This is a calamity.
This is not stimulus.
This is out of control government spending.
How do you spell flight capital?
Why would anyone with a brain invest into this?
Why would anyone with a brain invest into this?
Why would any sensible person not do everything to protect what capital they have left to avoid the tax burden that will fall on all US citizens?
This bill is a transfer payment to labor and government unions.
Feel the tingle?
Feel the tingle?
___________________________
Winners and losers in the final stimulus bill
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Here is a breakdown of who gained, who lost and who survived in the final economic stimulus bill that the House and Senate are expected to vote on Friday:
Amtrak gaines funding in the compromise version of the economic stimulus bill.
Winners
High-speed and inner-city rail: Went from $300 million in House bill to $2.25 billion in Senate to $8 billion in final version. There also is a $6.9 billion provision for public transit.
Amtrak: Picked up $500 million from both House and Senate versions to total $1.3 billion. The bill stipulates that no more than 60 percent can go to the Northeast Corridor.
National Institutes of Health: Ends up with $10 billion in the final bill. The House proposed $3.5 billion and the Senate wanted $10 billion -- $8.2 billion goes to the NIH director for his discretion.
Government oversight: Board to oversee stimulus bill spending will get $84 million to do the job. House bill allocated $14 million while the Senate bill called for $7 million. There is also more than $100 million more for various inspectors general in different agencies.
NASA: Banked just more than $2 billion, including $400,000 for science/global-warming research. Watch congressional comments on the stimulus bill »
Losers
Veterans: Nearly all items for Veterans Affairs were reduced and the $2 billion the Senate wanted for VA construction was wiped out altogether. The VA did get one thing: $1 billion for medical facilities renovation and retooling.
Military construction: Cut and put into a general pot, a change from targeted money for each branch of the services. Army construction alone went from $600 million in the Senate and $900 million in the House to $180 million in the final bill. But negotiators compromised over a general military construction fund -- the House wanted $3.75 billion while the Senate allocated $118 million and settled on $1.45 billion for all services.
FBI: Senate had allocated $475 million but all was cut out of final bill.
Survivors
Pandemic flu research: Although senators agreed it wouldn't produce jobs, it's getting $50 million in the final bill, down from nearly $900 million. Watch the latest on the stimulus bill »
Damage control
Foreclosures: $2 billion is set for a neighborhood stabilization program that helps areas plagued with foreclosures by buying back properties and preventing blight.
Homeless: $1.5 billion is directed to homelessness prevention.
Passports: $90 million is going to the State Department to deal with domestic facilities that deal with passports and training.
Social Security: $500 million goes to replace its 30-year-old computer system.
Tax breaks
Car buyers: Anyone who buys a new car in 2009 gets to deduct the sales tax. To qualify, buyer must make less than $125,000 individually or $250,000 jointly. Cost is $1.7 billion.
Homebuyers: First-time homebuyers who purchase this calendar year get an $8,000 tax credit which does not have to be repaid like a similar measure last year. This phases out for people making more than $75,000 individually or $150,000 jointly. "First-time homebuyer" is defined as someone who has not owned a home for the past three years. Cost: $6.63 billion.
Paying for college
Pell grants: will increase to a maximum of $5,350 per student in 2009-2010 year thanks to two provisions in the stimulus.
Tax credits: Individuals making less than $80,000 or families making less than $160,000 can get up to $2,500 in tax credits for college tuition. 40 percent ($1,000) of the credit is refundable. Cost: $13.9 billion over 10 years.
Making work pay
Tax credits: Anyone making $75,000 individually or $150,000 as a family will get refundable tax credit up to $400 per person or $800 per family.
What's next?
ReplyDeleteLand reform
We're building a train from LA to Vegas to incourage gambling, that most creative of social endeavors.
Veterans: Nearly all items for Veterans Affairs were reduced and the $2 billion the Senate wanted for VA construction was wiped out altogether.
There is a bunch of money for building palaces for these new beuracrats to hang around in. New Homeland Security Palace, for instance.
What's happened to our new Palacial Embassy in Bahgdad?
Pandemic flu research: Although senators agreed it wouldn't produce jobs, it's getting $50 million in the final bill, down from nearly $900 million
What's a few 10s of millions of death from a flu epidemic, like by in the 19 teens, but then Obama doesn't much like people, particularily old ones or young ones.
