Democrats Think You Are Stupid

It’s amazing what gall the Democratic Congress has these days. For months, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama have been telling us that our economy is on the verge of collapse and that the only solution is for the government to take a trillion dollars that belongs to us and our children and dump it back into the economy.

Common sense alone should tell you that their idea is silly. Government “stimulus” is really government waste. You can spend you dollar better in the economy than the government can because when you spend it, it’s really a dollar. When the government spend it, it’s a dollar minus a ridiculous amount of overhead. We’d be lucky to see 50 cents of that dollar once the various levels of bureaucracy are done with it. When your dollar goes to government it pays for government. When your dollar does goes into the economy, it pays for government and creates economic activity.

Nevertheless, the Democratic Party is relying on us to stupidly ignore our own good sense and believe their panicky pronouncements of doom.

So let’s take a look at where the money in this stimulus bill is really going to go. Remember, the entire purpose of the bill is to give you confidence that the economy isn’t going down the toilet so that you’ll spend your money and produce economic activity instead of sitting on it.

Apparently, the lobbyists, especially the lobbyists from local and state government, didn’t get the message that the money’s supposed to go into the economy. They seem to think that it’s supposed to go to them so that they can build those expensive and wasteful dream projects that they could never slip into their own budgets without their citizens taking up pitchforks and torches. Does “a Metrolink station that needs building in Placentia, Calif.; a stretch of beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., that could really use some more sand; a water park in Miami” give you confidence that the economy is going to improve.

More likely, it gives you confidence that government officials are going to get theirs while you get the bill.

The best part of that story is how the governments plan on getting that money. They can’t go the normal route because the Democrats have loudly and publicly said there will be no earmarks. So, instead of getting the cash by going directly to their members of Congress, the old-fashioned way, they’re going to have to go to a state official or one of President Obama’s staffers for the money. It won’t really be an earmark, but it’ll work out the same way. Again, they think you’re stupid.

Now, let’s see what sort of economy-stimulating spending our Democratic protectors have in store for us. Might we see tax credits for businesses that would encourage them to replace old equipment or make capital improvements? How about a drastic cut in the national corporate tax rate which is still the second-highest in the world? Perhaps we’ll see a big capital gains tax cut to break loose the billions of dollars worth of investor capital sitting on the sidelines?

Nah…these are Democrats we’re talking about. Here’s what we’re going to get instead of all that other crap that would actually work.

An additional $245 million to “maintain and modernize the information technology system at the Farm Service Agency.”

An additional $1 billion (with a B) to the Census Bureau for “Periodic Censuses and Programs.”

An additional $650 million for the Department of Commerce’s Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program, to be used for “coupons and related activities, including but not limited to education, consumer support and outreach, as deemed appropriate and necessary to ensure a timely conversion of analog to digital television.”

An additional $400 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for “operations, research and facilities.”

An additional $150 million to NASA for “aeronautics.”

An additional $4.5 billion (with a B) to improve, repair and modernize Department of Defense facilities, restore and modernize Army barracks, and invest in the energy efficiency of Department of Defense facilities.

An additional $1.7 billion (with a B) for projects to address critical deferred maintenance needs within the National Park System.

An additional $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts “to be distributed in direct grants to fund arts projects and activities which preserve jobs in the non-profit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn.”

Let me point out here that every one of these agencies has already gotten their appropriations this year. This is extra money – emergency money – that is supposed to pull us out of a recession. So, according to the Democrats, government making itself bigger by funding programs that obviously weren’t important enough to fund before is a critical component of our country’s economic health. Obviously, if these billions of dollars weren’t critical, they wouldn’t be in this stimulus bill, right? Again, Democrats this we’re stupid.

And what would a Democratic, economy-saving, Depression-preventing, emergency stimulus package be without tens of millions of dollars worth of payback to the radical Anti-American group ACORN? That would be the very same ACORN whose members have been indicted in several states for voter registration fraud, the same ACORN founded by a man whose goal was to destroy American institutions, and the same ACORN with whom Barack Obama worked very closely before he began his meteoric political rise.

Feeling confident yet? Feel like spending your money in an economy that the Democrats will burden with a debt so big your children won’t be able to pay it off? Think our employment situation is going to get better after the government finishes taxing the bejeezus out of tens of thousands of small business owners? For the last time, the Democrats must think we are stupid.

I will say this. The stimulus bill is aptly named. Instead of stimulating our economy, though, this bill will stimulate the political careers of Democratic politicians all over the country as they give your money to their own political supporters and money men. It’s easy for them to do. They don’t have to pay for any of it.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl wants to know why, if we’re in an emergency situation, Congress isn’t acting like it. (via Glenn Reynolds)

UPDATE 2: You know what Nancy Pelosi thinks will help stimulate our economy? Making you pay for other people’s birth control.

Economic genius and part-time garden gnome Robert Reich wants to make sure that the stimulus money doesn’t get spent on “high skilled people who are already professional or to white male construction workers”. His big plan involves quotas that will require government bureaucrats to monitor, which will cost even more money.

Can’t you just feel your confidence rising, already?

Other Posts of Interest:

• All The Dems are Missing is a Gun and a Dark Alley
• Who Needs Math When You’re the Lightbringer?
• Time to Replace the Redistributionist Republican Leadership

Tags: Big Government, Corruption, Democrats, Economics, Government Bailouts, Progressives, Taxes

Category: Our New Democratic Overlords, The Economy and Your Money