Tag: stimulus

38 ideas for stimulus bill revisited

38 ideas for stimulus bill revisited

I am not a big fan of federal government spending.  There are few times when I think that the government can do a more effective job of spending than my local municipalities where they are far more accessible to my influence.  However, the current economy definitely needs a kick-in-the-butt and so I supported the stimulus bill (now called “Economic Stimulus Package Act of 2008“) if it really is going to be used for getting things done on a local level.

I wrote about this back in February in my article “38 ways to fill the stimulus bill with pork and save our economy“.  I still question that the stimulus is being adequately implemented but an article in the Sunday edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer gives me some hope.  This is exactly what we should do as a stimulus – create hundreds of small projects that will get people in the local communities working.  I only hope that most of the jobs the article cites were contractors as opposed to government workers.  As contractors, this will insure that these entrepreneurs stay in business and can augment this public money with some private sector jobs and keep these workers on their payroll.

Perhaps more of this money should be doled out to the local municipalities instead funding TARP.

In keeping with my tradition, I am not reprinting the article in its entirety.  Please click through and read the entire story but here is the beginning discussion.

The sidewalks on Mandarin Court in Forest Park are set to be replaced using federal stimulus money.

 

Stimulus benefits big – and small

President Obama may have been thinking big with his $787 billion stimulus package, but his counterparts in local government are thinking decidedly small.

As local cities and counties put together their applications for some of their first tastes of stimulus money, they’ve come up with block grant applications where the typical project costs less than $250,000.

The city of Covington, for example, has broken down its line items as small as $1,650 each – to replace 117 curb ramps in the neighborhood around Decoursey and Winston avenues, to make them handicapped-accessible. Cincinnati is giving out grants as small as $8,556 for a program to prevent teen pregnancy and violence.

The list of local applications for the Community Development Block Grants also includes $61,200 for sidewalks in Forest Park, $93,000 for air conditioners in Sharonville and $56,008 for playground renovations in Hamilton.

In Woodlawn and Lincoln Heights, taxpayers will spend $100,000 to resurface one-seventh of a mile of Prairie Avenue, and install curbs for 20 houses along the way – a project that Rev. Jesse O’Conner hopes will stop the flooding in his basement.

Without curbs or gutters, rainwater comes down the street and settles on his property. He’s even had precast concrete parking blocks installed in place of curbs in an effort to prevent floods like the one that put eight inches of water in his basement last week.

“We need to get people working again, spending money,” said O’Conner, a General Electric retiree who’s lived on the street since 1954. “It needs to be spent, not put in the bank somewhere.”

Those projects may sound like small potatoes in the context of a spending plan usually measured in the millions, billions and even trillions. But local officials say it’s important that smaller communities aren’t forgotten in the effort to pump federal taxpayer money into the economy.

“So far, everything coming out of the stimulus has been mega-projects that only big communities get,” said Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper. “We heard a lot of discussion from smaller communities who said, ‘What about us?'”

Local governments in the region have been allocated more than $5.3 million in additional community development block grants, Applications for specific projects were due Friday, and governments are guaranteed to receive the funds as long as they meet federal criteria.

They hope to get some of that money in time for summer construction, though it may come as late as Sept. 30.

Is the President lying about jobs creation?

Is the President lying about jobs creation?

Is President Barack Hussein Obama lying

I am sure that he doesn’t think he is.  I am sure that if you parse his words he would point out that he didn’t say that Caterpillar would be able to re-hire those laid off employees immediately.  And I am sure that he would say that if Congress would pass HIS package (rather than the compromise package) then the CAT employees would get to work a lot faster.

While we all know when politicians are lying (their mouth is moving), it is not inconceivable that the CEO of Caterpillar told BHO one thing in private and another on television.  On TV, his statements would have been closely followed by investors and so his honesty factor has to go way up.  He could get into all kinds of trouble if he said that he thought he could bring back workers and then announce that he was just kidding.