Think of how much we've poured into AIDS research over the years, I'll bet compared to this it's gigantic.
This must be part of the new 'rationing' of health care I've heard about.
In any spending bill you can find a bunch of crap, this one 'takes the cake'.
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Crossing Dressing Mob Boss Goes Down--The Odd Twisted Tale of Donna Corleone
Harry Reid "brought home the bacon," big time. What kind of train will it be? Electric?
ReplyDeleteI think so, Rufus. It'll be a fancy sucker, I'll bet.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it'll even levitate.
Have the Japanese build it for us, creating Japanese jobs.
Maybe they'll run it through Death Valley, isn't it out there somewheres, and call it "The Desert Death Express".
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDesert Debt Express, I think, is more apt phrasing.
ReplyDelete44 Senators, loyal and true ...
ahhh, never mind.
Arlen, we surely knew thee.
Best we could hope for, he said.
That's good, Desert Debt Express is good, and maybe even Desert Debt and Debtors Express.
ReplyDeleteMybe the Giant Desert Earthworm will put an end to it on environmentals grounds. I heard tell that critter burrows deep and is longer than a gold miner's pecker. Smells like a lily and will spit at you, but nobody I know has ever personally seen one.
Bill Clinton: We need 'Fairness Doctrine, or more balance' on airwaves...
ReplyDeleteWho would have guessed it. They do have their program all thought out.
There is an electric train that mostly rides empty serving the western suburbs of Philadelphia to center city Phila.
ReplyDeleteIf it does not work there, it has no chance anywhere outside of a few downtowns and then only with a significant subsidy.
We have a subsidized bus going around the cities here. I rode it one time in Moscow. Was the only rider. "Ever get any riders?" I ask. "Hah." Then he thought, and said, "Well, we have two or three regulars come up from Lewison each day." I see those buses driving around empty or nearly so every day I'm up there. They might get a little ridership duing football games and such. The University of Idaho dropped paying their share, saying it wasn't worth it.
ReplyDeleteNow I notice in a local newsletter from a realtor than the Planning and Zoning is doing a rework or update of zoning in the town. So, they hire some firm from out of town to do it for them, as they don't know anything themselves. And I doubt this firm from out of town does either, about our area.
We just have layers and layers of stuff we don't need, everywhere.
And of courst the State Legislature is no talking about making the reporting of real estate deals mandatory, a new thing here. It's nobody's business. At least, not their's. Just always more stuff. This might fail however, it's been talked about before.
The Nez Perce Tribe came out the other day and said they are now for delisting the wolves. They were a big powerhouse for listing them in the first place. They want to turn the management of the wolves over to the locals, that is, themselves. Though we all know wolves cross tribal, state and federal boundaries, just as they like.
My solution? Put a hunting season on them, through the -hehe, get this--Idaho Fish and Game Commission and see how it goes for a few years. Anther article and statement by F and G confirmed we're losing something like 15% of the elk herd yearly. Doesn't take many years of that.
It's all so damnably predictable.
Judge Finds Stevens Prosectors In Contempt
How he can not throw that case out I don't know.
Coleman's Team Takes A Hit In Ongoing Minnesota Contest
Pelosi led, Democrat control of Congress and a Democrat Executive spell trouble for America as we know it. I'm afraid that the stimulus package is really social engineering in disguise.
ReplyDeleteMy local dead tree reports that any state which cuts education funding will be ineligible to receive stimulus money. Although nothing new, the Federal threat of with holding funding to force compliance will be carried to new levels.
Unfortunately for the country, this financial tsunami has converged with the ongoing storm of the culture clash. Now in the wreckage, the Dems seek to use the crisis to further their social and political agendas. One need to look no further than the mess in California to see what the future looks like for the country. Of course, we can cling to the belief that the pendulum swings both ways and eventually will swing back to the right. How long that will take and how much damage will be done in the meantime is anyone's guess. If we look at the example of postwar Britain, the dark days could last for decades and the damage to the fabric of society could be irreversible.
Song I can't get out of my head:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekFaaEU8Yuw&feature=related
Trish in the barrio.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to translate for us barflies back stateside.
The Senate voted 60 to 38, which is all that needs to be said.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats did not even need Al Franken to swing it, they had Arlen Specter in his stead.
Swing back to the right?
