Read the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 2:18 pm

www.readthestimulus.org

$850 billion, 334 pages and counting...somebody needs to read it

Read it and write your congressmen (and congresswomen).

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:31 pm

if you type in 'neighborhood stabilization' into the search box, you will............nevermind - here's the link direct to what i'm lookin at

http://www.readthestimulus.org/index.php?query=neighborhood+stabilization

House Democrats 1/15/09 Bill Text, Page 229:
... Neighborhood Stabilization Program Recovery Funding: $4.19 billion Nearly $4 billion was provided for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. This funding was provided to local governments and States with high levels of foreclosures as a way for the local community to purchase and rehabilitate this .........

as you read it, it seems somewhat worthy considering the funding will be provided to local and state governments....but i'm now reading from another site that BHO wants to include 'NON PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS' as well....does this mean ACORN is eligible? guess ya gotta take care of who got you there right?

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:56 pm

^^I see you are still steadfastly supporting your president.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:58 pm

hey - i give him credit for having the balls to come through and provide what he promised for his organization despite the heat he could catch for doing so...a lesser man would have reneged and taken this opportunity to show bi-partisanship and say fuck all to the pay-offs...i mean - ACORN is still under investigation for voter registration fraud so it'd be easy for him just to say fuck off.

right on BHO!!! you da man!!! O0

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:01 pm

page 147

$335,000,000 FOR STD PREVENTION IN ECONOMIC STIMULUS BILL
Wed Jan 28 2009 09:58:30 ET

Democrats may have eliminated provisions on birth control and sod for the National Mall in the "job stimulus" -- but buried on page 147 of the bill is stimulation for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases!

The House Democrats' bill includes $335 million for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

In the past, the CDC has used STD education funding for programs that many Members of Congress find objectionable and arguably unrelated to a mission of economic stimulus [such as funding events called 'Booty Call' and 'Great Sex' put on by an organization that received $698,000 in government funds.]

"Whether this funding has merit is not the question; the point is it has no business in an economic plan supposedly focused on job creation," says a stimulated Hill source.

bluegrassg8r · Post by **bluegrassg8r** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:50 pm

4.1 billion to ACORN in this current form. Jesus, what a fucking blatant "up yours" to the nation.

urapnes · Post by **urapnes** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 3:37 pm

ACORN did nothing remotely illegal. hell, they are the ones who reported the illegal or questionable registrations to the authorities. you guys crack me up!

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 3:42 pm

ACORN did nothing remotely illegal.

why are they being investigated then?

IHateUGAlyDawgs · Post by **IHateUGAlyDawgs** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:56 pm

ACORN did nothing remotely illegal.
why are they being investigated then?

right wing conspiracy created by the hacks at fox news and the washington post (or was it times? i can't remember).

DocZaius · Post by **DocZaius** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:46 am

I'm glad to see that 100% of the GOP and a few Democrats voted against this monumental travesty.

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:48 pm

I'm glad to see that 100% of the GOP and a few Democrats voted against this monumental travesty.

The Republicans better pray to anyone that will listen that this bill fails miserably to stimulate the economy. If it is successful, the Republicans are fucked at the midterm elections. They will get hammered.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:55 pm

i hope it's successful.

i just don't have any possible clue as to why it's so important to give the smithsonian institute 150MM dollars...i like the smithsonian but i don't like it that much...wtf?

http://uk.reuters.com/article/stocksAndSharesNews/idUKLNE50S01U20090129

But it is the litany of other, seemingly nonemergency items that is upsetting some stomachs on Capitol Hill, like the $15.6 billion in Pell grants for college students, $6 billion for modernizing college buildings, $600 million to buy new cars for government workers and $150 million in repairs to the Smithsonian Institution.

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:23 am

WASHINGTON - The unanimous vote by House Republicans against President Obama's stimulus plan provided an early indication that the GOP hopes to regain power by becoming the champion of small government, a reputation many felt slipped away during the high-spending Bush years.

