Tentative Deal Reached on teh Stimulus

[Tarheel]

We're all Fucked.  Back room negotiations involving Reid, Rahm Emmanuel, and senate RINOs should have all of us taxpayers very, very worried.

And just so you'll know just how much we're fucked here's what the price tag really looks like (taking a cue from Drudge):

$780,000,000,000.00

The story from Breitbart.com:

Officials say tentative stimulus deal reached     
Feb 6 07:10 PM US/Eastern
By ANDREW TAYLOR

WASHINGTON (AP) - Amid stunning new job losses and yet another bank failure, key senators and the White House reached tentative agreement Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at the heart of President Barack Obama's recovery plan. Two officials said the emerging agreement was for a bill with a $780 billion price tag, but there was no immediate confirmation.

The tentative agreement capped a tense day of back room negotiations in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joined by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, sought to attract the support of enough Republicans to give the measure the needed 60-vote majority.

Officials strongly suggested that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's vote would be needed to assure passage. The Massachusetts Democrat, battling a brain tumor, has been in Florida in recent days and has not been in the Capitol since suffering a seizure on Inauguration Day more than two weeks ago. The senator's office did not comment.

Reid met privately in the Capitol with members of his rank-and-file to present the proposed deal.

At $780 billion, the legislation would be smaller than the measure that cleared the House on a party-line vote last week. It also would mean a sharp cut from the bill that has been the subject of Senate debate for a week. That measure stood at $937 billion.

Beyond the numbers, though, any agreement would mark a victory for the new president and would keep Democratic leaders on track to fulfill their promise of delivering him a bill to sign by the end of next week.

Earlier Friday, Obama said further delay would be "inexcusable and irresponsible" given the worst monthly jobs report in a generation—598,000 positions lost in January and the national unemployment rate rising to 7.6 percent. Late in the day federal regulators announced the closure of First Bank Financial Services in Georgia, the seventh failure this year of a federally insured bank.

At the Capitol, the tension was thick.
...

Full story:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D966D55O0&show_article=1

[RWS]

We're all Fucked.  Back room negotiations involving Reid, Rahm Emmanuel, and senate RINOs should have all of us taxpayers very, very worried.

And just so you'll know just how much we're fucked here's what the price tag really looks like (taking a cue from Drudge):

$780,000,000,000.00

The story from Breitbart.com:

Full story:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D966D55O0&show_article=1

Whats inexcusable and irresponsible is ANOTHER stimulus plan when the first one didn't do shit. Guess what? Alot of those unemployed fuckers are going to take that cash and be able to be unemployed alot longer. Then when that money runs out, they're still going to be unemployed. Maybe I just don't see the big picture, and these guys are just way smarter than me. I just don't see how spending money that we don't have is going to fix a situation caused by spending more money we don't have. And if this doesn't work, we'll just spend even more money that we don't have to try and fix everything. What was SO wrong about just not spending anymore money, and letting all of this shit work itself out on its own?

[GarMan]

Whats inexcusable and irresponsible is ANOTHER stimulus plan when the first one didn't do shit. Guess what? Alot of those unemployed fuckers are going to take that cash and be able to be unemployed alot longer. Then when that money runs out, they're still going to be unemployed. Maybe I just don't see the big picture, and these guys are just way smarter than me. I just don't see how spending money that we don't have is going to fix a situation caused by spending more money we don't have. And if this doesn't work, we'll just spend even more money that we don't have to try and fix everything. What was SO wrong about just not spending anymore money, and letting all of this shit work itself out on its own?

It's gubm'et.  Don't try to understand it.  It doesn't make any sense.  They're just a bunch of clowns who won popularity contests in their home towns.  They're no more smarter than you.  They're just out to buy votes. 

[Ranger12]

DC politicians are not any smarter then most of us. They just had the right connections and deep enough pockets to get where they are at. I always found it ironic how the democrats always accused the republicans of being for the rich, when all the democrats, like the Kennedy's and Clintons, are not exactly what I would call middle class.

[GarMan]

DC politicians are not any smarter then most of us. They just had the right connections and deep enough pockets to get where they are at. I always found it ironic how the democrats always accused the republicans of being for the rich, when all the democrats, like the Kennedy's and Clintons, are not exactly what I would call middle class.

Speaking about the money side of this, there was a study several years ago that showed two things...
1. There were far more millionaire Democrat politicians in both houses.
2. Far more wealthy Democrat politicians come from inherited family wealth, where far more wealthy Republican politicians come from earned wealth having built businesses in the private sector or climbed the corporate ladder. 

That says something...

[Tarheel]

Whats inexcusable and irresponsible is ANOTHER stimulus plan when the first one didn't do shit. Guess what? Alot of those unemployed fuckers are going to take that cash and be able to be unemployed alot longer. Then when that money runs out, they're still going to be unemployed. Maybe I just don't see the big picture, and these guys are just way smarter than me. I just don't see how spending money that we don't have is going to fix a situation caused by spending more money we don't have. And if this doesn't work, we'll just spend even more money that we don't have to try and fix everything. What was SO wrong about just not spending anymore money, and letting all of this shit work itself out on its own?

I'm not picking on you 'rws' so don't take my parroting of GarMan and "Navy 12" as ganging up on you because it's not intended that way; but they are right.  These folk are no smarter than you or I.  Politics is a hobby of mine and I watch (and, more importantly, listen) to these so-called leaders all the time; most of them are just as vacuous as The ONE himself. 

