David Online

The $838 billion economic stimulus bill that passed the Senate yesterday contains $300 million for the government to purchase a fleet of “green” cars.

This $300 million is not just for the purchase of fuel efficient American-made hybrids from Ford and Chevy (Heaven forbid we should buy a foreign car even if it was made in the U.S.), but also for what are called “neighborhood electric vehicles”, NEVs.

Just think of all the jobs that are going to be saved and how the economy will be stimulated with all these pregnant-looking golf carts chugging along at a maximum 25 miles per hour. You wouldn’t want to go head to head with a Hummer or any other gas-guzzling SUV in this thing, but I’d give you 50-50 odds against a three-year old on a tricycle.

The House-passed version of the stimulus provides even more money for federal car purchases – $600 million. The pot of money also specifically includes the NEVs.

The Democrats are thrilled with NEVs. They “only” cost $8,000 apiece and because they operate on battery power and can be plugged into 110 volt outlets for recharging, they produce no carbon emissions.

Apparently Democrats believe electricity is magic and comes from the electricity fairy that produces no carbon emissions. But that’s true only when Democrats are talking about little “green” plug-in golf carts. The electricity to power our homes, businesses and factories on the other hand, come from a different electrical source – filthy, coal-burning, CO2 emitting power plants.

It hardly needs saying that neither the Democratic congressmen who inserted this pork into the bill nor the Energy department itself was able to say specifically what the “golf carts” would be used for.

I was talking to a friend of mine last night about the “Stimulus” (spending) package put together by Pelosi and Reid. He said the problem was the “obstructionist” Republicans refused to endorse to it.

I asked him what he thought the stimulus package should be. He said give the money the Democratic Congress wants to allocate to their pet projects to the people instead. Give every taxpayer $1,500 or so to spend as they deem fit.

Isn’t that pretty much what the “obstructionist” Republicans are saying?

All you need to know about labor unions is what Congress tells us by their actions.

Staff workers, aides, pages, and everyone else working for U.S. Congressmen in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives are prohibited by law to join or form a a labor union.

Why?

“It would impede their work,” say the Senators and Representatives.

Hmm….

“Now, what do we know about stimulus packages in the past? Here is what we know. Only two times in our history–only two times in our history–have we ever had a stimulus package that was effective. Two times. John Fitzgerald Kennedy created a stimulus package that was effective, and Ronald Reagan, in the early 1980s, created a stimulus package that was effective. All of the others have been ineffective to fix what was ailing us.

I am going to wind up here and finish, but I wanted to spend some time to make sure the American people know what is in this bill. I think once they know what is in this bill, they are going to reject it out of hand. Let me read for my colleagues some of the things that are in this bill.

The biggest earmark in history is in this bill. There is $2 billion in this bill to build a coal plant with zero emissions. That would be great, maybe, if we had the technology, but the greatest brains in the world sitting at MIT say we don’t have the technology yet to do that. Why would we build a $2 billion powerplant we don’t have the technology for that we know will come back and ask for another $2 billion and another $2 billion and another $2 billion when we could build a demonstration project that might cost $150 million or $200 million? There is nothing wrong with having coal-fired plants that don’t produce pollution; I am not against that. Even the Washington Post said the technology isn’t there. It is a boondoggle. Why would we do that?

We eliminated tonight a $246 million payback for the large movie studios in Hollywood.

We are going to spend $88 million to study whether we ought to buy a new ice breaker for the Coast Guard. You know what. The Coast Guard needs a new ice breaker. Why do we need to spend $88 million? They have two ice breakers now that they could retrofit and fix and come up with equivalent to what they needed to and not spend the $1 billion they are going to come back and ask for, for another ice breaker, so why would we spend $88 million doing that?

We are going to spend $448 million to build the Department of Homeland Security a new building. We have $1.3 trillion worth of empty buildings right now, and because it has been blocked in Congress we can’t sell them, we can’t raze them, we can’t do anything, but we are going to spend money on a new building here in Washington. We are going to spend another $248 million for new furniture for that building; a quarter of a billion dollars for new furniture. What about the furniture the Department of Homeland Security has now? These are tough times. Should we be buying new furniture? How about using what we have? That is what a family would do. They would use what they have. They wouldn’t go out and spend $248 million on furniture.

How about buying $600 million worth of hybrid vehicles? Do you know what I would say? Right now times are tough; I would rather Americans have new cars than Federal employees have new cars. What is wrong with the cars we have? Dumping $600 million worth of used vehicles on the used vehicle market right now is one of the worst things we could do. Instead, we are going to spend $600 million buying new cars for Federal employees.

