When I heard tim geithner speak my stomach turned. Its like why do we have members of the club watch over the club. Their interests are more important to him then we are.

Opening the credit markets is much more important.

They are two totally different things. Doesn't make one good and one bad. The "stimulus" plan is filled with tons of pork. STD programs, anti-smoking programs, etc. I'd be fine with a stimulus package that didn't include the pork. But Dems showed their true colors on this one and showed the American people they are just like the Republicans. Out for themselves and their little friends.

Huh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

The Great Depression did not strongly affect Japan. The Japanese economy shrank by 8% during 1929?31. However, Japan's Minister of Finance (MoF) Osachi Hamaguchi implemented the first version of Keynesian economic policies: first, by increasing deficit spending; and second, by devaluing the currency. The MoF believed that the deficit spending could easily be paid for when productivity improved.

The devaluation of the currency had an immediate effect. Japanese textiles began to displace British textiles in export markets. The deficit spending, however proved to be most profound.

Paul Begala said as much the other night on CNN. He pointed out with glee that "there are only 5 red states left."

What he forgot to mention is that those red states all have balanced budgets, while most of the blue socialist states are all running huge budget deficits.

Why the fuck is there still debate with this whole tax cuts are the best thing for the economy bullshit?

because they really arent.

Tax cuts are a vital engine, but they aren't much help for a vehicle that has crashed into a brick wall at 100 MPH.

Those "red states" have tiny populations and are not exactly cradles of civilization - utah, alaska, wyoming, Idaho and Nebraska. Yea, cool that Nebraska has a balanced budget, but who the fuck wants to live in Nebraska?

The next most "red" states are "Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia." Said states rank near the bottom in education, income, infant mortality rates, etc. etc.

Red states are usually the states you don't want to live in...

Actually, the red states are the broke states. Their budgets are balanced because they mooch off the blue states. Take Alaska, they get $1.84 for every $1 they pay in federal taxes. California only gets back $0.78 for every $1 they put in. The red ones are the broke ones who can't survive on their own. You give the blue states the same dollar for dollar back, and they all thrive.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

I hope the Republicans start talking even louder and obstructing even more... if Obama is successful (which I think he will be) in the next 2 years they will be out of jobs.

Maybe the credit markets are more important, I wasn't saying one was good and one was bad....it's just that everyone keeps calling the stimulus "another bailout" when that's not what it is....and I think the way the bank bailout was handled (badly) is what's causing alot of people to not like the stimulus idea.

You are using the term pork incorrectly. Pork refers to the process by which a spending measure gets put into a bill, it's not directly related to what the money is actually spent on. (For instance a museum in Georgia that gets slipped into a bill without debate = pork....a museum in Georgia that goes through the committee process = NOT pork)

Every dollar of the spending in this bill has been thoroughly vetted and debated. You may not like what it's being spent on, but that doesn't mean it's pork.

I don't get your logic...for Democrats to prove they're "different" they spend the money on defense contractors and corporate tax breaks instead of social programs?

Whatever.

Actually, almost all states have balanced budget amendments in their constitutions, so there are no states that are running huge budget deficits.

There are states with "projected shortfalls", because revenues are going to be lower in the coming year and they haven't made adjustments yet....but that takes a little longer to do in places like New York and California than it does in Oklahoma and Utah. :2 cents:

Well you almost got the point. :Oh crap

If the dems create more government, give government more power it will some day fall back in to the rep control. Obama is not king, and will only be there for 4 or 8 years. Maybe we will get another dem president, but who knows? That is why out founding fathers knew to set up a weak fed system. But go ahead and give the government more power and one day you will be labeled for extinction.

For christ sake how many people are saing? "Man I wish Bush had MORE power?" "Man I wish the rep held congress had MORE power?" The left needs to get a fucking clue. The right already has that clue, they know bigger government works in their and the dems favor and will always fuck the American people.

I agree, it was sold poorly to the American people. They didn't explain what the reasons were and they weren't transparent. It also came across as something that wasn't thought out very well.