For example, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was asked repeated by Greta van Frankenstein (on FoxNews last night) to explain how they come up with the exacting figures used to develop the stimulus package...she could not answer the question, she spoke in circles, she evaded, and then took mild offense that Greta pressed her on the issue.  But she never answered the question...not because she didn't want to...because she didn't know and she didn't want to say that she didn't know.

Truly, they don't know what they hell they are doing...they are just throwing good money after bad (just like the Democrats socialists have been doing for edumacation for years) hoping it'll fix the problem and make them look like they are doing something when all they are doing is buying votes in their districts with pet projects and funds for pet interest groups.

Keep on posting 'rws'.

[Townhallsavoy]

Whats inexcusable and irresponsible is ANOTHER stimulus plan when the first one didn't do shit. Guess what? Alot of those unemployed fuckers are going to take that cash and be able to be unemployed alot longer. Then when that money runs out, they're still going to be unemployed. Maybe I just don't see the big picture, and these guys are just way smarter than me. I just don't see how spending money that we don't have is going to fix a situation caused by spending more money we don't have. And if this doesn't work, we'll just spend even more money that we don't have to try and fix everything. What was SO wrong about just not spending anymore money, and letting all of this shit work itself out on its own?

Here's an analogy - think about when you've got a BIG shit wanting to come out because you've eaten a BIG steak the night before.  You had no bread, beer, or fiber of any kind to go with it.  How bad does it hurt to push that son-bitch out of there? 

People do NOT want to go through the process of letting the economy fix itself.  It woud hurt everyone pretty bad.  Neither party wants to be responsible for causing the pain and the bad press.   

You know how politics work - if the Dems don't pass this stimulus plan to make everyone somewhat happen for a few years, the Republicans will say, "Look what the Democrats did to cause all this!"  Vice versa. 

Political parties are killing this country. 

[Tarheel]

Here's an analogy - think about when you've got a BIG shit wanting to come out because you've eaten a BIG steak the night before.  You had no bread, beer, or fiber of any kind to go with it.  How bad does it hurt to push that son-bitch out of there? 

People do NOT want to go through the process of letting the economy fix itself.  It woud hurt everyone pretty bad.  Neither party wants to be responsible for causing the pain and the bad press.   

You know how politics work - if the Dems don't pass this stimulus plan to make everyone somewhat happen for a few years, the Republicans will say, "Look what the Democrats did to cause all this!"  Vice versa. 

Political parties are killing this country. 

You could be right; I think it's not the parties per se...it's the power-hungry politicians that act in their own self-interest and caucusing together with that aim just for the name of the party rather than making smart decisions for the people that they are supposed to represent.  If these career politicians actually spent some time working in the real world then, perhaps, things might be different.

[RWS]

I'm not picking on you 'rws' so don't take my parroting of GarMan and "Navy 12" as ganging up on you because it's not intended that way; but they are right.  These folk are no smarter than you or I.  Politics is a hobby of mine and I watch (and, more importantly, listen) to these so-called leaders all the time; most of them are just as vacuous as The ONE himself. 

For example, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was asked repeated by Greta van Frankenstein (on FoxNews last night) to explain how they come up with the exacting figures used to develop the stimulus package...she could not answer the question, she spoke in circles, she evaded, and then took mild offense that Greta pressed her on the issue.  But she never answered the question...not because she didn't want to...because she didn't know and she didn't want to say that she didn't know.

Truly, they don't know what they hell they are doing...they are just throwing good money after bad (just like the Democrats socialists have been doing for edumacation for years) hoping it'll fix the problem and make them look like they are doing something when all they are doing is buying votes in their districts with pet projects and funds for pet interest groups.

Keep on posting 'rws'.

I always wonder how we arrive at these magical numbers as well. For example, the Senate's version of the bill budgets $40 billion for "energy programs", while the House bill chops that number to $28.4 billion. So, did they just take $12 billion away blindly, or do you look at EVERYTHING that $40 billion is going to fund, judge the projects on merit, and cut the non-essential ones? It seems to me that there is no comprehensive review of exactly what is funded and how much it really needs.

Another example:
The House bill provides $36 billion to finance locally issued bonds for school construction, teacher training, economic development and infrastructure improvements, while the Senate bill offers only $22.8 billion. OK, so can anybody show me any data anywhere that says "Ok, we need to build a school in this city, this city, that city, etc. We have X amount of teachers needing training in these fields and for this length of time. This list of schools need these improvements and this is how much it will cost."? No, we don't have that sort of data. They come up with these blind numbers and make the cash available.

For that matter, why are we making money available for programs that do not have shit to do with jumpstarting the economy? How is money tagged for subsidizing health insurance for the unemployed kicking the ecoomy into gear? How is spending $420 million to combat avian flu and $335 million for programs that combat AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis helping the economy? You want to help the economy and the banks? Instead of blindly bailing out these banks, but some cold cash into the pockets of taxpayers. I don't really agree with the thought of doing it, but if you're going to throw the money away anyway, give it back to the people. I'm getting around $12,000 back from my income taxes. Do you think I haven't started making a list of bills I want to pay off? We were at Lowes the other day figuring out improvements to make on our home so we can sell it for more in the future when the market rebounds. If you blindly dumped $15,000 on every homeowner, I would like to see how much money we're talking versus all of the bailout/stimulus shit. I think people would spend the money. And if thy spend it and are still in trouble, or get right back in trouble down the road, how is that different that what we're doing with the banks?