Election 2010… Remember

Poll: Majority Leader Reid Vulnerable in 2010

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may be the most powerful Democrat in the upper house, but he's not the most popular politician in his home state of Nevada.

A new poll of likely voters reveals that in a head-to-head race in 2010, Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden would defeat Reid by 6 percentage points — 48 percent favored Lowden, 42 chose Reid, and 10 percent were undecided.

Lowden has not announced her candidacy, and in fact, the poll was commissioned by Nevada Republicans in an effort to convince her to toss her hat in the ring, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

In the poll by Denver-based Vitale and Associates, 44 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 38 percent said they were Republicans, 15 percent said they were independent, and 3 percent did not state an affiliation.

The poll also disclosed that only 39 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Reid, who was first elected to the Senate in 1986, and just 34 percent said they would vote to re-elect him.

The results of the poll will help encourage Lowden to run, according to Republican strategist Robert Uithoven, who said "there's plenty of support for her."

Nevada's unemployment figure of more than 12 percent is likely contributing to Reid's low approval rating, the Review-Journal observed.

"All of those are very, very telling pieces of information," said pollster Todd Vitale. "I've never seen an incumbent with numbers this bad who hadn't had some scandal."

Interestingly, a Nevada politician who is involved in a scandal has a higher favorable rating than the majority leader.

Republican Sen. John Ensign confessed in June to a nine-month affair with Cindy Hampton, a campaign aide. But the poll showed his favorable rating at 40 percent, 1 percentage point higher than Reid's.

Ensign does not face re-election until 2012.

Gingrich: GOP Could Take House in 2010

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich thinks things could be looking up for the Republicans in the 2010 elections.

He told Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity: "I think there is an outside but growing possibility that you could begin to see Republicans take the House in 2010" because voter dissatisfaction with various Democratic initiatives. "When people get mad over one item, and then they get mad over a second item, and then they get mad over a third item, they build momentum," Gingrich stated.

As for the Democrats in the Senate in 2010, Gingrich told Hannity: "I think it's very hard for them to lose the majority in the Senate, but easy for them to end up with a net loss of three or four [seats]."

That would destroy the Democrats' current 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority.

If they continue on this pattern… who know by 2012? And looking at the next two snippets helps explain why… Not only have many of them (in both house) still not read the Healthcare Bills, even those that are holding Town Halls but…

Congressional Junkets 'Rival Club Med'

Members of Congress have been taking advantage of the August recess to head off on overseas junkets — some of them cushier than others.

Senator John McCain made plans to lead a congressional delegation — CODEL for short — of several senators on a junket with stops in hot spots including Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Libya. No spouses signed up to go along. (Good job Senator McCain)

"But for every ‘workhorse CODEL’, there are those that look to rival Club Med," Foreign Policy magazine observed.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, scheduled visits to such "trouble spots" as Britain, Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Egypt. Cuellar and four of his five fellow travelers said they would bring their spouses.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, planned to lead several House members and their spouses on an around-the-world trip to Ireland, Switzerland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and Canada.

"But who gets the award for planning what looks to be the cushiest trip?" Foreign Policy asks. "Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., is scheduled to lead a CODEL to Germany, Italy, and Spain."

Club for Growth: Democrats 'Fail Miserably' on Pork

The anti-tax Club for Growth has released its 2009 "RePork Card" rating House members on their efforts to rein in federal spending, and only one Democrat received a perfect 100 percent rating.

Idaho freshman Rep. Walt Minnick received the perfect rating, meaning he voted for all 68 amendments proposed in the House to strip out earmarks, or "pork," from the 12 spending bills in the first half of 2009.

On the whole, the Democrats "failed miserably," according to Congressional Quarterly's CQ Politics Web site, with an average score of just 3 percent. A total of 202 Democrats received a 0 percent score.

On the Republican side, 21 House members received a perfect 100 rating, and the average score was 57 percent.

"At a time when our national priority ought to be economic growth, House members have been busy stuffing the 2010 appropriations bills with wasteful pork projects," the Club for Growth said in a statement.

Rep. Minnick also had the most independent voting record among House Democrats in the first half of 2009, according to a CQ vote study. He backed the Democratic position only 40 percent of the time in roll call votes pitting most Democrats against most Republicans.

"All of which makes good political sense," CQ Politics observed, "given that the one-time Republican is seeking re-election in one of the country's most conservative states, in a district that voted for Republican John McCain over President Obama 62 percent to 36 percent."

