Pelosi's Second Stimulus

...because the first one, and the Omnibus budget, just wasn't enough.

Meanwhile, China is moving in the exact opposite direction.

But he [Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao] said China would ride out the recession, and repeated the country's target of 8% economic growth. That is the minimum the leadership thinks is needed to avoid social unrest because of unemployment.

Tip to Gunservatively

Obama - Need to Clarify 'Socialist' Question

The problem with Bush's expansion of Medicare and the first bailout comes to full fruition...

Meanwhile, President Obama feels compelled to make an impromptu call to reporters to clarify his answer to the question, "Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?".

Something about the issue must weigh heavily on his mind.

HT Drudge

Talk is Cheap

Thomas Sowell sheds light on a topic critical to the success of the methodical government take over of everything from bank funds to home ownership and healthcare - words mean things, they have value.

So while some stand in awe of the Messiah with words promising everything their heart desires, he robs them blind and makes them slaves to his "solutions".

The Obama administration’s new budget, with deficits that make previous irresponsible deficits look like child’s play, has a cover that says “A New Era of Responsibility.”

You want responsibility? He’ll give you the word “responsibility.” Why not? It costs nothing.

Hurry Up, and Wait

Thomas Sowell with another brilliant assessment.

Nothing in the amateurish way the current administration has begun suggests that they have mastered even the mechanics of governing, much less the complexities of the huge national problems looming ahead, at home and abroad.

...as Sowell reminds us, Congress couldn't take two days to review the bill before they voted but the President allowed it to sit on his desk for three. An administration with a clue would have had the timing better coordinated.

There is far more to fear from this administration than its amateurism in governing. The urgency with which it has rushed through a monumental spending bill, whose actual spending will not be completed even after 2010, ought to set off alarm bells among those who are not in thrall to the euphoria of Obama’s presidency.

The urgency was real, even if the reason given was phony. President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, let slip a valuable clue when he said that a crisis should not go to waste, that a crisis is an opportunity to do things that you could not do otherwise.

The longer the stimulepork bill sat under the bright sunshine, the more it wreaked. Since the "opportunity" window was closing, debate was stifled; they had no time to listen to dissent.

Boehner, Showing Leadership

This is what every single Republican should have been saying. Are you listening Mr. Specter?

"What a Joke."

Jack Cafferty of CNN sums up the stimulepork package and calls Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) the "poster children for everything that is wrong in Washington".

Cafferty calls out every member of Congress who for voted something they haven't read, let alone understand. He also rips Democrats for failing to allow 48 hours for the public to review the bill, as they promised.

I certainly hope this doesn't come as a surprise to Jack. After all, it is Congress.

H/T JB

Enough is Enough

Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania) speaks out against the stimulepork bill.



H/T Ethan Demme at Keystone Conservative

National Electronic Medical Records?

Private medical records will be going digital and a new position, National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will be created if the stimulepork package passes.

How comfy do you feel about that one?

However, that's not the worst of it...

from Betsy McCaughey at Bloomberg

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The government will determine what's safe and cost-effective? What part of their track record indicates they have the talent to do such a thing?

The elderly should "be more accepting"?? Of what exactly? The fact that the government which promised to fund their retirements, medications, and health care under the current system, will now strip those benefits away because it isn't cost effective to treat them anymore?

Remember, Daschle was gong to head up the cabinet agency responsible for this aspect of the "stimulus" package, until he was caught not paying to fund the bureaucracy.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the ...strange.

Stimulating History

Think a massive governmental stimulus solves problems during depressing economic times? Perhaps this historical primer regarding over-meddlesome Fed policy will make you dwell on it a little more.

H/T Jonah Goldberg