Pork in the Stimulus

At the risk of sounding repetitive, or re-blogging myself, I want to encourage you to go Read The Stimulus! No matter what side of the aisle you are on, you owe it to yourself (and your kids, and your grandkids) to know what is in this behemoth, all 1,588 pages of it. Nothing is final yet which is another reason to read up on what is working in Washington. No, I haven't made it through 1,588 pages either, but I'm dogging through parts of it.

It is bad enough that Nancy Pelosi thinks that birth control can stimulate the economy. But this bill is so filled with pork, with massive spending, with things that will NOT stimulate the economy that one has to believe that Washington is counting on the fact that the public will not read the document or contact anyone that can do anything to stop it.

I'm sick to death of bailouts. And, as I've said before, I am certainly no economist, but someone please tell me how planting grass is going to stimulate the economy? And why in the HELL should we be giving more money to ACORN, who is already under federal investigation, and other non-profit "neighborhood stabilization"entities?

Here are a few questionable items rounded up by the San Francisco Chronicle:

$44 million for repairs at the Agriculture Department headquarters in Washington.

$200 million to rehabilitate the National Mall.

$360 million for new child care centers at military bases.

$1.8 billion to repair National Park Service facilities.

$276 million to update technology at the State Department.

$500 million for the Transportation Security Administration to install bomb detectors at airports.

$600 million for General Services Administration to replace older vehicles with alternative fuel vehicles.

$2.5 billion to upgrade low-income housing.

$400 million for NASA scientists to conduct climate change research.

$426 million to construct facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

$800 million to clean up Superfund sites.

$150 million for the Coast Guard to repair or remove bridges deemed a hazard to navigation.

$6.7 billion to renovate and improve energy efficiency at federal buildings.

$400 million to replace the Social Security Administration's 30-year-old National Computer Center.

Again, I know that this bill will morph and change as it goes through the process, but there is a LOT of change it needs to do. The problem with this thing is that so much of this spending is not going to revive the economy. It's just not. The main thing economists believe would revive the economy would be tax cuts and there are precious few of those. The Read the Stimulus site (linked above) is great and has easy and helpful links to specific portions and discussions. Take a look. It's YOUR money.