Posted by
Christopher Parisho on Saturday, February 07, 2009 2:14:18 PM
Next week President Obama will be traveling to Elkhart, Indiana, on Monday and Fort Myers, Florida, on Tuesday. These two cities are seeing increased unemployment and President Obama plans to show that to the nation as examples why the Stimulus Bill needs passed right away to help the people of these communities and others like them.
OK, fine, but exactly what provisions currently in the Stimulus Bill would actually help these two communities?
Tax credits, which go into effect for the 2009 tax year....they will not be seen till NEXT winter/spring unless they do a separate hand out the way they did last year, which means summer before funds are handed out.
Extended unemployment benefits, good for those out of work and eligible, but how does that keep them working or put them back to work as the President says this bill is suppose to do?
Subsidized health care insurance for the unemployed and coverage through the Medicaid program for low-income people, again good but how does that put people back to work? It may keep the Medicaid employees who process claims from being laid off, but health care is one of the few growing industries so their risk was low to begin with.
Energy making car batteries and building to improve the power grid. Good but many of these jobs require specialized skill sets which people who never did before would have to learn before they could do these jobs.
Education, retraining, more spending, and more grants to go to school. OK, so some educators will be re-trained, schools will get more money to mis-manage, and unemployed will be able to go back to school and learn skills which may or may not help them get a new job.
Infrastructure improvements, in the case of bridges and highways a needed expense which should have been spent long before bridges started falling down and killing people, but again these are specialized jobs. Maybe the unemployed can go to school to learn construction work so they can get these jobs, which will only last as long as the construction projects are being performed, so by the time they learn the skill for the trade the projects should be almost complete.
NASA and expanded broadband service funding, again specialized jobs, what few it creates.
Law Enforcement, again specialized jobs, what few it creates. We do need more law enforcement in some major cities to keep the crime in check of those who are now looking for any way to make ends meet.
I don't want to be pessimistic, but a lot of what I've heard and read about this stimulus package is just spending for the sake of doing it now because later they may not be able to. Looking at the rough numbers for the above projects a lot of fat could be trimmed and keep this to the projects we know would help. Some of the "small" things that have made the news may only have been a fraction of a fraction of the over all bill, but every penny adds up and our kids and grand kids will have to pay the price for it so we should for their sake.
What gets me most is the bill is a band aid for the problems, and includes no legislative fixes for what caused the problems in the first place. Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac still are government entities that work above the regulations of other private lenders. Those in power still focus on the poor or low income being home owners when they should be renters because their income levels are not high enough for them to afford even a low end mortgage payment. Regulations on the auto industry which drive up cost and extend new development time are being strengthened rather than relaxed. And NOTHING is being done to curb the influx of illegals who take jobs unemployed Americans could be doing as they loose their own jobs.
In the case of the Infrastructure spending, back when the I-35W bridge collapsed it was reported that repairing all similarly dangerous bridges would cost $140 billion. In the Stimulus Bill $142 billion is slated for infrastructure, but not the infrastructure that needs it....the bridges....instead it is earmarked for projects from renovating and building public schools, to restoration of facilities at parks, to building new highways. If we are going to spend this kind of money shouldn't we spend it where it is needed and not on pet projects?
We haven't spent our money on what was needed for a long time and that contributed to the I-35W disaster, yet it didn't teach us anything!
If that kind of poor spending allocation is applied to the infrastructure spending, then what other parts of the bill are poorly allocated as well?