The bill passed easily despite the opposition of all 177 Republican House members, but party leaders delighted in what they considered a victory after two straight electoral drubbings and much soul-searching about what the party stands for.

Champion of small government? Where were you for the last 8 years when record deficits were being run up on your watch? Champion of small government my ass.

"How about those House Republicans?" cheered Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a vocal small-government advocate, at a Heritage Foundation appearance yesterday.

"House Republicans said we would stand up for American taxpayers at this time of economic hardship for our nation. And last night, standing together, that's exactly what we did," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) wrote yesterday in a memo to his colleagues that was released to reporters. "I am proud of our team."

Yes, how about the House Republicans? It is easy to make a stand when you are unimportant. Try doing what is right when everyone is looking, you fucking crooks. I can't seem to recall any zero votes from the scumbags when W was pushing his huge spending bills through Congress. Such high horses those house Republicans have.

I wouldn't know Jim DeMint if he walked into my office right now. I can, unequivocally, tell you that he is a cocksucker to the tenth power.

IHateUGAlyDawgs · Post by **IHateUGAlyDawgs** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:36 am

Eric,

I share your concerns over what a lot of congressional republicans became during the last few years. That said, within the party there has been a groundswell to go back to what is/should be the foundation of the GOP - small government.

I'm hopeful, that despite the fallacy of the last 8 years, that this may be a sign that Republicans are going back to doing what they should've been doing before.

slideman67 · Post by **slideman67** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:44 am

WASHINGTON - The unanimous vote by House Republicans against President Obama's stimulus plan provided an early indication that the GOP hopes to regain power by becoming the champion of small government, a reputation many felt slipped away during the high-spending Bush years.

The bill passed easily despite the opposition of all 177 Republican House members, but party leaders delighted in what they considered a victory after two straight electoral drubbings and much soul-searching about what the party stands for.
Champion of small government? Where were you for the last 8 years when record deficits were being run up on your watch? Champion of small government my ass.

"How about those House Republicans?" cheered Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a vocal small-government advocate, at a Heritage Foundation appearance yesterday.

"House Republicans said we would stand up for American taxpayers at this time of economic hardship for our nation. And last night, standing together, that's exactly what we did," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) wrote yesterday in a memo to his colleagues that was released to reporters. "I am proud of our team."
Yes, how about the House Republicans? It is easy to make a stand when you are unimportant. Try doing what is right when everyone is looking, you fucking crooks. I can't seem to recall any zero votes from the scumbags when W was pushing his huge spending bills through Congress. Such high horses those house Republicans have.

I wouldn't know Jim DeMint if he walked into my office right now. I can, unequivocally, tell you that he is a cocksucker to the tenth power.

I completely agree with this post. These same Republicans, who are now clamoring and bloviating about fiscal responsibility, are the same fools who rubber stamped everything Bush wanted - including turning the surplus he inherited into a deficit, and supporting his unnecessary war of choice in Iraq. Where we they when there were reports of pallet fulls of money disappeared? They were parroting the mantra of tax cuts solving everything. Are they blind or just willfully ignorant of the disaster of the last eight years? This is nothing more than hypocrisy at its best.

The House Republicans have pretty much now relegated themselves to irrelevancy. And they did it to themsleves by choosing to take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh, who publically stated that he wants Obama to fail (and by extension, the American economy to fail), than the American people. I can see the ads now, and I can easily forsee that there will be fewer of them after the elections of 2010.

DocZaius · Post by **DocZaius** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:01 pm

From one of my new favorite blogs:

Repeating Mistakes Over, and Over, and Over…
February 2, 2009, 4:02 pm

I have come to the conclusion that politicians believe Americans all have Alzheimers. And, given the lamentable state of the media, they may be right.

