I agree with some
 

of your points. however, I'm pretty certain that most of the provisions of the bill were known to members of congress. Yes, it was a lousy bill, however, the fact that the economy was in such dire straits required some action. I don't think Obama came to office all psyched up to spend $800 million for no reason. And the fact is that there is a tremendous amount of attacks of a partisan nature on this board that in most cases are directed at the left by right wing critics who are all to willing to turn a blind eye to similar behavior by conservatives.

!
 

Well, there are two things we will need to agree to disagree on....that the members of congress knew what was in the bill (I think the President had an idea from the Dem leaders in congress) and that it was necessary at all and the more we see of the results and where it has gone, makes my point.

I will add that the President knowing in advance what was in the bill concerns me just as much as the bill itself since the cornerstone of his campaign for the office was on transparency AND that he would never sign a bill with pork (guess could add the political hyper on posting the bill)

Yes, there are attacks ...agree. I will tell you this with no fear of contradiction that those attacks go both ways. I have been called many names since I began to post on here but the biggest objection from me is this....folks will criticize those who post on here AND THAT IS IT. They do not post their thoughts on anything...they simply say....Dem good Republican bad...Bush no good and leave. THat is NOT discussing and if you dont want to discuss (that is a generic YOU, and not aimed at you personally) ...if you dont want to discuss, then why come here and simply criticize those who do ?

I hope that people READ, LEARN..become knowledgeable and share that while expresssing their opinion !

ACTOR...I realize you dont trust any links given that disagree with the Democratic spin, but this is a link to a very short opinion piece by a man who is a Libertarian who has and was very critical of John McCain and it is about the stimulus...

It is timely and was just written TODAY and basically debuinks those who say this actually stimulating our economy


http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/13/wh...otally-didnt-s

Actually I do trust
 

links that disagree with the democratic spin. I'm not a died in the wool democrat. I'm more of a moderate who tries to see both sides of the issue. You'd probably be surprised if you knew who I voted for in 2004 and 2008.

Lots of people keep saying this mess Bush got us into. Let's not forget that a certain party controlled the purse strings for the last 4 years.

Let's also not forget what started the initial crash and the resulting domino effect. Freddie and Fannie. There's abundant evidence who protected Fannie and Freddie and who tried to fix it before they crashed. It's all very well documented and easy to find.. right here in these posts. Freddie and Fannie was the beginning to this whole mess.

Most know the stimulus was nothing more than a slush fund for the Obama administration. That's fairly obvious. It's also obvious that it didn't work.

Despite what they say, it was never designed to stimulate the economy. There were no shovel ready jobs. Now Obama wants 40 billion more for "new shovel ready jobs." Really?

On a side note, funny how all these years, the liberal mantra was BUSH TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH. But now Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for those under $250k a year. So does that mean they really weren't just tax cuts for the rich?

Never heard that clarification from the democrats in Washington or the media the last 8 or so years.

Just because you're rich or richer doesn't mean your money belongs to the government to do with as they please.

There's only one thing that will jump start the economy and that's small business hiring people. + 250k tax hike will further damage the economy which I believe is their intention all along. There's no other rational explanation for what they are doing.

To me throw in another bit of information here. President Obama and his friends try to make everybody feel guilty if they did not want to bail out and save the jobs of teachers firefighters and police officers. I have nothing against but let's take a look at it. Teachers firefighters and police officers are not private-sector employees. They are government employees and they are union members. The whole purpose here is to suck up to unions and to bail out state and local governments rather than have them cut their wasteful spending.

Now let's look at his latest desire to spend billions on infrastructure. Union construction jobs doing projects that are normally paid for by state and local governments. Again we are looking at rather than have government cut their overspending.

So as you can clearly see, unless you work for the government already union you'll never get a dime from this president. The only thing you will do is pay higher taxes to support government and unions.

Just some thoughts

Yoda

TARP & Stimulus
 

The troubled asset relief program (TARP) addressed a liquidity crisis in the banking system that required immediate large sums be lent to a number of banks. This crisis had been caused by the 'mortgage for everyone' debacle driven by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac policies. We can argue forever about who did what, but that gets us nowhere.

TARP was put into place during the last three months of the Bush administration. This was done in full consultation with Obama's team and the leaders of Congress. Approximately half of the appropriated funds were used by the Bush administration with the balance left to the Obama administration. TARP did what it was intended to do and stabled the banking and credit system. This was intended to be a program in which the government would receive repayment with interest of the amounts provided. This has been happening and continues to go forth. This was accomplished through a bipartisan effort that should have been the example for what came after.

Unfortunately, this did not happen. The stimulus bill had nothing to do with the banking crisis or the recovery from it. The stimulus bill was far from being a bipartisan approach. Republicans were not consulted as the bill was drafted behind closed doors with no one from either the press or the Republicans present. No news organization,members of the public or member of Congress were given the opportunity to even read the bill, much less provide input before it was put to a vote. This rush was justified by the promise that if the stimulus bill was passed, unemployment would never rise above 8%.

The truth here is that TARP, drafted and administered in a bipartisan manner worked and did prevent a banking and liquidity crisis that could have thrown the US and the rest of the world into a serious recession or even a depression. This action was led by the Bush administration.

The stimulus program was a totally partisan program rammed through by the Obama administration. It has cost approximately one trillion dollars to date and has failed miserably in its intended objectives.