Free Republic

...Isakson had to be tempted because he’d succeeded in getting a $15,000 tax credit for those who buy a primary residence, something he thinks essential to jump-start the housing sector. Had he agreed to support the pent-up demands of Democrats who’d had their spending ambitions partially checked for eight years, his tax credit language would undoubtedly have stayed in the final bill. He, too, could have stood with Reid and received the showering of blessings as a Great American Patriot that Reid bestowed on Collins, Specter and Snowe. That photo op would, of course, have been political suicide back in...

While everyone is distracted with the Pelosi Reid Obama artery–choking, cardiac arrest, Pork Barrel Spending Bill, congress is sneaking-ly trying to pass the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. Left-wing environmentalists are behind this bill to purposely undercut current progress toward affordable domestic energy. Essentially they will be stealing 300 million barrels of proven oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from any future use.

WASHINGTON - "Fore!" The federal government is preparing to spend millions to purchase a fleet of small electric vehicles that critics compare to golf carts. The $838 billion economic stimulus bill that passed the Senate yesterday contains $300 million for the government to purchase a fleet of "green" cars. But the money won't just go to buy fuel-efficient hybrids such as the Ford Escape or Chevy Volt. The cash also can be used to purchase "neighborhood electric vehicles." The NEVs, which resemble streamlined golf carts, scoot at up to 25 mph, operate on battery power and can be plugged into...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says Caterpillar's chief executive has told him the company will rehire some laid-off workers if the stimulus bill passes. The heavy equipment maker announced more than 22,000 job cuts last month as it scales back production amid the economic slowdown. During a visit to a transportation construction site just outside Washington in Springfield, Va., on Wednesday, Obama urged Congress to pass the bill. The House and Senate are

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the far left anti-gun group under investigation for voter fraud, could be eligible to receive millions, if not billions of dollars from the economic bailout bill that passed out of the House of Representatives. ACORN was an aggressive supporter of Barack Obama -- who had served as the group's legal counsel and even trained ACORN in "community organizing" -- in the presidential election. The Obama campaign even paid the group $800,000 for "voter turnout," the very activities that came under scrutiny by the FBI. In October 2008, ACORN's Las Vegas office...

Covertly slipped into GL Obama’s faux “stimulus bill” last weekend—by leftist Democrats—was the Socialist Universal Healthcare program. Contained within the bill is the provision that doctors will now be forced to report any and all of their patient treatments to the federal government for approval to treat. Also contained within this portion of Obama’s non-stimulus bill is the rationing of healthcare services to senior US citizens and the withholding of potentially life-saving measures. As Democrat Tom Daschle wrote in his book “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis” senior citizens “should be more accepting of the conditions that...

American Patrol Report Opinion -- February 1 The Senate passed a stimulus bill has $9.6 billion in aid for California's Medicaid system (medical care for low income families). The house version has $11 billion. The House version has $7.9 billion for California's education system. The Senate version has $4 billion. The fight between the House and Senate is over whether California gets $18.9 billion for schools and health care, or $13.6 billion. And there is much more for California buried in the bill. Illegal immigrants and their anchor baby children cost California about $10 billion per year and this is...

The Senate has passed an $838 billion economic stimulus package with a vote of 61-37. The Senate bill as it stands allows for the hiring of illegal aliens. The House and Senate will now confer to come up with a unified proposal that will then need approval from both the House and Senate before being sent to the President. Both the Senate Democrats and Republicans have named their conferees, which

Buried in the bowels of the stimulus plan the Senate passed Tuesday are key healthcare provisions that will set America on the road to socialized medicine, involve the government in your choice of a doctor, and inevitably trigger another funding crisis that will be used to justify still greater federal intervention in America’s healthcare industry, experts tell Newsmax. Among the most controversial parts of the bill are new federal guidelines that will require the government, rather than a doctor, to decide whether a patient should get medical care. Ironically, the stimulus bill that will cost more than $1 trillion will...

The current version of the Senate’s stimulus bill would provide about 300,000 jobs in the construction industry to illegal aliens since it does not contain the E-Verify mandate of the House bill. A Heritage Foundation study by Robert Rector used the government’s own figures to arrive at that figure. The Senate bill would provide about $104 billion in funding for construction projects, creating jobs for about 2.04 million construction workers over several years.