…. I have just moved to Cairo in fact and here you see people who really are poor. Poor to the point that they have NO cash, No life to speak of and No one to listen to their voice…. America and the UK will be ok in the long run, it may just be uncomfortable for a while… One sad thing about the USA is the lack of health opportunities available to the poor and I thank that I am British everyday for having access to the wonderful NHS.

Anyone who determines they are OWED a welfare check is a sad statement on the attitude that prevails in my country. It saddens me to see lazy, shiftless people who are zero liability taxpayers who think the government OWES them something. I work, I pay taxes and I refuse to subsidize laziness. I have been unemployed…twice…it was strictly business. Was I happy? No. But I got off my lazy butt and found work.

So to all of you who just “wants your check” you don’t deserve nothing unless you work for it. I don’t give a damn what color you are, or what your background is…this country owes you NOTHING! Read the words of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King! None of these great men preached that anyone owes YOU anything!

Welcome to Socialism!

This is not your personal financing. This macroeconomics. There is no demand at current in this economy and this bill is an attempt to stimulate demand.

The money for construction and repair of federal buildings is designed to make these buildings more energy efficient, which eventually save the government significant amounts in energy costs. Even if it does not eventually recoup all its costs, it will wind up costing less than we’re spending and in the short term will create jobs. What’s more, unlike an individual’s home, everyone uses these buildings and they need to be in suitable repair to meet that kind of need.

As far as the unemployment benefits, preventing productive citizenship from drifting into destitution is a pretty good during a time of major downturn. People who collect unemployment are not some sort of parasites. In order to collect unemployment, you have to been employed for six consecutive months and pay into unemployment. These are people who had jobs and lost them.

The states, generally, were not irresponsible. They have been hit, particularly in education, with all sorts of federal mandates without federal funding. Some of the states have been irresponsible as Christie Whitman was in New Jersey by cutting taxes and using loans to finance that cut. However, many of the states’ irresponsibility has come largely because of the sheer terror of seeming to be “high tax, big spenders.” These places put off repairs of essential items for years and years because they’re big ticket items. Then when something happens like the bridge collapse in Minnesota you wind up paying so much more. Sometimes you have to spend money. Even within states that have been irresponsible spending this money will help them prevent layoffs which will surely only increase the economic crisis. What’s more something like the $1 billion in here for new police is sheer job creation.

This bill is far from perfect. There are things in here that could be left until later. There is not enough pure construction spending. The $15 billion that was cut from this bill in school construction was devastating, not only because of the stimulative, but because so many schools are needed. In Newark, New Jersey kids are literally sitting in the closet to fit into the class room. They have to leave the building during the day to go into trailers to attend certain classes. Leaving the building not only exposes them to the elements, it also exposes them to the city’s fierce gang members who have no compunction about harassing a child outside a school.

It absolutely positively stinks that we have to spend almost $1 trillion to do this. But sometimes you have to give something to get something, there is almost no win-win in real life. This is what’s best for us right now. We obviously can’t continue down this path with deficit spending, the results will be devastating for the US economy down the line. First though we have to deal with preventing collapse right now. There’s no question they blew it with the bank bailout. We just have to do it better now. We’re at a point where only the government has the resources to move us out of this situation. Despite the Right Wing talking points, the government tried to let the market correct itself in 1929-1932 and look what happened.

Maybe we would have some money to spare were it not for the nearly $2 trillion squandered by Bush on Iraq and tax cuts. And squandered is the right word for it.

A more detailed break down of the stimulus package can be found on the non-partisan propublica.

Why don’t we have a requirement stating that the ones that vote for this bill, must at least read it first. then like we have to do in school write a darn book report about it. without any assistance. I bet Obama himself has not and likely will not even read it.

What a joke our goverment has become.