I'm going by the definition I know of for pork. Here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel_spending

I'm also sure it's been vetted and debated, it doesn't make it stupid. I have no problem with a stimulus plan, one that is built to stimulate the economy by creating real jobs and building real value for the country. This plan has a lot of bad spending that won't benefit anyone but their supporters.

To prove they are different, they should cut out the bullshit special interest spending. That's the spending Republicans did for a decade and helped get us in massive debt. It's the same thing now, just different special interests. They don't give a shit about any of us. Look at the bill objectively and not as being written by "your team".

Great article about this
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.ht...6-61336864e25c

Everyone both democrat and republican can agree that what got us all the way out of the Great Depression was WWII.
Can you think of more wasteful spending than on tanks and planes and ships that are just going to be blown up on the battlefield?

I realize we needed to fight that war...but from an economic standpoint, building all of those tanks, planes, and ships and just dumping them into the ocean would have had the same effect on the economy...or as Keynes once said, government should pay people to dig holes and then fill them up again.

Spending money on anything creates demand and stimulates the economy. The difference between the democrats now and the republicans for the past 8 years is that this bill is a response to an economy that needs stimulus.....the republicans were spending money just to spend money and reward their contributors/constituents etc.

If the dems play the same games with the regular budget when it comes time to write that, I'll agree 100% with you that it's bullshit and should stop....but a stimulus package by definition needs to be deficit spending and needs to happen quickly. :2 cents:

Clearly Keynes was wrong. You contradict yourself all over the place. Really wtf?

Nope no pork in this bill Pelosi 30 million to save mice in her district...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-mouse-cookie/

I'm not arguing the spending aspect. I've said that I agree with a stimulus plan. I agree that creating jobs is necessary and would be beneficial. I'm not even arguing over the dollar amounts.

What I'm arguing over is what the money is spent on. There is a big difference in using stimulus dollars to build a state-of-the-art railway system and spending it to start a stop-smoking program. One will add to our overall infrastructure and be useful for decades. The other is a black hole of waste. So if you're going to spend a trillion dollars, why not spend all of it on stuff that will benefit us for decades to come? Rebuilding railways, roads, sewers, bridges, schools, government buildings, etc. That is where all the money should go. Not toward buying free condoms for people.

And please don't tell me that you really don't believe that these programs don't benefit contributors and supporters of Democrats. There is a reason unions, community organizations, and environmental groups are cashing in on this. I'm not saying that some of that spending isn't justified, just saying it's ridiculous to believe that these guys aren't paying off the people who helped put them in power.

That's actually something I don't have a problem with. Wetlands restoration is extremely important. I'd rather see money dumped into that then handing out rubbers and telling people not to smoke.

The article I linked to earlier addressed this. Of course we want the money spent on worthwhile projects......the problem is that time is of the essence.
A high speed rail system or new electric grid take years to plan, and the economy needs the stimulus yesterday....so they funded all the worthwhile projects they could find that were ready to go "NOW", and yeah, the rest of the money went to pet projects that have been waiting for an opportunity to get funding.

Like I said before, if republicans were in charge the price tag would be the same except the money would be spent on weapons systems the Pentagon doesn't want or need, prisons instead of schools, abstinence education instead of condoms, etc.

The more important thing was that the spending start quickly and the money starts working it's way through the economy now.

That's why I said if the Dems play games with the regular budget where they do have time to deliberate and hold hearings and make each program survive on it's own merit....then I'll agree that they're no better than the republicans.
For the stimulus though, they get a pass, because they had to spend a certain amount and do it quickly, so they went and grabbed projects that had been sitting on their desks for awhile now that were ready to go. That's just the way this one went down.

The republicans BTW had a chance to be part of the process, but if you're going to offer amendments, get them accepted, and then not vote for the final bill....then of course the conference committee is going to strip your amendments out. You don't get to play unless you have skin in the game.
This time, they chose to be naysayers and now have to hope the economy gets worse or else their minority is going to continue to shrink. :2 cents:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.ht...6-61336864e25c

TRB: In Defense of Waste

Note to Republicans: The whole point of the stimulus is to spend money!

