Here is a list of "pork"

[Andy823]

The republicans have come up with a list of what they consider pork in the stimulus bill:

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.
• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.
• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).
• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.
• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.
• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.
• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.
• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.
• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.
• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.
• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $500 million for state and local fire stations.
• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.
• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.
• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.
• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.
• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.
• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.
• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.
• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

How much of this do you think is real "pork" and should be cut out?

[riqster]

1. Got a link? nt

[Andy823]

22. Here is the link

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/gop.stimulus.worries/index.html

[riqster]

23. Thanks! nt

[apnu]

2. Well the Hollywood producer tax break is weird. Why is it there?

The rest is bullshit. I guess the GOP now opposes the Dept. of Homeland Security and the FBI. Plus apparently they don't like the CDC, Amtrack, removal of lead based paint and education.

[nxylas]

4. I suspect the last two are connected

More stupid people = more Republican voters.

[Schema Thing]

8. I don't know why it's there, but it certainly could be a valuable thing

w/o more information than just "A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film", I wouldn't guess as to it's worth to the economy.

[Boomerang Diddle]

18. That's about keeping the film industry

in the US. They were talking about it on one of the programs...CNN I think, and that money is meant to keep film production jobs in the US because they are all going to other countries to make movies, especially Canada, because it's cheaper...and there are a lot of jobs connected with making a movie....just look at the credits at the end of a film.

Of course, the right will spin it by trying to make people think the money is gonna go to people like Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg...you know, those dreaded Hollywood people with those "Hollywood values."

[JuniperLea]

20. Yes, and California really needs the industry to stay here

We are freaking broke. I'm going to scream if I get an IOU from the state instead of a tax refund! I'm betting I can't apply the money owed me to the withholdings for this year!

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

19. Off the top of my head...

Because American made films are one of our highest grossing exports? :shrug:

[Vinca]

3. Some of it is pork, but I don't think most of it is.

The Republicans need to realize that not every job involves a shovel.

[bunnies]

5. Furniture for homeland security?

Will they be buying American? :shrug:

[chelsea0011]

6. The usual suspects....sex, hate the middle class/working poor, public employees, public transit

Nothing new here but wh if that movie film stuff?

[avaistheone1]

7. I am for a stimulus, but some of this is plain ridiculous

$448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters!

$248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters!!

What are they creating a palace? What a joke.

[theoldman]

9. Anything that does not produce jobs for the average working

guy IS pork. Anything that improves the standard of living for poor people is NOT pork. This includes education and fewer babies.

[Triana]

10. LINK:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/gop.stimulus.worries/index.html

[Still Sensible]

11. I firmly believe that some of this is absolutely defensible

in the Recovery Act. These items particularly are very valid and will, in fact, create jobs:

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.
• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.

I don't understand why the building and furniture items for DHS is in there. The agency is obviously operating in facilities now, as are the NIH and the CDC. Why do we need to spend $2 billion dollars for new facilities for those agencies? Both provisions for hybrid or alternative energy vehicles are laudable, but IMO don't belong in this bill.

Many of the line items are questionable and IMO just give the GOP valid talking points. The administration should stand up and fight for the ones that are defensible, get rid of the ones that aren't (come back and pass some of these pet projects individually later), and get a solid Recovery Act passed quickly.

[jwirr]

12. All of this actually creates jobs and those jobs create other jobs by

means of buying materials for these projects and the spending of wages. I also like that much of it is actually kind of green. They are just looking for something to bitch about. I didn't see the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on that list? They are the biggest pork barrel the military industrial complex could ever dream up. They are pug pork.

[avaistheone1]

13. Homeland Security does not need the palace they are trying to build themselves.

These dollars would be better spent building housing for our homeless, particularly are homeless veterans throughout this country.

[jwirr]

16. No, but that is not what the pugs are saying. I for one think that DHS

should be closed down and the work handed back to the FBI in a special division.

[avaistheone1]

21. I agree about closing DHS down.

[hileeopnyn8d]

14. Does anyone have

the text of the Senate bill?

I ask mostly because many of the things the right was harping about in the House Bill, wasn't even in there. Yet they kept repeating it as though it was fact.

[PVnRT]

15. Why the hell does the DHS need a new HQ?

They need to be disbanded, along with the Gestapo TSA.

[demo dutch]

17. Except FutureGen, lot's of pork, Pelosi is doing a bad job of controlling this, and I

think she really needs to go.