There is $400 million in here to prevent STDs. I have a lot of experience on that. I have delivered 4,000 babies. We don’t need to spend $400 million on STDs. What we need to do is properly educate about the infection rates and the effectiveness of methods of prevention. That doesn’t take a penny more. You can write that on one piece of paper and teach every kid in this country, but we don’t need to spend $400 million on it. It is not a priority.

How about $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs? That might even be somewhat stimulative. New sewers. That might create jobs.

How about $150 million for a Smithsonian museum? Tell me how that helps get us out of a recession. Tell me how that is a priority. Would the average American think that is a priority that we ought to be mortgaging our kids’ future to spend another $150 million at the Smithsonian?

How about $1 billion for the 2010 census? So everybody knows, the census is so poorly managed that the census this year is going to cost twice–in 2010 is going to cost twice what it cost 10 years ago, and we wasted $800 million on a contract because it was no-bid that didn’t perform. Nobody got fired, no competitive bidding, and we blew $800 million.

We have $75 million for smoking cessation activities, which probably is a great idea, but we just passed a bill–the SCHIP bill–that we need to get 21 million more Americans smoking to be able to pay for that bill. That doesn’t make sense.

How about $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges? Since when is a community college in my State a recipient of Federal largesse? Is that our responsibility? I mean, did we talk with Dell and Hewlett-Packard and say, How do we make you all do better? Is there not a market force that could make that better? Will we actually buy on a true competitive bid? No, because there is nothing that requires competitive bidding in anything in this bill. There is nothing that requires it. It is one of the things President Obama said he was going to mandate at the Federal Government, but there is no competitive bidding in this bill at all.

We have $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas. Well, that will put 10 or 15 people to work. Is that a priority for us right now?

There is $6 billion to turn Federal buildings into green buildings. That is a priority, versus somebody getting a job outside of Washington, a job that actually produces something, that actually increases wealth?

How about $500 million for State and local fire stations? Where do you find in the Constitution us paying for local fire stations within our realm of prerogatives? None of it is competitively bid–not a grant program.

Next is $1.2 billion for youth activities. Who does that employ? What does that mean?

How about $88 million for renovating the public health service building? You know, if we could sell half of the $1.3 trillion worth of properties we have, we could take care of every Federal building requirement and backlog we have.

Then there’s $412 million for CDC buildings and property. We spent billions on a new center and headquarters for CDC. Is that a priority? Building another Government building instead of–if we are going to spend $412 million on building buildings, let’s build one that will produce something, one that will give us something.

How about $850 million for that most “efficient” Amtrak that hasn’t made any money since 1976 and continues to have $2 billion or $3 billion a year in subsidies?

Here is one of my favorites: $75 million to construct a new “security training” facility for State Department security officers, and we have four other facilities already available to train them. But it is not theirs. They want theirs. By the way, it is going to be in West Virginia. I wonder how that got there. So we are going to build a new training facility that duplicates four others that we already have that could easily do what we need to do. But because we have a stimulus package, we are going to add in oink pork.

How about $200 million in funding for a lease–not buying, but a lease of alternative energy vehicles on military installations?

We are going to bail out the States on Medicaid. Total all of the health programs in this, and we are going to transfer $150 billion out of the private sector and we are going to move it to the Federal Government. You talk about backdooring national health care. Henry Waxman has to be smiling big today. He wants a single-payer Government-run health care system. We are going to move another $150 billion to the Federal Government from the private sector.

We are going to eliminate fees on loans from the Small Business Administration. You know what that does? That pushes productive capital to unproductive projects. It is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Then there is $160 million to the Job Corps Program–but not for jobs and not to put more people in the Job Corps but to construct or repair buildings.

We are going to spend $524 million for information technology upgrades that the Appropriations Committee claims will create 388 jobs. If you do the math on that, that is $1.5 million a job. Don’t you love the efficiency of Washington thinking?

We are going to create $79 billion in additional money for the States, a “slush fund,” to bail out States and provide millions of dollars for education costs. How many of you think that will ever go away? Once the State education programs get $79 billion over 2 years, do you think that will ever go away? The cry and hue of taking our money away–even though it was a stimulus and supposed to be limited, it will never go away. So we will continue putting that forward until our kids have grandkids of their own.

There is about $47 billion for a variety of energy programs that are primarily focused on renewable energy. I am fine with spending that. But we ought to get something for it. There ought to be metrics. There are no metrics. It is pie in the sky, saying we will throw some money at it. Let me conclude by saying we are at a seminal moment in our country. We will either start living within the confines of realism and responsibility or we will blow it and we will create the downfall of the greatest Nation that ever lived. This bill is the start of that downfall. To abandon a market-oriented society and transfer it to a Soviet-style, government-centered, bureaucratic-run and mandated program, that is the thing that will put the stake in the heart of freedom in this country.”