Example 1

We can argue about stimulus and the Depression all we want, but I had, until the last few days, thought the absolute one thing we all 100% agreed on is that the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and the trade war they sparked were one of the leading causes of the worldwide economic death spiral in the late 20’s and 30’s. Or not:

The stimulus bill passed by the House Wednesday contains a controversial provision that would mostly bar foreign steel and iron from the infrastructure projects laid out by the $819 billion economic package. A Senate version, yet to be acted upon, goes further, requiring, with few exceptions, that all stimulus-funded projects use only American-made equipment and goods.

Here is a nice story of another “Buy American” steel fiasco.

Example 2

Last year — I am talking about just 3 months ago — I thought it was fairly clear that the immediate cause for the financial meltdown for which the TARP bailout was being crafted was the systematic relaxation of underwriting standards that led to large numbers of loans (and their lenders, securitizers, etc) going belly-up. Folks could argue whether this was because of deregulation or greed or government distortions and interventions, but I thought there was not doubt that poor credit judgment and excessively free credit were at the heart of the problem. Or not:

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said President Barack Obama will require banks receiving government aid to lend more to businesses and consumers, saying the Bush administration “made a mistake” by not setting stricter rules for institutions getting funds from the $700 billion financial-rescue package.

“I think you’re going to see the Obama administration, having learned from that, push for much more lending,” Frank said today on ABC’s This Week. “There are going to be some real rules in there.”

So Frank and Obama are upset that the bailout of banks that were overgenerous on credit did not include provisions to force them to be more generous with credit?

Final thought: At the end of the day, businesses and individuals have a felt need to deleverage. That is going to cause a recession, end of story. The Congress’s and Obama Administration’s obsession with short-circuiting this sensible desire to reduce debt is not only counter-productive, it is offensive. Banks are sensibly trying to strengthen their balance sheets, but the government wants to stop them. Individuals are trying to cut back on spending, reduce debt, and save more. Again, the government wants to stop them, by going to debt and spending for them if consumers won’t do it on their own.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:15 pm

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said President Barack Obama will require banks receiving government aid to lend more to businesses and consumers, saying the Bush administration “made a mistake” by not setting stricter rules for institutions getting funds from the $700 billion financial-rescue package.

“I think you’re going to see the Obama administration, having learned from that, push for much more lending,” Frank said today on ABC’s This Week. “There are going to be some real rules in there.”

Somebody needs to put a cock in Frank's mouth instead of a microphone. I mean for fuck's sake, Barney, we all KNEW there needed to be rules in the first fucking rescue package. But you and your crooked and criminal friends just handed over the money over to the robbers. When Bernanke showed you his toy gun (when he drained all the slosh from the market last fall and created a nice little mini-crash as there wasn't enough money floating around to sop up the equities necessary to hold prices reasonably stable) did you just get overly excited about the size of it or something? After all, your constituents TOLD you that the banks were gonna take the money and run. But now there will be rules, huh? Is that like a safety word for you when you play dress up Congressman Frank? Cause as much pain as you want until we all cry "uncle"?

I mean, WHAT THE FUCK.

We deserve what we get.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:19 pm

frank and anyone else who was there from the very beginning has brass balls to criticize how stuff went down from the get go.

he discredits himself when he does.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 1:21 pm

some good news imho (though i'm sure some here will think i'm CRAZY)

basically - BHOs 'stimulus' package wanted to give the movie industry 246MILLION dollars in tax breaks. O0 LMAO!!!!! O0

read on if you care

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-movies4-2009feb04,0,2869673.story

Senate cuts movie-industry tax break from stimulus bill
Opponents say a provision to qualify new projects for an immediate 50% write-off is unnecessary and cite January's box-office haul of $1.03 billion.
By Jim Puzzanghera

February 4, 2009

Jim Puzzanghera Reporting From Washington — The motion picture industry's record-setting month at the box office may have cost it $246 million in tax breaks, as the Senate on Tuesday stripped a provision from the economic stimulus bill that critics derided as an unnecessary Hollywood bailout.

In denying the tax breaks on new film projects, senators cited the $1.03-billion haul from movie ticket sales in January, a 19% year-over-year increase, according to industry tracking firm Media by Numbers.