The reality is that this stimulus bill doesn’t have a lot of stimulus in it.  I wrote about what it should have in it, but I am not naive enough to believe that congressional leaders are regularly reading my site to understand what they should do.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6866999

Obama vs Jim Owens CEO of Caterpillar

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38 ways to fill the stimulus bill with pork and save our economy

38 ways to fill the stimulus bill with pork and save our economy

There has been quite a bit of complaining that the current stimulus bill that was just passed by the House and is going to Senate is filled with pork and special spending projects. This is a silly complaint – of course it is!

The bill is a spending bill.  It should be loaded to the gills with pork.  That is what spending bills do – they spend money.  In fact, it should have so much pork in it that a reasonably religious person of Jewish descent should run for the hills!

Of course, it shouldn’t have silly things in it like contraceptives.  That does nothing for the economy despite the silliness of Ms. Pelosi.  But it should be filled with pet projects from every mayor and county commissioner in the land.  If the mayor of a 20-30,000 citizen city CAN’T get a million or two out of this bill – they should be run out of town!  In case there are any mayors or governors out there that can’t figure out what to ask for that they can spend money on RIGHT NOW then I made a list of projects that they should consider.

The overall goals for the pork should be to get people working, spending money, and kickstart the economy.  We know that housing is hurting.  Housing has a couple of different contributors to the economy but mostly it is the sale of the raw materials and the employment of the laborers.  Let’s get them all going again.  Also, since we want to make ourselves as efficient as possible, lets try to do things that will help the environment a bit as well. Finally, in the cases where we have to buy some products, lets try to keep them mostly made in the good old USA.

This bill should be absolutely packed with new bridges, roads, baseball parks, swimming pools and public gymnasiums.  Some of these new bridges and roads may not be able to be “shovel ready” so let’s expand the list a bit.  Many of these things that I list will take labor to install (which is a good thing), labor to manufacture and ship (more good) and raise everyone’s spirits a bit as well.

  1. The schools should be talking about new wings, and new fields (as well as bonuses for their worthy teachers).
  2. Every school desk that is older than 10 years old should be replaced (and the old one should be put on some of those empty cargo containers and sent to Africa)
  3. Replace every chalkboard that is over 10 years old in every school in the land.
  4. Buy a dictionary for every student (while you are at it – throw in the works of Mark Twain, Jack London, Edgar Rice Borroughs, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and HG Wells)
  5. We should be painting every curb and park bench in every town in the land.
  6. We should have armies of unemployed people walking the highways and byways and rivers collecting trash and cleaning up stuff (zero unemployment right there).
  7. We should replace every single bathroom fixture in every public school and government building that is older than 10 years old (that should keep some plumbers busy).
  8. Every government parking lot should be cleaned and relined.
  9. Every public basketball court, tennis court and soccer field should be repainted and new fixtures installed.
  10. Every school classroom that has not been painted in the last 10 years should be repainted.
  11. We should buy 10 reams of paper for every student in the land and deliver it to the school that they are attending (throw in some pencils too) (keep some factories busy).
  12. Give every teacher of a public school a laptop (keep some factories busy).
  13. Wire every school in the land for the Internet (keep some electricians busy).
  14. Put one computer for every 5 students into every school in the country (more factories churning away).
  15. Provide every student over the age of 10 with a high end calculator (and still more factories).
  16. We should plant wildflowers in every mile of every median of every interstate in the country (when all the unemployed from 6 get done cleaning up, they can go back and plant flowers – more zero unemployment).
  17. Every public pool should be drained and painted (we might run out of painters with all of my ideas).
  18. Every park bench over 10 years old should be rebuilt.
  19. Every park should get a double amount of picnic benches made out of wood.
  20. Every park should get an outdoor shelter (don’t forget that we need the carpenters to be busy).
  21. Any park that has a swing set or recreational set older than 10 years should replace it with a new one.
  22. Every window that is older than 15 years of every government building should be replaced.
  23. Every government park or parking lot or basketball court that has a chain link fence around it older than 10 years should be replaced (more factories).
  24. We should give 50 yards of 3 inch insulation to every family with an income under 50K so that they can cut their heat bills (and undoubtedly pay a worthy carpenter to install it).
  25. We should give new high efficient windows to every home that is over 20 years old and is owned and lived in by a family with an income under 50K provided the installation is done by a qualified installer.
  26. We should paint and re-shingle every home that is over 20 years old and is owned and lived in by a family with an income under 50K provided the work is done by a qualified installer.
  27. We should put a high efficient water heater and furnace in every home that is over 30 years old and is owned and lived in by a family with an income under 50K provided the work is done by a qualified installer.
  28. We should plant 15 new trees on the grounds of every school, federal, state, city and county building (good for the unemployed to do this and also good for the environment).
  29. Every public bus, fire truck, police car and school bus should get new tires, new hoses, and new brakes (keep the mechanics and the factories working).
  30. Every public bus should be converted to natural gas.
  31. The government should offer to match 50 cents on the dollar for the downpayment of any car that is 55% made in the USA (lets get GM, Chrysler, and Ford out of the red).
  32. Every farmer should be given the opportunity to have a 50 cents on the dollar match for the downpayment of any one piece of farm equipment (Cummins, Deere, and Caterpillar need to get going too).
  33. Any fluorescent bulb in any government building or school that is not a high frequency bulb should be replaced.
  34. Every city over 50,000 should install wi-fi throughout their city and then allow companies to bid on running the service (stimulate new business as well as employ some electricians).
  35. Free admission to any zoo or museum for the months of June through August (lets fill these with kids so that they learn and at the same time pump the money into these facilities).
  36. $100,000 grant that matches dollar to dollar to any city over the size of 5,000 for fireworks on July 4, 2009 (everyone will feel better for this and that will help turn things around).
  37. Employ every orchestra and symphony in the land to give free concerts in the park every Saturday night (let’s get people out and feeling happy again)
  38. A free turkey or ham on Thanksgiving to any family with an income under 50K.