Jonathan Chait, The New Republic Published: February 12, 2009

Republicans like to accuse Democrats of wasting taxpayer dollars and being condescending eggheads. But if President Obama's economic stimulus fails to prevent a depression--and I'm not saying it will--it will be because he didn't waste enough money, and didn't spend enough time being a condescending egghead.

Let's start with the egghead part. The stimulus bill is based on Keynesian theory, which I'll briefly explain in the condescending manner we liberals so enjoy using. When we're in a severe recession, good productive capacity goes to waste. Autoworkers sit home unemployed because nobody has money to buy cars, and cooks sit home unemployed because nobody has money to go out to dinner. The first thing for government to try is to reduce interest rates, to encourage businesses to borrow money to hire more workers and buy equipment. But, if interest rates hit bottom, then the government has to shock the system back to life by spending money directly. Say, Washington hires construction workers to build something, and those workers start buying cars and going to restaurants, and, after a while, the economy is running again.

So Obama decided to spend a lot of money. The Republicans' hoary opposition technique is to boil any legislation down to one or two silly-sounding expenditures that Joe Sixpack can understand--Midnight basketball! A bear DNA study! Obama anticipated this critique and tried to eliminate all waste from the bill. He kept earmarks out and focused the spending on public investments like energy efficiency and education. The logic went beyond just politics. If you're going to spend a lot of money, you might as well get something useful for it.

Yet a few downsides to this clever tactic have emerged. First, a stimulus can shock the economy back to life if it happens quickly, but there are only so many useful projects you can spend money on really fast. Mass transit and new electrical grids take years to plan and build. There are worthwhile programs you can fund right away, but the list runs dry after a few hundred billion dollars. So the stimulus is less than half the size of the projected drop in output. It might be enough to stave off disaster, but then again, it might not.

Second, by emphasizing the worthiness of his spending proposals, Obama has allowed the debate to revolve around the merits of each project. Normal spending is judged on those terms--whether the goods or services justify their cost. The point of stimulus spending, by contrast, is simply to spend money--on something useful if possible, wasteful if necessary. Keynes proposed burying money in mineshafts, so that workers would be hired to dig it out. (Imagine what the GOP could do with material like that.) World War II was an effective stimulus that, economically speaking, consisted of 100 percent waste. If war hadn't broken out, we could have enjoyed the same economic benefit by building all those tanks and planes and dumping them into the ocean.

Third, Republicans have simply carried on as if the stimulus were filled with pork anyway. In fact, the bill contains either zero pork or a vanishingly tiny amount, depending on how you define the term. But that didn't stop Rush Limbaugh from calling the bill "porkulus," showing, for a man of his girth, an unusual lack of self-consciousness about deploying porcine-themed insults.

Even before the bill was written, Republicans decided its prototypical measure was a "mob museum" in Las Vegas. The basis for this claim was not that there was legislation funding a mob museum, or even that such legislation had some chance of becoming law, but that that Las Vegas had wanted funding for a mob museum. Congress not only declined to fund a mob museum, it bent over so far backward to avoid frivolous projects that it forbade any funds going to a "casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project." (Because Lord knows the government has no business funding things like zoos or museums.)

Congressional Republicans have continued to churn out lists of "wasteful" spending in the stimulus bill, highlighting such outrages as funding for Amtrak, making federal buildings more energy-efficient, flood-reduction projects on the Mississippi River, and the like. They have assailed the bill as a "wish list." Well, yes. If you suddenly had to spend $10,000, would you spend it on things you'd always wanted, or would you spend it on something you'd never even considered before?