"They had their best January ever," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who led the charge against the tax breaks.

Movie studios actually share a portion of ticket sales with theater owners. And despite the box-office figures, the motion picture industry has suffered during the recession like other industries. Film financing has dried up as part of the credit crunch, and DVD sales, which had propped up studios' profits for years, dropped 9% in 2008.

Case in point: Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday reported its fiscal first-quarter profit had fallen by nearly a third.

Hollywood's economic troubles gave the Motion Picture Assn. of America fodder to argue that its member studios needed the tax breaks. Inserted into the legislation by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D.-Mont.), the provision in the $885-billion stimulus package would have allowed film projects started in 2009 to qualify for an immediate 50% write-off.

But the arguments of Coburn and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), punctuated by January's surprising box-office figures, proved persuasive. The Senate voted 52 to 45 to remove the provision -- 13 Democrats and one independent, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, joined with 38 Republicans to pass Coburn's amendment removing the studios' tax breaks from the legislation.

"Hollywood's doing OK," McCain said.

California Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein opposed the removal.

The MPAA said it was not giving up.

"There is no doubt that the motion picture industry is a vital component of the American economic engine, generating billions of dollars every year in state and federal taxes and employing workers all over the country," spokeswoman Angela Martinez said after the vote.

She said the MPAA would keep pushing for policies "that keep our industry strong."

The MPAA argued that filmmakers should get the same depreciation tax break in 2009 as other businesses in the bill.

"Every sector of the economy is eligible, plus software," said Michael O'Leary, the group's chief counsel for federal affairs and policy. "Our view is films are intellectual property the same as software, [and] we create jobs and tax revenues."

The so-called bonus depreciation in the stimulus package is designed to spark economic growth. It gives companies an incentive to make large capital purchases in 2009 by increasing the amount of the cost they can write off in the first year.

Baucus said the movie industry incorrectly had been left out of previous versions of the temporary bonus depreciation tax break.

"The film industry is like any other industry: like the steel industry, like the auto industry, like other manufacturing industries," Baucus said.

But Coburn said including Hollywood amounted to an unwarranted handout.

Meanwhile, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) were leading a bipartisan group drafting an amendment to strip more out of the legislation -- tens of billions of dollars of spending for items not deemed effective job creators, such as $75 million for smoking cessation programs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is not part of the group, said President Obama and Senate leaders were committed to "getting everything out of the bill that causes heartburn to a significant number of senators."

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:39 pm

But, but, how will they be able to get top talent without the tax breaks? They need that money so actors don't take their services to other countries.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:49 pm

But, but, how will they be able to get top talent without the tax breaks? They need that money so actors don't take their services to other countries.

and there ya have it folks.

eric has just successfully compared the pressing issues of the motion picture industry to that of the global banking and finance sector.

bravo profesore.

G8rMom7 · Post by **G8rMom7** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 3:51 pm

"The film industry is like any other industry: like the steel industry, like the auto industry, like other manufacturing industries," Baucus said.

I take issue with this because the film and motion picture industry is NOTHING like the auto industry or steel industry. Namely, their jobs are much more attractive (not even taking into account the pay). Put it this way, would you rather hold a mike over a hot Hollywood actress while filming a movie in Hawaii or would you rather drill the same screws in the same cars day after day? And yes, I know I work for one of the movie industry companies...but I really work for the parks which falls under tourism. Meh.

IHateUGAlyDawgs · Post by **IHateUGAlyDawgs** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:18 pm

well, that, and what drives the demand for each industry is VASTLY different.

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:09 pm

The attractiveness of jobs is not the point. The film industry drives dollars and thus taxes the exact same way any other industry does. If we are worried about Lehman Bros. not going out of business than why shouldn't we worry about the health of Paramount or 20th Century Fox?

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:35 pm

because the numbers of people affected by paramount pictures collapsing pales in comparison to that of BofA

the arts are that important to you huh?