Things that have nothing to do with stimulating the economy, Part I

Your humble correspondent has been a bit quiet (sorry), because while trying to maintain my usual business (work, family, etc.) I've been trying to read Obama's Stimulus Plan to expose the devil in the details. Reading Congressional language is SO much fun. If you're ever interested, you can go to http://thomas.loc.gov to look for any bill or resolution that either the House or Senate creates. The ones you should be interested in during the near term are:

1. The text of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" which is the bill I will be discussing below. You can't find this in Thomas as of right now though (curiously)...you have to Google it...but this should soon be published as #2 below...

2. H.R. 598, sponsored by one Charles Rangel, Democrat from New York (of "oops I forgot to properly claim my rental property to the IRS" fame - problems with the IRS seem to be a common theme among demoncrats these days BTW). This too does not have the text available for viewing in Thomas either as of this moment. Probably because this bill will be the marked-up version of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" with all those juicy earmarks hidden throughout. I promise to help decipher that garbage once it's made available for public consumption, but for now let's focus on a few things that are already out there in the original text from Obamessiah himself...or should I say "inspired by" Obamessiah and transcribed by David Obey, Wisconsin demoncrat.

I am only on page 61 (of 258) and there are some things to take note of:

1. If you want to supposedly see how the stimulus spending is going under this bill, you will be able to check it out at www.recovery.gov. You will probably find it as forthright and insightful as www.change.gov...meaning absolutely zero.

2. Page 47 raised a brow. I had to flip back to the cover page to make sure I was reading the Chosen One's economic stimulus plan, because on that page he wants to make available $650 MILLION more available for the stupid Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program. Here's a silly side question...shouldn't it be called "Analog-to-Digital"?

I digress...

I'm stuck on why spending more money on this dumb coupon program is going to stimulate the economy...wouldn't making people pay full price stimulate the economy instead of giving them a discount at taxpayer expense? After all, when I think of people who haven't yet made the jump to cable or satellite television, I think of people like my great-great aunt and uncle down in Florida. Wouldn't a BRAND-NEW television be enticing because it would make it easier to see the screen if you're elderly (especially if it is just snow on February 18) AND it would stimulate the economy? Isn't keeping around that old TV this long just asking for a house fire? Yeah, having to rebuild your entire house after it burnt down WOULD stimulate the economy, but wouldn't buying a new television be the cheaper option? I know, I know -- you're screaming, "STOP MAKING SENSE, TRUTHBOMBER!" Let us proceed...

3. Page 48...I know, I know...only ONE PAGE LATER(!) I find another problem. On this page Obama proposes spending $600M on near-earth satellite development, establishing data records, and data modeling to help him prove climate change. Ambitious, yes...misguided, yes...stimulating the economy, um...no. This is just an agenda stuffer. Who is going to say no to wasting money proving climate change if its included in a stimulus bill? Actually, for the record, I do want them to study climate change...so we can shut Al Gore up when they come back and say..."nothing has changed for thousands of years."

4. Staying with the "climate change" theme, since Obama apparently can't let it go, on Page 60 we see another attempt to push Al Gore's...uh, I mean, OBAMA's agenda. This time it's NASA. Barry wants to give NASA $250M to put together a climate change research mission. Here's the problem with both NASA and NOAA...these two agencies have been studying earth's atmosphere and climate with many missions...why more? I can tell you why...because none have been able to prove without a doubt that Al Gore is not a charlatan. Getting back to the bigger premise, how does this stimulate the economy? In both cases of NOAA and NASA, the money will just go into the pockets of long-time contractors who will NOT go hire more people to do the mission, but will instead just add them to their manifest for their current employees to tackle when the time comes.

That is all for now...can't wait to get to the chapter on government-sanctioned/taxpayer-funded birth control programs under the "stimulus" package...