“LESS than two weeks into his administration, President Barack Obama is being portrayed by opponents as a new Jimmy Carter – weak at home and naive abroad – in an attempt to dim his post-election glow and ensure that he serves only one term.”

“The charge has stung because it was made privately by Hillary Clinton supporters during a hard-fought primary campaign and plays to fears about Obama’s inexperience,” says Sarah Baxter, the Washington journalist for the writing the Times of London.

Already President Obama has managed to provoke the Republicans into a fighting mood. Not a single Republican was swayed by Obama’s “We are the change we have been waiting for” rhetoric or voted for his $819 billion stimulus package in the House of Representatives.

The bill was a 40-year Democratic wish list laden with egregious spending on Democratic pet projects, social engineering and tribute paid to labor and teacher’s unions. With items such as $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $400 million for global warming research, $650 million for digital TV conversion coupons and $2 billion for child-care subsidies (also known as baby-sitting), it was difficult to find anything that had to do with boosting the economy.

Included in the Democratic “stimulus” package is the “Buy American” provision that has alarmed our international trading partners. Leading business interests and economists warn that such protectionist measures would trigger trade wars that would only exacerbate the slump in trade volumes and economic growth world-wide.

On his second day in office, Obama issued executive orders requiring the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba be closed within a year. He has no idea what to do with the prisoners. America’s European allies, including Britain, have shown little interest in helping to close Guantanamo Bay by taking detainees, nor in stumping up the money and troops for a surge in Afghanistan. At home there has been an outbreak of nimbyism (“Not in My Backyard”) over the housing of Guantanamo detainees at US mainland prisons.

President Obama’s first television interview was with al-Arabiya, an Arab network. The interview was a repudiation of the freedom agenda formulated by President Bush. The basic premise was “we just want to get back to schmoozing the feted Arab dictatorships and the mullahs in Tehran all over again,” said Mark Steyn. If you’re a moderate Arab in Cairo or Amman who would like to live in a free society, forget about it. The Bush freedom agenda is over. The Jimmy Carter era is reborn.

Obama extended a hand of peace to Iran. The President offered dialogue with Tehran and promised a new American readiness to listen to those who oppose it in the Middle East. “It is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are but where there are potential avenues for progress," he said. Obama’s offer of talks with Iran prompted a demand from Ahmadinejad that America apologize for its “crimes” against Iran, including American support for a 1953 coup and the backing of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.

Michael Rubin, an expert on Iran at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said Obama’s approach to Iran was similar to that of Jimmy Carter, who wrote a personal letter to Ayatollah Kho-meini after a term of office marred by the storming of the US embassy in Tehran and a failed attempt to rescue 52 diplomatic staff held hostage.

“It is a little bit naive. The problem hasn’t been a lack of dialogue or the policies of George W Bush. It’s not all about us,” said Rubin.

The president’s foreign policy offensive also got off to an uncertain start. Critics claim there are too many czars and special envoys at the White House and State Department, who will end up fighting rather than problem solving. George Mitchell’s first foray into the Middle East as special envoy last week was greeted by the Israeli bombing of tunnels on the Egypt-Gaza border.

The Piltdown Man is one of the most famous frauds in history. It took the scientific community over 40 years to expose it as a hoax and a fraud. The scientific community is improving. It has taken them less than half that time to expose Global Warming as a hoax and a fraud.

According to the New York Times, Global Warming Guru Al Gore told the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last November,

“I feel, in a sense, I’ve failed badly. . . . [T]here is not anything anywhere close to an appropriate sense of urgency [about global warming]. This is an existential threat.”

Uniting Liberals and Conservatives in laughter, Deroy Murdock in his column, Lefty, It’s Cold Outside, writes the “So-called global warming has shrunk from problem to punch line. And now leftists are laughing too. It’s hard not to chuckle at the idea of Earth’s boiling in a carbon cauldron when the news won’t cooperate.” 

“It is a tribute to the scientific ignorance of politicians and journalists that they keep regurgitating the nonsense about human-caused global warming,” veteran left-wing commentator and Nation magazine columnist Alexander Cockburn wrote. “The greenhouse fear mongers rely on unverified, crudely oversimplified models to finger mankind’s sinful contribution—and carbon trafficking, just like the old indulgences, is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism, and greed.”

For those of you who are now starting to recognize that the whole global warming issue is a farce, you still may wonder what it would hurt to take measures to fight it. How about this?

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the Democratic stimulus bill, spends, at a minimum, $537 billion to fight this phantom called global warming.