The House Passes The Bill That Stimulates Pork

The Stimulus Bill passed the House Of Representatives yesterday by a vote of 244 to 188. The Bill passed without a single Republican vote and with 10 Democrats voting against it. The Bill now moves on to the Senate for its consideration.

The $819 billion dollar Stimulus Bill contains little stimulus and lots of government pork. The Bill features the following government pork according to the Wall Street Journal:

$7.7 billion for various upgrades and work done on federal buildings
$5.2 billion for voter fraud experts ACORN and other "neighborhood stabilization" groups
$2.4 billion for carbon capture projects
$1 billion for AMTRAK
$650 million more for coupons for the conversion to digital television
$600 million for federal automobiles
$400 million for research into global warming
$335 million for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases
$50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts

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Stimulus Is Just Government Pork By Another Name

There is a trillion dollar spending plan being debated in Congress and endorsed by President Barack Obama to stimulate the United States economy.

We are being told that this government spending spree is needed right away to save jobs and the economy during this deep recession.

The problem with the passage of this plan is that it will have little effect on the economy during the next year. In additon, it is money that the government does not have since it already runs a over a trillion dollar deficit. The truth of this economic stimulus bill is that it is just more government pork under a new name.

Consider that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that only 7 percent of infrastructure money in the bill would make its way into the economy by the end of the year, and just 38 percent would be spent by the end of the 2010 fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the bill is loaded with pork and is a lobbyist delight. There is a $50 million outlay for the National Endowment for the Arts to help fund arts groups hit by a drop-off in philanthropy.

The bill has a $87 billion package to help states with the Medicaid costs of family planning which will result in spending millions of taxpayer dollars on contraceptives.

There is $200 million to rehabilitate the National Mall and $650 million to repair Forest Service facilities. There is another $1.8 billion to repair National Park Service facilities. Indeed the pork in the bill goes on and on.

Out of control federal spending will not end this deep recession. The current federal policies do not represent political change. In Washington D.C., its just more of the same on a much larger scale in a new year under a different name.

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