There should be no way we should need to spend money on things like contraceptives. The list is too easy to generate on things that would improve infrastructure, make the world a bit nicer, use materials that are produced in the US and employ manual laborers to install.

I am sure that I missed things but literally this list took only 5 minutes of thought to create and I probably spent a couple hundred billion dollars and employed between 50,000 and 100,000 people for at least 1 year.  This doesn’t include any big projects like roads and bridges that are already able to be funded but were trying to find the funds.  It also doesn’t factor in any multiplier effect that will occur by the spending of this money. 

If you agree that this list is on the right track – send it to you Senator and your Congressman.  While you are at it, send the list to your Mayor and Governor.

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Who is controlling President Barack Hussein Obama?

Who is controlling President Barack Hussein Obama?

There seems to be a general trend lately that Barack Hussein Obama (BHO) is not really running things in the current administration.  Let’s point out a few examples:

  1. Former Senate Majority Tim Daschle, according to the NY Times, appeared to know that he owed backtaxes back in June but didn’t bother to tell the vetting team for his nomination to Secretary.  Why would he do that?  Simple, he didn’t feel the need to tell them because he already had it pre-wired that he would get confirmed even with that blemish on his record.
  2. Earlier, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was nominated to his job even though he owed taxes (remember this is the guy that is running the IRS).  He sailed through confirmations.
  3. And, of course, even though BHO went to the Republicans to get their help on the stimulus package and the Republicans came up with some ideas and issues, Madame Pelosi rammed the bill through the House without the aid or consideration of BHO or the other party.

Of course, as I say in my About message above, I may be wrong.  But that would mean that BHO is simply naive and foolish in his selections.  I prefer to believe that BHO does have the wisdom to do the job.  Even though this quote by Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, gives me pause: “The president believes that nobody is perfect, but that nobody is trying to hide anything.”  While the former is true, I really have a hard time fathoming that anyone over the age of 14 believes the latter – didn’t the guy ever date?

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