By the way, for those of you who have not braved reading the House Health Care Bill HR-3200 - full report, being pushed by the house leadership, the end is also full of pork. A bill that will “increase the cost of healthcare” by $1.6 Trillion over the next decade… not decrease or even maintain costs, that by most accounts (an opinion that is growing daily), will worsen our healthcare and involve government even more than it is in our lives, and that is causing feverish debates, fear and dissent all over our Country is again packed with pork. :-(

“A people that values its privileges above its principles, soon loses both.”

…Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Source: NewsMax.com

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Pulling No Punches

John McCain is red in the face and hopping mad. I’m sitting in his office in the Senate Russell Office Building, and he’s just rushed in after delivering a speech on the Senate floor where he seethed about the earmarks in the Homeland Security Bill.

“Can you believe they are putting $6 million of pork into Homeland Security?” he asks with his trademark clenched-fists. “They promised they wouldn’t do that. Ben Nelson [the Democratic senator from Nebraska] just inserted a $200,000 museum in Omaha into the legislative branch appropriations bill. These earmarks are a creeping disease. First members condemn them, then they condone, then they embrace them.” Then Mr. McCain adds, “Eight or nine Republican appropriators routinely vote for this pork.” Shaking his head he says, “It’s killing our party.”

If you thought that the senior senator from Arizona would ride off into the political sunset last November, inconsolable after losing his bid for the presidency, think again. He’s over it. And he’s as energized and spry as ever I’ve known him.

I interviewed John McCain for these pages four years ago when he was just launching his presidential campaign. Now I’m here to see how he is coping with defeat, and what his priorities are this year.

Many feared he’d become the Obama administration’s ambassador to the Republican Party, cutting deals to get things done. On the contrary: He’s emerged as one of the lead critics of Obamanomics.

He says he has worked to keep his relations with President Barack Obama “cordial,” but he pulls no punches criticizing the president’s economic policies. “Never. Never have I seen such a transfer from the private enterprise system to the government of such massive scale,” he says. He goes through the list: car companies, banks, insurance firms owned by government, and he especially grimaces when he mentions the $787 billion stimulus package.

Terry Shoffner

Not much has improved because of the stimulus. Mr. McCain scoffs, “And now, the answer is, according to the Obama economists, we didn’t spend enough.” He’s referring to the notion that we should have a second stimulus. This is not something the senator favors.

Asked about the deficits, his response is blunt. “I think it’s the biggest problem we’ve ever faced.”

Ever? “Yep,” he replies. “The only time where we amassed greater debt was during World War II, and that was temporary spending. We won the world war and then cut back. But now . . . the spending is permanent.”

“Look, this is a very popular, attractive, and eloquent president,” he continues. “But I think he was elected to govern in a centrist fashion. And instead,” he says, the administration is “governing from the far left.” Mr. McCain thinks this approach will capsize. “They don’t get that this is a right-of-center nation. Sooner or later, it becomes increasingly clear to the American people that he’s out of sync with the majority.” The latest polls are already showing some of this slippage: Mr. Obama’s favorable rating is now just over 50%, down from 70% his first weeks in office.

Will Mr. Obama ever move to the center as President Clinton did? “He will try to, but he’s got an overwhelmingly liberal Congress and his political instincts are to move to the left. It’s not an accident that he has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate,” he says, reciting a line from his campaign. On health-care reform, Mr. McCain calls the Pelosi bill “a fish in the sun” that smells more rotten the longer it sits. But he’s worried that this may end badly. The administration has “co-opted the hospitals, he’s co-opted the pharmacists; he’ll co-opt AMA [American Medical Association]. And by the way, if the pharmaceutical companies can save us $100 billion, why don’t they do it now? For the love of God, doesn’t this mean that they’ve been ripping us off?”

In the 2005 interview, Mr. McCain told me rather famously that “I don’t understand economics very well.” The Obama team echoed that phrase throughout the campaign. It’s still stuck in his craw, and it’s one of the first topics he brings up.

“Could I mention, Steve, that I kept hearing during the campaign the stuff about McCain being weak on economics. They obsessed about this in the media. They never said Obama is weak on economics. I came to Washington as a Reaganite limited government tax cutter.” He’s right about the media treatment. Neither candidate had a strong command of economics—certainly not Mr. Obama, as events have shown. Mr. McCain was simply being honest.

