Posted on 01/29/2009 9:59:35 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
No requirement for a valid Social Security number. Why not save postage and just send them a certificate of citizenship and a voter registration card along with the check?
In yesterday’s report on the Hogzilla stimulus bill, we cited the Wall Street Journal editorial which draws attention to $83 billion for redistribution of wealth through tax refund checks to people who don’t pay income taxes. And you thought it wasn’t a vote buying bill?
Dick Morris describes the problem this way:
GOP, Push Free Enterprise
TownHall.com
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
January 28, 2009
…In the name of economic stimulus, it not only has every item any liberal ever asked of Santa Claus on Christmas eve, it also contains the seeds of a permanent shift toward a European-style socialist democracy. Its dramatic exemption of more than half of Americans from paying federal income taxes (it is now about one-third who don’t pay them) and its generosity in awarding this voting majority a welfare check — called a refundable tax credit — moves the politics of taxation sharply to the left.
But worse still, a loophole in the current bill:
Hill Republican: Stimulus aids illegal immigrants
The Associated Press
January 29, 2009WASHINGTON: A top Republican congressional aide says the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus measure could steer government checks to illegal immigrants.
Republican officials are concerned that the Democratic-written legislation makes people who came to the United States illegally eligible for tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple.
A House-passed version of the bill and one making its way through the Senate both disqualify nonresident aliens from receiving the credits. But neither requires a worker to have a Social Security number to get the credits.An economic aid measure enacted in February 2008 that sent rebates to most wage earners required that people have valid Social Security numbers in order to get checks.
With all the opportunities for corruption and waste in this bill, which is more than one third the amount we spent for the entire federal government in fiscal year 2008, no one should be surprised at this oversight. It’s one of many that are only now coming to light as the bill heads to the Senate.
Senate Republicans will do their best to block Hogzilla, but they can’t stop this trainwreck without a few defections from Democrats. We found 11 House Democrats with backbone. Are there at least one or two in the Senate?
FWIW - Here are the 11 Dems who voted against the “Screw Us/Stimulus” Bill.
Allen Boyd - FL
Bobby Bright - AL
Jim Cooper - TN
Brad Ellsworth - IN
Parker Griffith - AL
Paul Kanjorski - PA
Frank Kratovil - MD
Walt Minnick - ID
Collin Peterson - MN
Heath Shuler - NC
Gene Taylor - MS
lets keep up the pressure on the red dog senators, the senators who are up for re-election and the RINO’s.
Just make sure you have a zip code for those who you call as I made a bunch of calls and mail to many reps and senators and sen Nelson who isn’t my rep asked me for a zip of where I lived so quickly I had to find one while I kept the guy talking
as well as ACORN getting a couple of billion to be used against us in the next election
more handouts to those who do not work in the way of food stamps, WIC programmes, free after school and free houses getting built for who claim to be poor even though some make thousands a week on selling drugs.
This whole thing is a pork bill , laden with thank you pays offs to unions like the teachers union
Great Graphic.
Stocks fall on fresh worries about economy
Jan 29, 11:59 AM (ET)
By TIM PARADIS
(AP) Specialist Scott Mazzella works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday,...
NEW YORK (AP) - Caution returned to Wall Street Thursday as weak earnings reports and record unemployment claims offered the latest evidence of the economy’s struggles.
Stocks fell sharply after soaring Wednesday on hopes the government will develop a way to remove bad debt from banks’ books. All the major indexes lost more than 1 percent Thursday. Some pullback was to be expected after the Standard & Poor’s 500 index put up its first four-day advance since November.
Investors’ mood darkened after companies from Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) to chip maker Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) reported that profits tumbled the final three months of 2008.
What a country.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
GOP Says NO
Posted by: Amanda Carpenter at 8:30 PM
Barack Obama’s pork-stuffed $825 billion stimulus bill passed the House this evening, but it didn’t gain a single vote of support from the GOP.
Not a one.
The Republicans complete unwillingness to vote for the bill is a blow to the new President, who spent a considerable amount of time on Capitol Hill this week lobbying for votes.
Obama failed miserably. The controversial spending package passed entirely with Democratic votes.
11 Democrats crossed party lines to oppose the bill with Republicans, which has prompted the the GOP to tell media, “the only bipartisanship was in opposition to this bill,” as Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) in a statement.
It should be noted that the new House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R.-Va.), who is in charge of corralling and as his title dictates, whipping votes, surely played lead role in this feat.
Now the bill will be sent to the Senate, where Obama said he’d like to see 80 senators vote for the bill. That may be difficult. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seems to be following the House GOP’s lead. He issued a statement after the House vote titled “Bipartisan rejection of a partisan plan.”
http://560wind.townhall.com/blog/g/7e795e86-481e-4eac-9960-c36506b2294e
I like that title....From Flopping Aces:
*************************EXCERPT**************************
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday morning that Democrats in Congress are “drifting away” from Obama’s preferred stimulus plan, which was supposed to include 40 percent tax cuts and be free of earmarks.
“Listening to what he said he wanted, we think we may be closer to that, oddly enough, than the Democratic majority, which seems to be pulling in the direction of fewer tax — less tax relief and things like fixing up the [National] Mall. You know, most people don’t think that’s the way we ought to spend stimulus money,” McConnell said.
From this entry:
How many votes can $1.2 TRILLION Buy?
******************************EXCERPT************************
Both House and Senate [searchable text] versions of the bill are staggering in the amounts and the sheer complexity and scope of the legislation. The Wall Street Journal sums it up by calling it “A 40-Year Wish List:”
A 40-Year Wish List
You won’t believe what’s in that stimulus bill.
The Wall Street Journal
January 28, 2009…This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.
We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it. There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.
In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make “dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy.” Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There’s another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.
Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren’t likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President’s new budget director, told Congress a year ago, “even those [public works] that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.”
Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?
Another “stimulus” secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments — that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There’s $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren’t job creators.
As for the promise of accountability, some $54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as “ineffective” or unable to pass basic financial audits. These include the Economic Development Administration, the Small Business Administration, the 10 federal job training programs, and many more.
Oh, and don’t forget education, which would get $66 billion more. That’s more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush. Some $6 billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that “No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools.” Horrors: Some money might go to nonunion teachers.
The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will become part of the annual “budget baseline” that Congress uses as the new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it’s hard — no, impossible — to believe that Congress will cut spending next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels.
The Wall Street Journal scratches just the tip of a the most monstrous iceberg of congressional pork spending of all time. That may be Democrats objective. Load this Hogzilla up with so much crap that it just overwhelms us all.
Whether it’s education and environmental groups or ACORN this bill is starting to look like one massive pay for play reward to loyal Democrat supporters.
We all noted this before the election and HERE IT IS.
VOTE BUYING ON THE MOST MASSIVE SCALE EVER SEEN IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY.
so depressing...
Thanks Ernest.
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