The mass ignorance on display was best exemplified by the contretemps over a provision to help undergird hemorrhaging state budgets. Most states are required to balance their budgets annually. During downturns, their revenue collapses and their costs (on things like Medicaid) rise. This forces the states to raise taxes and cut spending, the exact opposite of what you want in a recession. Thus, the notion of giving federal money to the states was probably the single most defensible provision in the whole bill. Naturally, it became a particular target of conservative ire. A Weekly Standard editorial declared:

It's hard to argue that the $248 billion in transfers to the states will stimulate the economy. The money is being taken from one pot and put in another so that the states can balance their books and ensure the proper treatment of beneficiaries. It doesn't prime the pump. It just keeps the pump from falling apart.

It's a breathtaking passage. It begins by insisting that helping state budgets won't stimulate the economy, then proceeds to methodically undercut its own assertion by pointing out that the stimulus will help states avoid cutting spending or raising taxes, and concludes with a metaphor that clinches the case: After all, keeping the pump from falling apart is a good idea, isn't it?

Part of the problem here is that Obama never explained the theoretical basis for his plan. Even moderate journalists and members of Congress don't understand it. Democratic Senator Ben Nelson cut state budget support, which he called "non-stimulative" spending, apparently unaware that this is a contradiction in terms.

In his press conference last Monday night, Obama summed up his approach like so: "I think that, over time, people respond to civility and rational argument." A little intellectual condescension wouldn't hurt, though.

Jonathan Chait is a senior editor of The New Republic.

Spending, and spending on social programs in particular, is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Socialism has never worked anywhere. Socialism does not build vibrant economic powerhouses, it destroys them.

The US government has about as much reason to be in the automobile business as the USSR government had to be in all of its businesses. The end result will be the same, a train wreck.

:2 cents:

Whether you are a Rebublican or a Democrat, surely you don't want a 1 party system? The way many of you are talking you would love nothing more than a 1 party system.

Though watching the fiasco you have now they both appear as bad and as corrupt as eachother.

Some people, like myself would rather save the pet projects for another time. Perhaps a time when the country isn't massively in debt. Why not just look at the bill objectively and agree that some of that shit is completely unnecessary?

And the reasoning for the pork is pretty sad. The "we'll spend money on stupid shit but it won't be as bad as the stupid shit that Republicans spend on". It's like shitting on someone's floor and then telling them it's good because at least it's not in their bed.

I just wish some of you guys would stop the whole game. This should be about doing what's best for the American people, not "beating the Republicans". Partisians would rather see the country go to shit if it means they can get some political victories out of it. It is what is turning Washington into the cess pool it is.

Spending is spending its better than $400 tax breaks that will do nothing.

Either you're not reading what I'm writing or you're intentionally ignoring it because you don't like the message.....but the whole point is that money has to be spent NOW, right fucking now, not when the debt situation is better, not once more worthy projects have been found, RIGHT NOW.

I would much rather spend the money on other stuff, and in a perfect world we could...but in a perfect world our economy wouldn't need close to $1 trillion in stimulus either.

If we don't create demand in the economy now, then the downward spiral will continue. The losses in tax revenue from the drop in economic activity would increase the deficit by as much, if not more, than the stimulus bill is going to. So whether you like it or not, and whether this bill had passed or not, we'd still have that much debt at the end of it all. (unless you want to drop unemployment benefits and constantly cut government spending as the recession worsens...keeping our budget in balance but worsening the recession, a death spiral of sorts)

the whole situation is a crap sandwich. no one has any idea what they are doing.

I love the logic being used in this tread.

We can dig holes and fill them back in and the economy will be ok.
We just need to spend money on anything and the economy will be ok.
The evil republicans just spent spent spent and the economy tanked
But some how the magic spending of the democrats will make very thing ok.

1 trillion is not enough to take us out of this spiral. We will need 9.7 trillion MORE and that will cause massive inflation. But go ahead believing that this trillion will do something.

Keynesian eco has failed end of story.

So it took you all of 3 weeks for you to decide that President Obama and his economic team don't know that they're doing or how to turn things around?

Damn, you're demanding. I was planning on giving him at least a month before I thought the economy should be booming again. :upsidedow