He seems perplexed that his pals in the media turned on him in 2008 after years of worshipful press treatment. “In 2000 [when he ran against George W. Bush] I used to go chat with reporters on the back of the bus, and we would have these long, pleasant conversations . . . . I was the underdog clawing my way up. But then in 2008, I noticed that it would be kind of a gotcha session with the press—a totally more hostile attitude.”

Yet conservatives had warned Mr. McCain that he would remain a media darling up until the moment he won the GOP nomination, at which time they would rip him apart. I’m only surprised that he was surprised this happened.

Mr. McCain is initially reluctant to talk about the campaign, but he provides me with snippets of what went right and wrong. He believes that he could have won the election had it not been for the market collapse in mid-September. “We were three points up on September 14. The next day the market lost 700 points and $1.2 trillion in wealth vanished, and by the end of the day we were seven points down. We lost the white college graduate voters, who became profoundly disillusioned with Republicans. And by the way, that was the way it ended up. We lost by seven points.”

He certainly was dealt a lousy hand. But I challenge him on whether he might have played that hand better. During the first days of the financial crisis, Mr. McCain looked indecisive and worse, a creature of Washington insider politics. Why did he suspend his campaign, and why did he vote for the $700 billion bank bailout plan, which was wildly unpopular with voters?

“You have no idea the pressure I was under,” he says. “I remember being on the phone with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Treasury secretary and [Fed Chairman Ben] Bernanke. They assure me the world financial system is going to collapse if I don’t vote for the bill. So I do the impetuous and rash thing by saying, look, I have got to go back to Washington and see how I can help. And by the way, so did Obama—but it was McCain that was the impetuous one. Obama came back to Washington.” Mr. McCain grumbles, “He was at the White House with me. But he wasn’t impetuous.” This is the only time in our interview he shows any bitterness about the campaign.

He feels he was misled by the Bush economic team. He wanted the focus of the rescue plan to be on housing and home owners under water—not the lenders or the big banks. “Paulson and Bernanke both told me on the phone, our primary focus is going to be on the housing crisis. That’s our primary focus. And then three days later they switched their whole priorities around.” Instead, the Bush administration got a $700 billion check from Congress to save banks, investment houses and eventually car companies.

Had he been president, Mr. McCain says he would have done things differently. “Small business has been ignored in this whole bailout. You know, I hate to use the word but it seems to me that the philosophy of Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke is trickle down, you know? Save Wall Street, save these financial institutions and then maybe they’ll have enough money to loan to the small business person. Wall Street seems to be doing okay. The executive salaries are fine.”

He continues: “But I just came from driving down Central Avenue in Phoenix and saw closed up storefronts because they’re too small to save, but these giant banks are too big to fail.” This is vintage John McCain, the economic populist fighting for the little guy.

If the market crash was the low point, I ask him for his best memory from the campaign. “The high point, I think, was the convention, the selection of Sarah Palin, and the enthusiasm that was generated all over the country.” His fondness for Mrs. Palin and her family strikes me as from the heart; he believes she was a net asset for the ticket.

“Let’s face it,” he says, “she galvanized our base in a way that I couldn’t. Everywhere she went she drew enormous and enthusiastic crowds like a rock star.” He says his only regret in selecting the Alaska governor was that no one on the campaign predicted the ferocity of the assaults against her. “To the liberal left, particularly the feminists, she is their worst nightmare.”

Since Mr. McCain was the co-sponsor of the McCain-Lieberman bill last year to limit CO emissions through a cap-and-trade system, I ask him about the climate change bill that passed the House last month and he surprised me with his opposition. “I believe climate change is real . . . but this 1,400-page bill is a farce. They bought every industry off—steel mills, agriculture, utilities,” he says.

So you wouldn’t vote for the House bill? “I would not only not vote for it,” he laughs, “I am opposed to it entirely, because it does damage to those of us who believe that we need to act in a rational fashion about climate change.”

A s Mr. McCain keeps circling our discussion back to fiscal responsibility, I ask him if the trillion dollar deficits are a sign that America is an empire in decline. “I think there’s a risk of that . . . unless we change. I’m a student of history. The shift in power from the British to the United States took place when the economy and the world’s gold reserves shifted and Britain went from the world’s [creditor] to a world debtor. The same thing could be happening now. I emphasize ‘could.’”

