CHESSNOID

There are both Republican and Democrat skeptics about the new stimulus plan.  Everyone wants to do something, but I think after the wasteful bailouts that they were duped into passing under the 3 stooges Bush, Bernanke, and Paulson, they don’t want a repeat of that fraud bailout.

There is a lot of justified criticism and I am glad they aren’t falling for the line if we don’t act now, the apocalypse financial sky will fall on us.  First of all, it already has and that is why most people want something that will work and not just more wasteful government spending.

In the previous bailouts, we are now aware that a few million dollars accounted for went for big company parties at the Ritz Carlton including golf and spa treatments, $35,000 toilets for CEOs, as well as funding of bonus checks for employees of bankrupt companies.  Taxpayers are sick of that and knew with billions of dollars being thrown around corruption is exactly what would happen.

Washington Post:

“Such a long-term investment program should not be put together hastily and lumped in with the anti-recession package. The elements of the investment program must be carefully planned and will not create many jobs right away,” said Rivlin, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. The risk, she said, is that “money will be wasted because the investment elements were not carefully crafted.”

For some House Democrats, the problem is less a matter of balancing the short and long term than a shortage of focus and will on the part of the administration. Their disappointment centers on the relatively small amount devoted to long-lasting infrastructure investments in favor of spending on a long list of government programs. While each serves a purpose, the critics say, they add up to less than the sum of their parts, and fall far short of the transformative New Deal-like vision many of them had entertained.

The bill to be voted on today includes $30 billion for roads and bridges, $9 billion for public transit and $1 billion for inter-city rail – less than 5 percent of the package’s total spending. Administration officials have said they did not push for more infrastructure spending because of concerns about how many projects are “shovel ready” — a view that House members say is held most strongly by Lawrence H. Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser.

Even though most House Democrats say they will back the plan, many reject the administration’s argument, saying that infrastructure projects could easily be expedited, that the economy will need additional infusions for years to come and that the real reason for shunning infrastructure was to make room for tax cuts. Obama, with a public mandate to do something big, is missing a rare opportunity to rebuild the country, they say.

“Every penny of the $825 billion is borrowed against the future of our kids and grandkids, and so the question is: What benefit are we providing them? What are we doing for the country? It’s the difference between real investment that will serve the nation for 30, 50 years and tax cuts, and that’s a very poor tradeoff,” said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.). “I go to my district and people say, ‘Yeah, I can use 10 extra bucks a week, but I would rather see more substantial investment.’ We’ve gone through a couple bubbles that were borrowing and consumer-driven. We want a recovery that’s solid and based in investment and productivity, and that points us at building things that will serve us decades to come.”

Even some Republicans echo the call for more infrastructure spending, saying they would be more willing to support the bill if it showed more tangible and focused benefits, instead of being scattered across an array of existing programs. Rep. John L. Mica (Fla.), the ranking Republican on the transportation committee, called the proposed infrastructure spending “almost minuscule” and expressed regret that the administration had not crafted its plan around an ambitious goal such as building high-speed rail in 11 corridors around the country, which Mica said would cost $165 billion.

“They keep comparing this to Eisenhower, but he proposed a $500 billion highway system, and they’re going to put $30 billion” in roads and bridges, he said. “How farcical can you be? Give me a break.”

I think it boils down to a proposal of spending a trillion dollars with promises of building our infrastructure, but when the plan is written down on paper for everyone to see it fails to live up to the promise. Only 5% allocated to rebuilding. Again, we have spent trillions of dollars on these previous bailouts and only have a bigger deficit to show for it. We  can not spend our way out of a recession and have already demonstrated that last 8 years.