The Senate Republican written job "stimulus" plan was designed to fail

[Better Believe It]

Like I was saying almost 4 months ago.

Sun Jul-12-09 10:05 AM
Original message

Stating the obvious: Three Republican Senators (one of whom is allegedly now a Democrat) didn't write a plan that was designed to be a smashing success for President Obama and the Democratic Party. Does that really surprise anyone?

Leading economists, Noriel Roubini called it "puny", pointed out how weak the plan was for actual job creation when three Republican Senators gutted the House plan during conference.

And now we are paying the costs of a so-called "bi-partisan" stimulus agreement. Of course, Republicans can deny they had anything to do with it since it didn't get a single Republican vote in the House.

A powerful job stimulus plan that could have created several million useful public works/infrastructure jobs this year was not proposed by President Obama or the Democratic leadership in Congress. The sound job creation plan proposed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors was not even considered by President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership! For less than 200 billion dollars, the federal government could have finance over 18,000 useful infrastructure and public works jobs that would have employed 2 million people. All of those projects would have been started and completed before the end of next year.

The economy needed that kind of a powerful economic jolt. This will not happen under the Republican written and Democrat endorsed stimulus plan. A real job creating stimulus plan could have been passed by the Democratic controlled congress without any Republican votes in the Senate. A real Republican "filibuster" in the Senate against an economic recovery bill would have ended quickly with a cloture vote. And all we needed was 50 Senate votes to pass it with Biden passing the tie-breaker.

Now it will be very difficult to pass a badly needed second stimulus bill, especially when President Obama says he opposed to one!

As the saying goes, the Democrats "blew their wad" with the first bill.

If President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership doesn't get their act together and function as if they had won the 2008 elections, and do this soon, the Republicans will regain their control of Congress and the White House by 2012 with major congressional gains in the 2010 election.

Of course, the Republicans never did lose their control of Congress .... at least it seems that way.

ONCE AGAIN SOME HARD FACTS ON WHERE THE STIMULUS MONEY IS GOING

Only 101 billion of the 787 billion in stimulus money is for infrastructure!

And only a small fraction of that will be spent this year!

Out of 787 billion dollars in job "stimulus" funding here is what will be spent for actual infrastructure and energy job creation projects over the next several years.

Infrastructure - $101 Billion
$30B - Highways
$20B - School Renovation
$17B - Health Information Technology
$13B - Transportation Projects
$8B - Water Projects
$7B - Military and V.A. Construction
$6B - Accelerated Deployment of Broadband

Energy Efficiency - $59.5 Billion
$22B - Federal Energy Efficiency Grants
$19B - Other Energy Efficiency Grants
$11B - Smart Electric Grid
$8B - Renewable Energy Loan Guarantees

Tax Cuts - $314 Billion
$99B - Payroll-Tax Holiday
$90B - Business Expenses Tax Breaks
$25B - Earned Income Tax Credit
$20B - Renewable Energy Tax Credit
$10B - Tuition Tax Credit
$70B - AMT Tax Cut


That's pretty much it.

The three Republican Senators who wrote the stimulus bill took out 40 billion dollars for badly need school construction, tens of billions of dollars in other infrastructure funding and added the annual alternative minimum tax (AMT)fix to the bill in order jack up the amount of the stimulus bill without actually increasing any jobs! It was a non-stimulative addition to the bill. The 70 billion dollar tax cut was going to get passed by the Senate, as it has been every year, without including it in the stimulus package! Senator Grassley proposed adding the AMT fix.

The rest of the stimulus money is mainly for badly needed economic relief such as unemployment compensation and economic assistance to state/local governments. But, those monies won't create very many jobs for the unemployed while they will enable some government workers to keep their jobs for awhile.

Now you should understand why Roubini and other leading economists said the stimulus plan was totally inadequate for the task. Roubini was a little less diplomatic calling it "puny".

And now the Republicans have been put into the position where they can attack "the Obama stimulus" for not creating the millions of jobs promised!

Nice set-up. President Obama and Democratic Party Senate leaders fell for this Republican trap in their quest for a unnecessary and self-defeating "bi-partisanship".

The three Republican Senators (one now a Democrat) gutted the House stimulus plan. Mission accomplished!

Here's the rest of the stimulus breakdown:

Aids For State and Local Gov - $217 Billion
$87B - Medicaid Cost Sharing
$79B - State Grants
$42B - State and Local Bond Tax Credit
$5B - Community Development
$4B - Rural Development

Relief - $120 Billion
$42B - Expanded Unemployment Insurance
$40B - Health Insurance for Unemployed
$20B - Expanded Food Stamps
$11B - Housing Assistance
$4B- Supplemental Social Security Income Payments
$3B - Welfare

Human Capital - $45.5 Billion
$25B - Education Programs
$15B - Federal Pell Grants
$4B - Job Training
$2B - Scientific Research

[rurallib]

1. Looks like the anti-rec trolls got you

[Better Believe It]

2. They are just doing their job. Trying to stop any real debate and discussion on DU.

[Aramchek]

4. You must think very highly of yourself.

Your goals are neither high nor lofty.

You just don't like President Obama.
Simple as that.

