Also, on the package list.....

- $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years;

- $2 billion for child-care subsidies;

- $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts;

- $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects.

- There's even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

- Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?

- Another "stimulus" secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments - that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all.

- There's $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren't job creators.

As for the promise of accountability, some $54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as "ineffective" or unable to pass basic financial audits.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November.

We are so screwed.

Its a darn good thing I can hold myself above the fray.**)

BTW, did you hear about the lawsuit to make the Appilachian Trail handicap accessible? Yup. The whole darn thing. You guys living out west, the PCT is next.

Mike

Ay, Moikie!
 

The Appalachians are "shovel-ready"! Didn't you hear the rest of that story? They're going to blast off the tops of all the tallest mountains, backfill the steeper valleys with with the resulting rubble and then build handicap-accessible ramps up the resultant hills (note: "hills", not "mountains").

THAT oughta head off the burgeoning unemployment problem!

Ar, etc.

Obama never got my vote. He scares me. I never said there wasn't blame for the dems. There's enough to go around. I voted against everyone who was already in office. Like Ron says we need a clean sweep.

As far as being attacked. They took one shot, and it was massive. They blew their load. GW should have wasted the mountains in Afghanistan instead of going into Iraq.

As for our politics? When the politicians start doing what's right for this country. Instead of what's right for their personal agenda. Only then will America be back on track. That goes for the left & the right:mad:!....i2f

Obama’s Bill Hands ACORN $5.2 Billion Bailout

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 7:06 PM

By: David A. Patten


http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/oba...27/175729.html

The DNC is not solely responsible for this mess.

Subprime loans are nothing new - they did not just pop up at the request of Frank/Dodd. When you have a lower credit score you will pay more for a loan. When your loan is bundled as an asset it will have a higher risk rating, but it will also have a higher payoff IF the loan is paid off and is not defaulted. Adding more subprime loans is not necessarily a bad thing. Adding loans that had little to no chance of being paid off is a bad thing. Some of this was Barney Frank, but most of it was just plain greed on the part of the lenders. They got paid for every loan they wrote. And then the underwriters passed the risk of the loans on to investors by the securitisation of those mortgages, so there we no incentive for them to properly scrutinise those loans - in fact it was exactly the opposite, thanks to deregulation championed by GOP senator and McCain financial adviser Phil Gramm, and signed by Clinton.

That said, I agree with Freddie - tax cuts will be the biggest shot in the arm with the quickest results. I also want to invest in some medium and long term results.

$825B

$650B tax cut - Every family that makes between $40-200K would get it.

$50B fed infrastructure

$50B state infrastructure - divided by population amongst states.

$50B Alternate energy R&D

$25B math/science education

Some of this was Barney Frank, but most of it was just plain greed on the part of the lenders.

It's not that simply - the 'lender' was often not the entity that documented the loan - it was a mortgage broker with those people and companies completely separate from lenders and Fannie/Freddie - it's those people that cheated right and left - lied on documentation and encouraged potential house owners to lie - in the millions. Plus Barney has a lot more to do with it than you can even imagine - it was Barney and his pals that instructed Fannie/Freddie to be more lenient so that poor people could get into a house, in the millions. Fannie/Freddie turned around and packaged the loans, sold them to the market as A-1 paper and the market was sufficiently stupid (because huge bucks) to package and re-package the loans as derivatives that got so complicated that even the market could not understand them. The big banks bought the derivatives.

Actually, all these entities deserved to go down or to jail – just for being stupid. It's government involvement - relaxing lending standard to almost zero that started this mess - government needs to butt out but that's not what's happening even now.

As an aside, this whole thing is classic - huge numbers of people that think they are smarter than they actually are, buying stuff that they didn't even understand. Risk management went south - big time.

CdC,
If Barney Frank had been the only one involved then none of this would have happened.
I used lenders in a general term...perhaps I should not have. I completely agree with the rest of what you said (that's a first, huh?). Especially the part about jail!

