Another day and another $410 billion flushed down the drain with again a promise perhaps as empty as the first one that promised to put America back onto it's fiscal feet. A bill that again is filled to the rim with those "little porky amendments" that no one really cares about according to Chuck Schumer, all 8,000 of them. A week from now Obama will again declare the bill was free from earmarks like he did with the stimulus bill. So here we are; America is not progressing, BO, Pelosi and Reid have spent $1.2 trillion is the first quarter of the year with total Democratic control in Washington and everyone's pension or investments are in need of CPR.
If all of this spending does not work, the Democrats are convinced it is because they are not spending enough and will consider another stimulus.
Dan will know the correct answer to this question; has the two spending bills spent more than the Iraq war cost taxpayers?
14 comments:
To date, no... the TARP and other bills have not reached the war costs (actual outlay of funds)... but will by the end of this year and then surprass it, too...
And, lots more coming.
Hang on tight.
BTW: the $410 billion: Rep. McHugh got $3.2 million of it in pork rinds for us.
Sorry PIV but your information is wrong. Depending on how you add up the figures, even with 'little george's' mystery math, the Iraq War has cost us more just with Iraqi infrastructure alone. I believe that most Americans are tired of all the lies. When the Republican party and their followers realize that lying doesn't work on Americans anymore, then and only then will they touch bottom and begin to become viable again.
A bill that again is filled to the rim with those "little porky amendments"....
there's a lot of misinformation packed into that little fragment of a sentence! first off, what exactly should "filled to the rim" mean? 90% of the bill? 75%? at least over half? in fact, a whopping 2% of the bill consists of earmark spending, according to taxpayers for common sense. (according to the dems, it's less than 1%.) and surely some of that is well justified! i know that abuse of earmarks drives a lot of people crazy, and not without good reason, but i think we need to have a little more perspective on things. sadly, earmarks are pretty small potatoes when it comes to the fiscal challenges our country faces -- i think mccain's strangely obsessive focus on them during the campaign ultimately redounded to his detriment.
i think obama's decision to sign the appropriations bill is quite reasonable, given its last-minute nature and the fact that 98% of it is spending that no one seems to have any beef with.
the second, and in my view more pernicious, bit of misinformation in that fragment is just a single word: "another". is it not correct that the stimulus bill contained no earmarks? is it not correct that obama has been completely truthful when discussing that? it's certainly emerged as a meme on this blog and elsewhere that obama has told, and then repeated, some fantastical falsehood that there are no earmarks in the stimulus. well, where are they? i'll be happy to admit it if someone proves me wrong, but i just haven't seen a shred of evidence yet contradicting obama.
Hermit Flush: "Only 2% ..."
Only... only?
Okay, about give each one of us in America $1.8 million - only a small percentage compared to the 2% ($6 billion) - which is going for pig order abatement, and let us stimulate the economy on our own.
How's that grab you ... I wager it's so "tiny or porky" now, right?
dan, why use the ridiculous name? i know you like to do it with people in the news (which i personally find distasteful, but who cares what i think?), but i don't see why you'd stoop to that level with fellow commenters.
as for your math, well, huh? 2% of the appropriations bill is about $8 billion. there are about 300 million people in the u.s. that means the earmarks in the bill amount to about $27 per person. and surely some of that earmark spending is perfectly reasonable!
as i said before, obviously, there's perfectly good reason to be upset about earmark abuse. but i just don't see why some people get all ZOMG EARMARKS!!!1!!! about it.
Hermit Thrush, what's with all these people taking shots at such a noble little bird of the Northern forest, with the great voice. Do they people live in windowless cellars, in cities, commenting on blogs all day.
What would happen if you called yourself 'American Bald Eagle'.
Would they be quipping palindromes, neologisms & portmanteau phrases, like 'Sold Feagle' or 'Newt?'. Maybe people with the capacity for abstract thought may have to move on from this sandbox and jump back in to more popular blogs with hundred of comments per day.
8:30 Are you talking about that site where people copy and paste the last 10 posts then add a word of their own? I know that site.
Mr Thrush is happy right here where people hate him one day then love him the next.
But I appreciate you trying to recruit for that udder site. Ya see, here we allow different points of view. And we're not quite so sofistikatid.
Hermit: can't take a joke, eh? Sorry about that.
So, a billion here or there doesn't mean much ... like as I said before $1.8 million to wipe out hog smell...
Only one way to do that - get rid of the damn hogs...
Grow up man ... All that pork may be bacon to you, but it stinks to me.
as for your math, well, huh? 2% of the appropriations bill is about $8 billion. there are about 300 million people in the u.s. that means the earmarks in the bill amount to about $27 per person. and surely some of that earmark spending is perfectly reasonable!
You forget the fact that only about 40% of them people pay taxes so 27$ per person is very wrong!!!plus all the other idiotic spending slipping in, our country is in big trouble.Thank you chosen one.
anon 12:29,
where do you get 40% from? i just did a little googling and while it's hard to get a straight answer, my impression is that the percentage is much higher. on the other hand, of course, that 300 million number includes children, so maybe it's not the best number to divide by (but on the other hand again, those children will one day have to pay the debt we're incurring now, so maybe it is reasonable to include them). and it should also be noted that everyone pays things like sales tax.
dan,
as for pig odor, do you really know what you're talking about? have you ever been to a hog mega-farm? i personally haven't, but i once passed through a town in arkansas that was home to a chicken mega-farm, and the odor was unimaginably horrible -- it definitely poses a legitimate health problem.
hermit: yepper, those hog and chicken 'factory/farms' do stink... but millions won's solve the problem...
having smaller, less shitty farms might, though.
i completely agree with you there, dan.
Who needs conservatives bashing liberals when we've got Dan "Leiberman" Francis on "our side". Bashes pork based on the title of project and likely has no idea what the project is all about. Just like Rush.
While 12:24 defends pork because he knows nothing but what donkeys have told him to think.
Nice goose-step, 12:24.
Dan is an independent thinker.
Try it.
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