My last question is about the possibility for a 2012 rematch against Mr. Obama. “No chance,” he says.

But the good news for those who admire this maverick is that he’s likely to stay in the Senate for years and is focusing single-mindedly on holding back Obamanomics. For now, that means trying to stop budget busters like ObamaCare, but also saving a few million dollars at a time by cancelling museums in Nebraska, turtle crossings in Florida, and the endless flow of dollars to Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s airport to nowhere in Johnstown, Pa.

And then Mr. McCain is out the door—running to vote on another anti-pork amendment.

By STEPHEN MOORE - a senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal.

Newsmax Poll Shows Strong Support for Sarah Palin in 2012

An Internet poll sponsored by Newsmax.com reveals that nearly 4 out of 5 respondents would support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for president in 2012.

A slightly larger majority believe the then-Alaska governor helped John McCain in the 2008 presidential race — while only 31 percent think McCain did a good job running for president.

The poll drew more than 600,000 responses, and Newsmax will provide the results to major media and share them with radio talk-show hosts across the country.

Here are the poll questions and results:

1) What is your opinion of Sarah Palin? Favorable: 83 percent Unfavorable: 17 percent

2) Do you believe Sarah Palin as a running mate helped or hurt John McCain? Helped: 80 percent Hurt: 20 percent

3) In the election between McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden, who did you vote for? McCain-Palin: 81 percent Obama-Biden: 16 percent
Other: 3 percent

4) Would you support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for president in 2012? Yes: 78 percent No: 22 percent

5) Do you believe McCain did a good job running for president? Good Job: 31 percent Bad Job: 69 percent

6) Do you believe Barack Obama "bought" the White House by outspending McCain? Yes: 72 percent No: 28 percent

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Related Resources:

• We Figured Him Out - Ben Stein
• Obama Told Us This Was Coming… America Wasn’t Listening

4th of July TEA - Taxed Enough Already - Party Update

Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party Rallies were Held all over the Country on July 4th. Help organize a local TEA Party and keep the Movement Going!!

Duncan, OK

Obama adds 78,000 new employees to government payroll

2009 budget grows to a deficit of $1.8 trillion, more than four times higher than last year’s all time high and 50% of total budget

With the national debt already out of control, President Obama has added 78,000 new government jobs to the federal payroll since he took office. Obama’s increase in the number of government employees will add hundreds of millions of dollars to our debt. If history is any measure, these jobs will never be eliminated. They will simply add to the mountains of debt we are leaving our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Government spending is filled with pork earmarks like this: The National Institutes of Health will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

Obama and Congress continue to spend money the government doesn’t have. The deficit for the current year will be $1.8 trillion, 50% of the total budget. In order to pay interest on the debt, the government will have to cut spending, raise taxes, print more paper money or borrow from another country like China, which already holds billions of U.S. debt. With no end of spending in sight, some estimates project that our national debt could reach $8 trillion by the year 2014.

Obama and liberals in Congress are taking us down the road to socialism, seizing control of key banks, insurance companies, the automobile industry, etc. They are currently working on a government funded national health care program which is expected to cost roughly $2 trillion while rationing services.

Are you fed up with a Congress and a president who:

• vote for a $500 billion tax bill without even reading it?
• are spending trillions of borrowed dollars, leaving a debt our great-grandchildren will be paying?
• consistently give special interest groups billions of dollars in earmarks to help get themselves re-elected?
• want to take your wealth and redistribute it to others?
• punish those who practice responsible financial behavior and reward those who do not?
• admit to using the financial hurt of millions as an opportunity to push their political agenda?
• run up trillions of dollars of debt and then sell that debt to countries such as China?
• want government controlled health care?
• want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
• refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
• appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
• want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?
• want to impose a carbon tax on your electricity, gas and home heating fuels?
• want to reduce your tax deductibility for charitable gifts?
• take money from your family budget to pay for their federal budget?

If so, help organize and/or participate in a Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party in your community on July 4. You choose the time and the location. Use the registration form to the right.

Source: TeaParty.com

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

House Health-Care Proposal Adds $600 Billion in Taxes (Update-2)

What we are looking at:

$600 Billion in tax increases and $400 Billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid as the number of Babyboomers added to the rolls increases daily… while we already owe a Trillion in interest on the money the government (Obama Administration) has already borrowed and printed to this point, before this nationalized health-care proposal.

