Of the $825 billion of what the administration is calling an economic stimulus bill, only $275 billion of it goes towards actual economic stimulus. The rest is merely spending money on projects that generate no stimulus to the economy. Like Rahm Emanual said a short time ago, let’s not miss our chance to advance our agenda during the economic crisis.
Here is his exact quote from the Sunday CBS show Face The Nation, November 9, four days after the election . . .
“Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” Mr. Emanuel said in an interview on Sunday. “They are opportunities to do big things.”
And this is exactly what is happening.
No longer are they described as a stimulus. They are described as investments. Which is democrat-speak for big spending programs that advance the party agenda, NOT providing an economic stimulus.
Among those “priority investments” are:
— $650 million to help Americans upgrade to digital cable reception after the official transition to digital television transmission on Feb. 17, 2009.
— $44 million to repair and improve the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.
— $276 million to upgrade and modernize information technology at the State Department.
— $3.1 billion to fund “infrastructure projects” on federal land, including $1.8 billion for the National Park Service, $650 million for the U.S. Forest Service, and $300 million for the National Fish Hatcheries.
— $600 million for NASA, including $400 million for projects such as “satellite sensors that measure solar radiation critical to understanding climate change.”
— $1.9 billion for the Department of Energy for “basic research into the physical sciences,” including nuclear physics and fusion energy.
— $209 million for maintenance work at the federal Agricultural Research Service’s research facilities across the country.
— $400 million in repairs to various “national treasures,” including $200 million for revitalizing the National Mall, $150 for maintenance at the Smithsonian Institution, and $50 million to make up for a lack of philanthropic support for the arts.
— $850 million for “wildland fire management,” including $550 million to states for “volunteer fire assistance,” “city forest enhancements” and “wood to energy” projects.
— $400 million for “habitat restoration” projects to be doled out by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
— $2.7 billion for “rural water and waste disposal” grant programs for providing loans for digging wells or extending municipal water services in rural areas.
— $2 billion to provide day care services to 300,000 additional low-income children, ostensibly while their parents are at work.
— $1.2 billion to create an estimated 1 million summer jobs for young people.
— $2.5 billion to upgrade government-owned housing projects with new insulation, windows, and furnaces.
— $6.2 billion to weatherize the homes of low-income people to make them more energy efficient.
— $2.4 billion for projects demonstrating carbon-capture technology.
— $600 million to “prepare our country for universal healthcare” by training more doctors, dentists, and nurses.
— $1.5 billion to build new “Community Health Centers.”
— $20 billion to provide “nutrition assistance” for middle-income families and to lift restrictions on how long people can receive food stamps.
— An undisclosed amount to “provide 100 percent federal funding through 2010 for optional State Medicaid coverage of individuals (and their dependents) who are receiving unemployment benefits or have exhausted those benefits.”
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