It has been swinging left since LBJ, maybe FDR, slowed down a tad under Reagan, but did not swing to the 'right', not by a long shot.
It will take a global calamity for the course of the US to change. 246 to 183 in the House and 60 to 38 in the Senate is convincing proof enough of the majority position in the US. Claims that the US is still "Center-Right" do not fit the electoral reality.
Have not, policy wise, for over the past 50 years.
...the dark days could last for decades and the damage to the fabric of society could be irreversible.
ReplyDelete...........
Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn,
return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning,
blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle,
light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,
this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament,
a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
and I decline.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
R.E.M., Election Week, '04
How much schmaltz do you want?
ReplyDeleteVen aqui rapido.
Come here quickly.
Es un llamado de emergencia baby.
It's an emergency call, baby.
You get the idea.
Thirty years from now, this is the Spanish I'll spitting out in the retirement home.
Ven aqui rapido
Ven aqui rapido
Es un llamado de emergencia baby
Ven aqui rapido
Ven aqui rapido-ooooooh!
Ven y sana mi dolor
Tienes la cura de este amor.......
Next up: Juanes
Winners
ReplyDeleteHigh-speed and inner-city rail: Went from $300 million in House bill to $2.25 billion in Senate to $8 billion in final version. There also is a $6.9 billion provision for public transit.
Amtrak: Picked up $500 million from both House and Senate versions to total $1.3 billion. The bill stipulates that no more than 60 percent can go to the Northeast Corridor.
==
Winners?
Bird seed. Together it doesn't even add to $10 billion. I'm interested in knowing where the other $900 billion has gone to.
Juanes
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKEpOi3HA9c
There is simply no demand for high speed rail service other than transportation of goods.
ReplyDeleteTienes la cura de este amor
ReplyDeleteYes, I've heard there's more of that in nursing homes than one would wish to think about.
Let's start with your basic no thrills electric trains and trams, and when we get that right, work our way to high speed rail.
ReplyDeleteNo one wants them. They want the convenience of an automobile.
ReplyDeleteLOL
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I love that song...
...attached to time and place. As most songs are in our minds.
That depends who you talk to. The people I talk with are sick of working for the automobile, and are sick of the automobile and everything connected to the automobile. So I know that there's a demand for a way of life without being forced into using the automobile.
ReplyDelete(Trish's son: There is no accounting for taste.)
ReplyDeleteHow 'bout 'Desert Death 'n Taxes'
ReplyDeleteSlogan: "We provide the two certain things in life"
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Hard to name one city that isn't clogged with automobiles.
Before that they were clogged with horses, manure, rickshaws....
If we're going to build a train I can think of some more deserving places than LA to Vegas. In fact everplace I think of is more deserving.
What they'll do when they get to Vegas is rent a car, to drive round town.
That depends who you talk to. The people I talk with are sick of working for the automobile, and are sick of the automobile and everything connected to the automobile.
ReplyDeletePicture this if you will.
A small one-man dentist office in suburban Toronto.
The patient waits nervously for the doctor to enter.
"Ahhh! Hello! How are we today?...
Open wide...wider, please..."
I'nnhah 'ine, 'oc...ow rrr ou?
"Tell me, what do you think of cars?"
"Ihagh ike 'y car...Ihagh ike 'ig 'otors...'in 'otor 'ars..."
"Ouch!"
"Wrong answer!"
"Now, tell me if you'd like to see more light rail replace motor cars, hmmm?"
...
I cannot think of any city in the world where I would prefer to take a train or trolley over a taxi.
ReplyDeleteI take it everyone has seen Little Shop of Horrors.
ReplyDeleteThere is no poorer city in the U.S. than Memphis, Tn, and the people here are NOT riding the new "Electric-Hybrid" buses "in droves." They normally carry about one, or two people. It'd be cheaper to buy those one or two people a new Bentley.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI cannot think of any city in the world where I would prefer to take a train or trolley over a taxi.
ReplyDelete==
I can think of at least 5 cities that I'm familiar with where the great majority prefers trains/trams over the automobile:
Haifa
Tel Aviv
Jerusalem
Athens
Prague
Toronto as well. Even though Toronto is really a mega metropolis modeled after the American model, I can easily see most people in Toronto, if given a working choice, opt for a more European mode of travel, rather than maintain 4 cars per family.
ReplyDelete