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.

Democrats will work on the bill’s details next week as they struggle through “what kind of heartburn” it will cause to agree on how to pay for revamping the health-care system, Rangel, a New York Democrat, said today. The measure’s cost is reaching well beyond the $634 billion President Barack Obama proposed in his budget request to Congress as a 10-year down payment for the policy changes.

Asked whether the cost of a health-care overhaul would be more than $1 trillion over a decade, Rangel said, “the answer is yes.” Some Senate Republicans, including Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, say the costs will likely exceed $1.5 trillion.

House Democrats plan to release their legislation next week. Obama is working with Congress to get legislation to his desk by October.

Democrats in the House and Senate are crafting legislation that would require all Americans to have health insurance, prohibit insurers from refusing to cover pre-existing conditions and place other restrictions on the industry.

Online Exchanges

The legislation would establish online exchanges for individuals to purchase insurance and would require employers to provide health benefits to workers or pay a penalty. Some Democrats also are backing creation of a government-run program to expand coverage to the uninsured. The issue is the subject of bipartisan negotiations with Republican who oppose the so-called public option.

Rangel said Democrats are still considering options for tax increases that might be in the bill, including a possible end to the income tax exclusion for employer-paid health benefits.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, is considering a proposal to apply income taxes to health-care plans if they are significantly more expensive than the basic health plan for federal employees -- $13,000 for a family of four.

Rangel said House Democrats want to avoid the deeper cuts to projected spending under Medicare and Medicaid that Obama has been putting forth. House Democrats want to achieve cost-savings by cuts in payments to private insurance plans under Medicare.

Covering the Costs

Obama has pledged that health-care changes won’t add to the deficit. To accomplish that, he’s proposed getting about $600 billion by reducing tax deductions available to the wealthy, and by trimming Medicare payments to insurance companies.

That won’t be enough to cover the overhaul costs. Obama said this week he plans in the coming days to disclose more proposals for raising “additional sources of revenue.” In a letter last week to Senate Democrats drafting legislation he said he will be proposing between $200 billion and $300 billion in further Medicare and Medicaid cuts.

Obama plans to give a speech Monday in Chicago to the American Medical Association as part of his campaign to build up support for what could be the biggest changes to healthcare policy since Medicare was established in 1965.

Rangel said that while House Democrats will likely release more details about health policy changes in their legislation next week, the package of offsetting tax increases and spending cuts likely will come later. Democrats, he said, want to put forth the more-positive aspects of an overhaul first. Rangel also wants to let lawmakers have time to study and weigh in on proposed offsets.

“We have a problem in not wanting to attract enough negative attention to the bill in terms of the pay-fors,” he said. “Let them get a good feel for the coverage.”

By: Laura Litvan in Washington at: llitvan@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 12, 2009 19:05 EDT

Source: Fox Nation

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

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• Democrats Set to Rush Through Government-Run Healthcare
• Understanding the House Democrat’s Health care bill
• What a Week With Healthcare
• Kennedy Healthcare Plan Meets Resistance – Full of Pork
• Healthcare: You Think Michael Moore Will Contribute? Don’t Hold Your Breath
• Here Comes Rationing Healthcare
• Rights, Responsibilities and Healthcare
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Stop the Insanity!!

Updated: If you'd like to contact Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, here's the contact information that you'll need.

Contact info for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Please contact your representative, your Senator and Speaker Pelosi on this matter and others as they arise (almost daily these days).

To pork, or not to pork

1,000-plus-page spending bill includes hundreds of pages of earmarks - pet spending projects inserted by lawmakers, ranging from:

$185,000 for coral reef research and preservation in Maui County, Hawaii

$55,000 in meteorological equipment for Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Calif.

$9.9 million for science enhancement at historically black colleges in South Carolina.

In addition to the basic operations of government, the new budget includes 775 pages of earmarks, funding programs that include local museums, colleges and infrastructure projects.

Among the earmarked projects in the bill are:

$764,000 for the Lake George Watershed Protection Initiative in New York, requested by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Democrat;

$9.9 million for South Carolina's historically black colleges and universities, requested by House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat;

$1.1 million requested by Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander and Sen. Bob Corker, both of Tennessee, for water treatment plant improvements in Tennessee's Unicoi County, as well as $300,000 for a sewer extension project in another county.