True, Barney was just more vocal over time - even the former head gay at Countywide went on record stating that there is no value in forcing people to put money down, like 20%, on a house - that the risk is the same with no money down. What BS - he just wanted to make more loans and sell them to unsuspecting buyers in the secondary market. White collar crime needs another look with people having heart attacks, dying and generally depressed when they loose their house. It just seems criminal when "lenders" don't do the right thing and allow people to buy on the come, e.g. the house they are buying will continue to go up, therefore they can afford a huge rate adjustment in the future. I'd sure like to see laws fully enforced and more laws to protect the public, sometimes from themselves.

Basically, people are stupid.

***I'd sure like to see laws fully enforced and more laws to protect the public, sometimes from themselves.******

It's here!, although not law, qualifications have change which is more or less the same thing.

True, but they simply changed back to the qualifications that were in place in the past. It is the change in (loan) qualifications that created this whole mess - developors, builders, Fannie/Freddie, lenders would not have been able to do what they did without relaxed lending standards. "Qualifications" change only comes from politicians; to regulators and are more or less forced on entities to implement (like Freddie and Fannie). Of course, mortgage brokers are gleeful when Qualifications are lowered, as are developers and builders and if they don't jump on the bandwagon - they are toast in the marketplace.

It's all about the politicians, specifically Democrat politicians.

I think it was Mitch McConnel who said today that.....
 

.....the Bail-Out package was the equivalent (monetarily) of spending a million dollars a day since the birth of Christ (c. 32 BC?)!

Yippa Daing! "Thank you, Sir...may I have another?" Massachusetts=BOHICA-land, and now the ENTIRE nation is following our example!

Chow.

Why are you even replying? You obviously weren't bright enough to read the whole statement. When somebody else is paying for my company car, I could care less what kind of car it is.

Go somewhere else and be a hack Limbaugh wannabe.

"Gives me a LOT more money to mess with the Cobra."-nevermind65

If THAT's what you truly meant, then you must have one helluva car budget, especially considering the fact that the tax code doesn't allow your business vehicle to be used for personal finances of which your cobra would fall. IOW, "I'm an idiot or a tax cheat."

OKaaaayyyy... come up with that one yourself?...oooo that hurt, :JEKYLHYDE I guess being a Limbaugh hack would be better than a comparison to one beneath the evolutionary chain of septic sludge.

actually i want to shed some light on the subject for all you guys who think you know why this is happening with our current financial mess with banks who loaned money to people who couldnt afford the homes.....we are all responsible for that. Barney Frank was mentioned and i acouldnt agree more....he praised Fannie Mae and said buy their stock a few weeks before their problems were outed. But also banks were forced to make sub-prime loans and this was proudly announced by the Clinton administration's Andrew Cuomo on April 6, 1998. During the press conference Cuomo admitted that there would be a higher default rate on these loans. They did it anyway. Did u know that Obama was an attorney who won a large case that forced banks into making these loans to people who couldnt afford them? Search Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Sav. Bank. Enjoy this revelation.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.js...81474977473892

Cut the Federal budget in half, with no reduction in Military spending. Further cuts will follow.

Weed off these regulations so manufacturing in the US is possible again.

Stop buying into "green" technologies that are non-existent solutions to non-existent problems.

Drill for our own oil.

One person, One vote.

Consider financial sabotage the same as treason, with the same penalty.

Stop screwing around and nuke Iran to get the message across... We don't need any other countrys premission, nor do they need ours, to declare war.

Under no circumstance can anyone run the money presses above 100% (see above financial policy).

Education will be provided free of charge to any citizen - they're called libraries, beyond this is your parent's responsibility.

The people that ripped off buyers on over-priced houses need to give the excess money back to the banks that wrote the morgages.

Abolish the stock market, if a business needs a loan they go to the bank like everyone else.

You are free to live in any of this nations land reserves if you choose not to work, but your on your own. If you engage in commerce with civilization you will pay tax. (5%)

If you enjoy tossing your wang on electric fences, you are free to do so- provided you do not damage the fence or do it in front of people that don't wish to view it. (this could be called "stimulus")

That's all I got to say about that. - Gump

See? easy enough to figure out.