The current amended bill.

Will this stimulus bill really be signed by February 16th? It’s not looking likely. On a positive note, today I had a direct deposit from our income tax return. We have needed a pressure cooker for quite a while and with a pressure cooker its worth spending a few extra bucks. Off we went to Kohl’s Department store. I pulled into the parking lot and the lot was a little more than half full which is good for a Tuesday morning. I walked into the store expecting to find some really amazing sales. Boy was I disappointed. Don’t get me wrong Kohl’s always has really good sales but I expected the sales to be plumped up a bit. I began thinking about the stimulus package that must be signed on February 16th or the US economy will be doomed for all eternity. A stimulus package that we have been told expecting perfection would be making an enemy of the “absolutely necessary”. I just can’t believe that. I pull into a store where its’ lot is about half full on a Tuesday morning and they had their usual sales on. No mention of a down economy, no sale signs with extra savings nothing special to attract more consumers. They sure didn’t forget to ask me if I wanted to apply for a Kohl’s credit card which I happily declined. See, I believe in true capitalism. We need to allow all privately owned companies to figure out how to work in real world. If they don’t understand that if you make bad decisions your company will go out of business then tough!  In todays world though I’m not sure if they even know what the real world is. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens next. 

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:18:./temp/~c111QbANFa::

Above is the link to the Stimulus package that is currently being debated on capital hill. The last count that I am aware of is 647 pages for this stimulus bill. The first page has several items that are questionably stimulative to our economy. The first item that I found questionable is the “Special Supplemental Nutrition for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)”. Yes, WIC is a very important program that helps many families in their time of need but how exactly does this stimulate the economy?

“Digital to Analog Converter Box Program” This program is now being extended until June 2009. I became aware of this program well over a year ago. I have seen my local new stations prepare my local community for this switch.  Again, my question to you is how is extending this program for another six months going to heal the wounds of our economy. Why does this have to be part of this specific bill? 

These are just two items in this massive bill that total over a billion dollars. The grand total comes to $1,150,000,000 dollars. I haven’t more than glanced over this massive spending bill but I’m already disgusted with the same old Washington tactics. Barrack Obama promised change in Washington. He stated that he would go thru the budget line by line. Why isn’t he taking the time to go thru this bill line by line?

I have heard Mr. Barrack Obama say, “But we can’t afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary”. And why can’t we? Why can’t we require more from Washington? And who says this is absolutely necessary? I remember several months ago when this economic crisis started. The world was going to stop if we did not do something to stimulate the economy. We were told that giving financial institutions over 700 billion dollar would be the right medicine. We did. Now more than half of the money that was given has been said to be a waste and can’t even be accounted for. For this reason we should require perfection or damn near close!