Stimulus or Pure Pork? "Oink, Oink!"

Obama and the democrats who control the House and Senate have been pushing for a so-called “Stimulus Bill” that will, they say, jump-start the economy.  It was passed in the House of Representatives (244-188) although no Republicans supported it and with 11 Democrats voted against it.  The cost of the bill as passed by the House was $819 billion.  Under consideration of the Senate it grew to over $900 billion before being pared back to a mere $827 on February 9.  It includes provisions that provide for government regulation of medical care.  On February 10 the bill passed the senate at $838 billion.  Democrats from the House and Senate finally agreed on $789 billion in secret session on February 11, at which point they finally allowed TV cameras into their “deliberations.”  On Friday evening the Senate sent the bill, $787 billion, to the President’s desk.

Have you ever been advised to “Read the fine print” before signing a contract?  Do you understand that you can get yourself into trouble if you don’t know the details of an agreement you sign?  I can’t think of anyone who would obligate themselves to making payments for ten, twenty, fifty years without knowing all the details of what they were doing.  But our president and elected representatives apparently feel that details aren’t that important.  President Obama, and the Democrat majority in congress are urging Republicans to come on board, sign up to spend nearly a Trillion dollars of taxpayer IOU’s on pork-barrel projects.  I guess if you’re spending someone else’s money, the details don’t matter nearly as much as if it were your own; especially if the ones who will ultimately be paying the bill aren’t even born yet.  There are, thankfully, some voices of reason in the heartland.

The same Democrats who were fond of saying “We can’t drill ourselves out of an energy shortage” during the summer of 2008 are now telling us that “We can spend ourselves out of debt.”  Is that true?  I’m no rocket scientist, nor am I a financial wizard, so perhaps those who are might see an intelligent plan here.  My daddy taught me that the first thing to do when you get yourself in a hole is to quit diggin’.  It seems to me that if we expect to get out from under this huge national debt, creating more debt might more than a little counterproductive.