Every day my Google Reader is filled with tons of new posts, some of them are funny, some are informative, some are interesting, some are illustrated and some are from TKC. Sometimes it’s neat to see how different people reflect on the same events, viewpoints separated or sometimes united by income, education or political affiliation.
I mostly refrained from commenting on the current economic situation and what the President and Congress are doing about it, but yesterday’s post by Scott Adams did a pretty good job of expressing my views on the subject:
Our government is preparing to pass something called a stimulus package. According to the experts, this stimulus package won’t directly stimulate much of anything in the short term, when we need it. But with any luck it will bamboozle a hundred million morons into thinking their government did something useful, and that in turn will cause them to become more confident and spend additional money on cigarettes and lottery tickets, thus stimulating the economy.
Reading various reports of all the pork in the bill and President’s insistence on signing it by self-imposed deadline I can’t help but be curious why is it being rushed without letting the taxpayers take a good look at what’s in it. Obviously no sane person expects recovery the next day after the bill is signed so it can easily wait a day or two, but we are being told that we don’t care about the “little porky amendments”. As Scott Adams points out:
The other funny thing is that no one is trying to hide the fact that the entire plan depends on bamboozling the aggressively ignorant portion of the population.
The fact that the country is being bamboozled doesn’t stop people from giving virtual blowjobs to the President, luckily there is plenty of room behind the new (old) podium for just that.
I agree that he struggled to “find his words”. But that wasn’t a problem for me. That’s because he took the time to think about what he was about to say before he opened his mouth.
You know who else does that? I do, because English is my second language. Pausing before you say something is not a sign of great thinker, I am obviously not one.
Speaking about great thinkers, GoneMild is coming up with creative new ways to shake down captive nonresident taxpayers who subsidize Kansas City, MO by paying the Earnings Tax. According to this presentation on KCMO website, only “25% of large urban cities have a local income tax”, so the other 75% are able to do without it. I was asked how I would replace the lost revenue if the Earnings Tax was repealed. The answer is: tax your own citizens and create conditions where people will spend money and generate other taxes for your city. Hopefully potential employers are taking 1% tax into account when considering relocation and avoiding subjecting their employees to extra expense. My employer unfortunately didn’t.
On a lighter note, this commercial for some European informational service shows a guy calling in to ask how to spell death. The operator spells out “d-e-a-t-h”:
Lastly, Bob Marley may be dead but his hair was bleached and reincarnated.
I consider you a great thinker. Sometimes you make ME think, which isn’t that easy to do; for the most part I’m too lazy to do any deep thinking.
Yesterday morning I read HSWG’s entry, the one you link to here, then went on to read another blog; I had to laugh at how different their descriptions were of the president. I could have been reading about two different men!
Perhaps there is no real Obama. Maybe all that exists is our perceptions of him.
You’re kind of all over the place. That’s not a criticism, I make posts like that all the time. Just makes it harder for a comment to make sense.
I agree that the stimulus package is stimulating the wrong part of the academy. I love it when Rachel Maddow went after Ben Nelson on her show because foodstamps(one of the largest stimulus areas because people HAVE to spend it or throw it away) didn’t get more attention in this bill(http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_02/016832.php)
As for the president searching for words, I do consider silence to be a sign of either intelligence or discipline. Either way, it doesn’t bother me if important people stumble to find the right words.
I know I certainly don’t want any road work or school improvements in my area. Get the government the hell off my back, and keep your damned tax cuts while you’re at it. Dirty politicians…
I get the irony but with all the good things there are expenses in the bill that only certain people care about who paid/bribed their representative. It’s similar to the funeral industry, when they know you are not thinking clearly and stick you with overpriced, unnecessary shit. Radically new way of doing and removing as much waste as possible would be a stimulus bill written on one page, 10 items or less. Identify 10 areas that need money i.e unemployment/medical coverage/other measures to prevent food riots will be item 1; spending on schools/education will be item 2,etc. Each should be assigned an amount of money based on importance. Like supporting unemployed people is priority 1, AIDS education in Africa priority 10. Each item on the bill gets one executive in charge reporting to the president. Funds distributed based on acceptable criteria, i.e. number of students in the district, so we don’t have some districts buying laptops for everyone (unless that district funds it from property taxes) and other districs who can’t pay heating bill. One page, 10 items, clear structure, trasnparent spending. Stimulus bill passed yesterday is no different than if Bush wrote it, no hope,no change, no shit.
Calling this mess a “stimulus package” is like calling a bon bon a pork roast.
So basically you’d rather the legislature just cede nearly all authority to the office of the president on this matter. Let his cronies determine precisely who the winners and losers will be. After eight years of Bush, I’m not sure that’s something I’m ready to accept for any president.
I meant something like independent executors. People who won’t owe anybody any favors, but who cares about details. I am just saying if someone wanted to do something new and revolutionary, there are ways to do it where no one (almost) would be able to say that the money were wasted on pet (literally) projects by crooked scumbags in congress.
Hey, I’m all for preserving that little harvest mouse in Nancy Pelosi’s district with my tax dollar as long as they multiple enough to overrun San Francisco and in particular Nancy Pelosi’s house. The thought of the 30 million dollars to do that job really “stimulates” me.
I think the thing that sticks out in my mind, is the supposed tax breaks for working americans. Latest number thrown around is 800 for couples, 400 for individuals. Sounds good, assuming it is in the form of a check, which it isn’t. It is a payroll tax cut, translating to 13 bucks a week on your check. 52 bucks a month isnt going to make a big difference to anyone. I was all for Obama, still support him, but I am starting to feel like you in that, it seems more like the same ol shit. I suppose time will tell, I hope we are both wrong.