Examples of Earmarks in the Omnibus:

$713,625 Woody Biomass at SUNY-ESF. Walsh and Schumer sponsors

$951,500 Sustainable Las Vegas. Berkeley and Reid sponsors.

$24,000 A+ for Abstinence. Specter is sponsor.

$300,000 Montana World Trade Center. Rehberg sponsor.

$950,000 Myrtle Beach International Trade and Convention Center. Graham sponsor.

$200,000 Oil Region Alliance. Peterson sponsor.

$190,000 Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY for digitizing and editing the Cody collection. Barbara Cubin is the sponsor

$143,000 Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Las Vegas, NV, to expand natural history education programs. Sponsored by Harry Reid

$238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu, HI, for educational programs. Sen. Daniel Inouye is the sponsor.

$381,000 for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY for music education programs. Jerrold Nadler is the sponsor.
Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, would spend $3.8 million on a Needles, Calif., highway.

Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the top Republican on Senate Appropriations, backs earmarks including a $950,000 nature education center in Moss Point, Miss. He defends earmarks.

Source:  GlennBeck.com

Stimulus Verdict: A $3.27 Trillion Porker

The gargantuan stimulus bill Congress has rubber-stamped with virtually no Republican support contains tens of billions of the very spending projects that made the legislation a lightning rod for criticism.

And although the bill is generally described as costing $787 billion, the Congressional Budget Office reports the actual figure is now closer to $3.27 trillion.

That stems from the $744 billion it will take to pay for the additional debt the legislation will create, and $2.527 trillion in increased spending from the new and expanded programs the bill will spawn over the next decade.

To view the letter to Nancy Pelosi, go here.

The bill now spans more than 1,000 pages. While Democrats removed some provisions that fiscal conservatives objected to, most of the pork remains. Among them:

The plan has more than $3 billion in “neighborhood stabilization” and Community Development Block Grant funding, much of which may go to benefit ACORN, a low-income housing and voter registration “community” organization that is under federal investigation for its suspicious voter registration practices.

$1.3 billion to bailout AMTRAK, the perennial money-loser railroad.

$1 billion for educational programs, including courses on sexually transmitted diseases.

$30 million for restoration of wetlands to be spent in the San Francisco Bay Area – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district. The money will go in part to protect the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse.

$200 million for a low-pollution, coal-fired power plant in President Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois.

$45 million for ATV four-wheeler trails, and government office renovations, according to RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

$200 million to provide computers to community colleges.

$50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts.

Over $650 million in coupons to help consumers buy digital TV converter-box coupons.

A reported $300 million for hybrid vehicles and electric-powered cars. According to the Washington Times, this item will include buying golf carts for federal workers.

GOP Sen. John McCain summed up his view of the bill: “This measure is not bipartisan. It contains much that is not stimulative.”

Some of the criticisms of the bill, however, center on policy rather than cost.

The Heritage Foundation, for example, reports the bill reverses the bipartisan welfare reforms achieved during the Clinton administration.

Also, opponents have slammed the bill for being “anti-religious,” because it expressly prohibits the use of stimulus funds for faith-based schools, schools of divinity, facilities used for “sectarian worship,” or places of religious worship.

Saturday, February 14, 2009 9:40 AM
By: David A. Patten © 2009 Newsmax

The Dems rushed the vote on this bill pushing the urgency button.  Then we find out that Pelosi and 7 other Dems virtually immediately headed to the airport to board military taxpayer paid planes to Italy... on a so called working trip?!?  We also see that after not allowing the members of either the House of Senate to read "the Bill" because of the "so-called" urgency, President Obama waits four days to sign "The Bill" today, Tuesday, so that the White House can make it another media event...  Sounds a bit odd... or maybe not!?!

Hmmm... are we being had?  You betcha!  $3.27 trillion that will put our children and grandchildren into debt... for a bill that nobody really knows what it contains and that experts are saying more and more will give us... Main St or the little guy, very little for the cost... and probably won't work.  And all the while after incurring a $3.27 trillion dollar debt the President has asked the military, fighting two wars, to cut their budget by 10% when they have projects stacked up and needs that would produce immediate jobs that could stimulate the economy.

"They" also don't want us to be side-tracked by the facts... like both John McCain and Mitt Romney had actual 'Stimulus Bill" options that would have cost us half the money and created double the jobs and quicker  Wow, what a concept.