) supervises themselves rather than a third party? Does this make any sense to anyone? Imagine if instead of the government, a business named Evilcorp was performing the stimulus. Would you like it if the only person keeping accountability for Evilcorp was Evilcorp itself? That's plain dangerous.

There are checks and balances in the government, it watches itself, and end the end we the voters check them in the end.

The Government isn't a corp but a government meaning they have a vested interest in the people.

And for the record the New Deal and other FDR programs, not only did they end the depression they held off the other downturns from becoming such until Reagan to Bush II broke the systems that had protected us for so long.

-G

Money spent on power is a necessity. We are moving to plug-in hybrids. You think our ancient grid can handle that? We probably lose updwards of 20% of our power in the grid, and fixing it would save taxpayer money over the long hual (something few politicians care about).

Same goes with infrastructure. Two years ago, we are panicky over a single bridge collapse. Now when funds are allocated to fix other structually deficient bridges, everyone is up in arms? Our infrastructure is a joke, and its about time it gets fixed up. This provides immediate jobs, and stremlining infrastructure leads to less waste of money and resources.

Can't see what anyone would have against education spending. A higher educated workforce provides more high tech (high paying) jobs, which brings more cash into the country, which benifits everyone.

Everything about the bill screams "long term, stable growth", which is how the economy is supposed to be run. The new housing bailout bill is where the consumer will be finding most of their relief.

For the record, the stock market and the economy were largly recovered by 1935, but FDR was a fiscal conservative, and wanted to balance the budget. As cutting programs wouldn't work, he did the only other reasonable thing he could: he raised taxes after being re-elected, which triggered another crash. Bad move on his part, but its clear that his programs did what they intended to do, and his experiance with trying to balance the budget during a recession is why the budget is forgotten about during a recession, as tring to keep it balanced does more harm then good.

Not sure if I was going to (+) or (-) gamerk so I did neither... The market began correcting itself slowly as FDR stayed in office. Most of the "New Deal" was largely declared unconstitutional over the next 10 years and it *DID* even out the recovery road to make it tolerable to those who otherwise would have had a much sharper hardship. At the same time, the original recovery would have happened in the course of a year or two instead of 10, so there's a definite trade-off.

The 'great depression' wasn't fixed by FDRs make-work programs. The infrastructure was definitely needed and proved useful, but having the government do it is about as efficient as having the Muppets do it. The great depression was ultimately fixed by a unprecedented period of personal sacrifice by Americans and an unprecedented period of rebuilding in the US, Europe, and Asia during and following the devastation of WWII.

The Keynesian notion of government "fixing" a problem by spending money ignores the fact that capital is *NOT* a fixed resource that can be optimized by 'sharing the wealth' and the bigger issue: THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T HAVE MONEY. Every dime they spend is first taxed (literally TAKEN from you under punishment of prison) away from a private person or company who otherwise would have put it into the market in a much more logical fashion.

It's funny how opinionated people are when a Democrat is President, and actually DOES what he says. Even though I didn't vote for the last guy, I accepted him as my President (because I choose to be a part of this society). I'm just curious as to where all these opinionated individuals were at when we were spending billions in Iraq. No offense to Iraq, but the last time I checked, I don't know anyone over there. I do, however, know a lot of hard working people just trying to keep their jobs and homes over the heads of their children. A construction job is WAY better than no job...

This isn't a partisan issue... I realize the President is doing exactly what he said he'd do. I'll not harp on the fact that I didn't vote for him and I very much wish he proves my thinking wrong and makes the economy wonderful by (almost) any means possible.

That said... A job is a good thing, but if the government borrows $50,000 from the people to create a temporary construction job, how many jobs are ultimately destroyed when the government has to tax you [society as a whole, not you personally] $80,000 to pay back that loan with interest? Answer -> 1.6 (a net loss of .6 jobs to temporarily create one job.)

It would be far better if the government lowered taxes on a construction company so they in turn could create their own jobs to do the same work the government wanted done. In this way, the company makes money, the construction worker gets a job, and the government can collect more taxes from both of them. Look... we just permanently GREW the economy instead of just moving some money around.

That solution sound great on paper, but the reality is that the business owners that get the tax breaks just buy really expensive cars and stack the money away. They don't raise wages or hire more people. If there is anything that "Big Business" has taught the American people, it's that there is no loyalty. You just give up umteen yrs of your life to have your job outsourced to maximize profits. It's about time that somebody represents the "little guy". I sincerely hope that the economy gets fixed too, but moreso, I hope that "Big Business" regains their sense of morality and obligation to the people who helped make them big.

(+) Val3ntino... I agree that "big business" is greedy and left unchecked will often not spend money wisely. That's a failure of their board of directors and the CEO to act responsibly. Such companies should go out of business and instead are given first dibs on government-borrowed "bailout" money. Lame, lame, lame! (I didn't vote for George W either, btw...) Corporations mismanaging their shareholder's money are on par with the way government wastes money. Neither should be in charge of your wallet.

Most jobs, you'll find, are in smaller companies and self-employeed people... not so much in your "GEs" and "Microsofts." They have to use money wisely to stay alive and they are the ones who are most able to pull us out of recession when they're allowed to spend their money they way they need to (not taxes.) Ironically, they are the ones who benefit most from corporate tax cuts. It may seem like the giant corporations get most of the $$$ and they do get big chunks of it, but not a large percentage of it.

BTW: You asked where people were when W was pushing for war in Iraq. I was busy writing to my senators (whom I also didn't vote for) protesting the move. They decided not to listen to nor acknowledge getting any letters or calls from me. Alas.

If there was ever a time when people were opinionated about politics, it was when Bush was president. As for the billions spent in Iraq, that was spread out over 5-6 years, most of which was also voted for by Democrats. In just 1 month in office, Obama has already spent more than the entire Iraq war has cost. The end result of which will be the largest expansion of government in U.S. history, something most Americans of any political affiliation are not happy with. I think that warrants all the "opinions".

I love all these people complaining about business not spending money wisely, as if the government has ever shown that they could do it better. NEVER IN HISTORY has government spent money more efficiently than the private sector. If you don't understand that, I don't know what to say.

"G" I couldn't disagree with you more. It's a typical liberal standpoint, and I'm a typical conservative, so no point in arguing about FDR and Reagan.

At least we can agree on that much.

-G

firemage, educate yourself:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/uc [...] elNum=5409

World War II got us out of the depression, plain and simple. As for this "stimulus" it won't stimulate anything. Transparency? How about broken promises? 48 hours to view, instead we get 10 hours to review a 1,000+ page bill? 0bama is a fascist plain and simple. Just look at their desire to bring back the 'fairness' doctrine. And what's that, he wants to control the internet as well? Shock. All in the name of REAL suppression of dissent, unlike the imaginary suppression of dissent under ChimpyMcHitlerBush. LOL. While many of the things in the spending bill (infrastructure improvements) are worthy, stop LYING to the American people and calling it stimulus. There are ZERO economists who aren't in 0bama's pocket who think this will stimulate the economy. Even the Congressional Budget Office says it will reduce GDP long term with uncertain short term benefits. It's not stimulus, it's pork, the other white meat.

Mine's the T-shirt with, "Hitler gave great speeches, too," on it.

"firemage"

Go back to playing d&d, or revisit your high school history books; WW2 ended the depression. FDR's plans helped, and eventually might have ended the depression given 20 to 30 years, but sadly WW2 was the instrument of fast recovery during the 40's.