Cross-posted at Justice Addict.
The stupid Microsoft calculator puts the price tag on the Senate stimulus plan at $888 billion.
There's quite a bit to unpack in this monster because that's a lot of money and there's an over-abundance of bureaucratic vagaries and politicalspeak to account for all of it.
(I guess that's what you get when you mix the typical legalese of Congresscritters with Obama's signature unspecific rhetoric. Que Sera, Sera.)
The first thing that strikes me is that this bill, while big and fat and veiny, is less than 1/3rd of the $3.15 trillion or so we've already spent or allocated on servicing the, umm, financial service sector of the economy. (Re: the fake part.)
So, these are the priorities, not only of the Federal Reserve Board, the elite scumbags and quislings who have kept wages stagnant for over 25 years, the Wall Street disaster capitalists who caused this mess, the Treasury and all the other usual suspects of ill repute who ought to be waterboarded with Drano while being forced to listen to John Mayer (try to) sing, but these are the priorities of President Obama and the Democrats in Congress.
Everybody knows that Harry Reid thinks Mitch McConnell is Ivan Drago.
Everybody knows that Benny Bernanke, Larry Summers and Timmeh Geithner are engaged in the world's longest three-man circle-jerk over a well-worn copy of Capitalism and Freedom and hellbent on using taxpayer money to bribe Sasha and Malia for the use of their jumpropes in the name of some good old fashioned asphyxiophilia.
Everybody knows that Barney Frank likes to coddle up to corporate interests as if they were little boy penii gay prostitutes.
Everybody knows that Nancy Pelosi is not actually a person and is really just a bad idea.
And, everybody knows that President Obama is a post-partisan genius.
But, seriously.
<span style="font-weight: bold;">One third? </span>
One third of what we have spent or will soon spend on the $3 Trillion U.S. Government Free Cash Giveaway (No purchase necessary!) to Wall Streeters and Bad Bankers who don't really know what they're doing (other than business as usual) and have still not been the good faith actors that we, the taxpayers, were supposed to get in return for bailing their feckless asses out in the first place?
Yep.
So, okay, let's reset.
Maybe this bill is mostly good (it is) and stimulative (probably.)
Maybe it takes care of a lot of necessary shortfalls like Food Stamps and school funding (true) and moves us forward on some big issues like renewable energy and working class tax cuts (that's also true!)
But, uh oh, wait...
Remember how President Obama and Congressional Dems have been falling over themselves to remove funding for contraception (which honestly is not very stimulative, if at all, but which ought to go back in the bill just to piss off the GOP and sky-God, anti-sex Christians), national mall renovation and insert tax cuts in a game of Race To The Bottom Of The Depths Of The Lowest Rung Of Stupid To Cave In To The Absolutely And One Hundred Percent Irrelevant House Republicans?
I do.
I also remember how Senate Republicans are nearly as irrelevant as their counterparts in the House and since we only need one or two of them (and the ladies from Maine will do just fine) to invoke cloture, any demands that Mitch or Big John make ought to be responded to with a stern rendition of "Hahahahahahahahahaha."
But hey, what's a Democrat in power if not a cowering and gelatinous shade of blue?
Thus, I present you, with...
"The Tell"
"$3.1 billion for investments in rail transportation, including High Speed Rail."
vs.
"$70 billion in Alternative Minimum Tax relief..." and "Approximately $21 billion in business tax relief and incentives..."
This is telling.
This is God awful and atrocious.
These tax-cuts are <span style="font-weight: bold;">more than double the total amount spent on transportation</span> in the Senate version of the stimulus plan and absolutely dwarf the $3.1 billion <span style="font-style: italic;">pittance</span> spent on rail-which only "includes," but is not dedicated to High Speed Rail.
These tax cuts in particular are aimed at wealth, not work. And, hell, even Milton Friedman's own theory contends that they'd do little to stimulate the economy-and far less than spending.
These tax cuts for the wealthy eclipse one of the most promising, forward-thinking, job-laden, environmentally-conscious ventures that America could embark on: the development of a national network of High Speed Supertrains <span style="font-style: italic;">a la</span> France.
This could be Obama's ever-moving imprint on future generations.
But, like any chickenshit Democrat this side of Carter he's squandered it in favor of tax cuts for people who don't need them to appease Republicans that aren't going to vote for the bill anyway.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will be the largest single expenditure in the history of our country and instead of the Hoover Dam or a Great Society or the Interstate Highway System we'll get what, exactly?
Sure, some much needed capital influx to keep states and services afloat and treading water.
Yeah, lots of spending on good programs and projects that have been slowly strangled ever since that racist Reagan guy took office.
Possibly a short term jolt that might, just might stop the hemorrhaging of jobs and hope.
And, aside from the relatively small price-tag (that will end up being laughably small a few years from now...mark my words) that many economists insist vastly underestimates the problem or resources need to fight it, this stimulus package has to pass and it will pass. We really need it.
But what this plan looks like, more than anything else, is just a little somethin'-somethin' to keep taxpayers satiatied, with their $500 checks, increased unemployment or temporary government jobs and brand new Food Stamps cards, long enough for Obama and the bankers to slide the public trough Goldman Sachs', AIG's and BofA's way once again.
Sigh.
At times of grand tragedy, a bit of comedy is all we can do.
So, I turn, once more, to Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate and former free marketeer:
"[U]nder Bush, financial policy consisted of Wall Street types cutting sweet deals, at taxpayer expense, for Wall Street types. Under Obama, it’s precisely the reverse."