[phleshdef]

6. No, people just don't like you. You are obnoxious to the point of turning people off from...

...anything you have to say. You could be making great points right and left but no one would know it because no one wants to pay attention to what you are saying because your daily quest to dig up anything bad on Obama that you possibly can has soured a good deal of the board on your posts.

Stop it with your obnoxious agenda and maybe you would get a different treatment.

[phleshdef]

3. Thats the kind of treatment you get when all you do it bitch, whine, moan, bitch and whine.

Productive dissent is one thing. But thats not what the poster in question engages in.

[Better Believe It]

7. Do you have an opinion on the article or would you rather just whine and moan about posters?

Posters that are far too liberal and progressive for your political tastes.

Hey .... let's hear it for bi-partisanship and moderate centrists! Yippee!

[phleshdef]

8. I don't want to dignify your agenda by giving your post authentic attention.

[Aramchek]

5. funny, in order for a thread to remain at subzero recs, the majority must unrec it

Are you saying that the majority here at DU are anti-rec trolls?

[paulk]

9. there certainly is a group of people here

(and you're one of them), who will unrec threads based on the author alone, and then post nonsense in an attempt to distract from any valid points the author may have made.

kind of like the argument you present, which is a classic strawman logical fallacy, btw -

the majority of people who unrec a thread only translates into people who have an opinion on that particular thread, not the majority of DU

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/ambiguity/straw-man/

[Aramchek]

14. for a thread to remain below zero, there must be more unrecs than recs

you know how it works.

if these threads are so great, why don't they get more recs?

it's because most people here actually don't recommend them.

[paulk]

15. there is a concerted effort by a large group of DUers

to shut off the discussion of ideas they not only disagree with, but don't want other people to even hear.

one of the ways this is accomplished is to unrec a thread, often without reading it, based on a dislike of the OP, or guessing at the OP's position based on their posting history...

I think it's bullshit, myself, and runs counter to what the Democratic Party is not only about, but what the party needs. We need to be talking about these issues, not shouting them down.

I'll tell you something - I think the OP raises some valid points in this thread - I probably disagree with him more often than not on other issues - but I'm always open to argument. The sort of tactics employed by you and others in, not only this thread, but others posted by this OP, make it far more likely that I'll listen more closely to his point of view than yours.

If you think the message he presents here is faulty, then argue against it instead of attacking the messenger.

[Aramchek]

17. it doesn't do any good to argue with this OP. he has an agenda and is sticking to it.

It's a shame you would rather identify with him than the majority of DUers.

and you know we are the majority. If you could see the actual count of unrecs, you would not have any question in this regard.

[paulk]

18. when you post on here, the person you're replying to is not the

only person who is going to read this. You may not change his mind, but perhaps you can change the mind of others.

"It's a shame that you would rather identify with him than the majority"

First of all, that's not what I said. Read the link upthread about strawmen. Seriously.

Second of all - that's a really strange thing to say. I should agree with the majority just because it's the majority? Should I have agreed with the Iraq invasion because the majority of Americans supported it? Should I have supported Bush when his approval ratings were over 90%?

[Aramchek]

19. no, you should agree with us, because in this case, the majority is right

[vaberella]

10. Just like your posts.

Only 13% of it the stimulus has been used.with 58% allocated...meaning we got a long way to go and nothing has been fully implemented, so we don't know if it's designed to fail since more than 80% is unused.

[quaker bill]

11. Indeed,

New stimulus funded public works construction projects are washing up on my desk for final environmental approval nearly everyday (it is part of what I do for a living). I cut the red tape and push them through as quickly as possible. These projects are now started, getting started, or will be underway in a few weeks, once bidding and contract awards are complete.

This part of my job began as a trickle late spring and has grown with each month that has passed since. While growing everyday, I would not expect the number of people employed by these projects to peak until sometime next year, based on what is coming across my desk.

[Better Believe It]

12. So you claim the Republican written stimulus plan is good enough?

And that a bold job creating stimulus plan isn't needed?

[phleshdef]

13. I'm still not convinced. Why don't you use the word "bold" some more.

[Better Believe It]

16. OK! I will! Here's a few examples of bold stimulus measures that can put millions back to work.

Read them and indicate why you think implementing these BOLD proposals would be harmful and should be opposed. After all, you apparently believe that the Senate Republican written stimulus plan is just wonderful and no futher measures are needed to put people back to work.

I'm listening!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8736738

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8736605

[quaker bill]

20. How would you draw that from my post?

I am simply reporting what I see everyday when I go to work. From what I am seeing directly, project by project, is that locally more of these projects will be coming on-line over the next several months. I know this to be true because I meet with local people managing the projects on a near daily basis.

This is far different than concluding that the projects being planned and implemented are sufficient to kick start the economy. In general, I recall bigger things happening when Clinton cut loose the federal highway trust fund in 1992, and the local economy was in bad, but markedly better shape then than it is now.

While I find from personal, direct, first hand experience that the impact of this stimulus has not yet come to be realized, I would fully support more aggressive measures toward full employment, as I always do, good times or bad.

[Better Believe It]

21. Thank you for the clarification. Have you checked out the stimulus proposals suggested?