And the CBO says it ain't no stimulus, it's an economy killer.

Today is the sad nail ( one of them ) into the countries coffin... sad sad day for america

The more I think about it the more I am of the opinion that the Obama and congress seem to think that the way to fight a fire is with gasoline.  They figure if we toss enough onto the fire then it will go out and everything will be great.  But if just one ember remains the fire will re-ignite and be much, much worse. 

Here's my prediction:

The porkulus package will pass the Senate and will start getting applied in the May-June timeframe much like last years.

This will boost the economy temporarily but by the end of the year we will be right back where we started.  In fact I won't be at all surprised if by the end of the year congress is talking about putting together a third stimulus bill.

So if I'm reading this right, spending money on energy efficiency, security personel, waste disposal, flood defences, fighting health epidemics, education, and fire services is all 'pork'?! In that case, give me all the pork I can eat!

Maudlin - nobody claims those things have no intrinsic value.  Furthermore, we are already spending a shitload on all of those things already.  The additional money just shouldn't be spent on them until we have it.

Ahhh yes all that will stimulate the economy! I am all for stuff like this for the most part but it does very little to get the economy back on track. In fact any kind of spending... really wont help.

Plus I though BO was going to balance the budget? Alot of stuff you listed is going to be added to the yearly bedget... so what is going to get cut? NOTHING. NADA... who is paying for all of this ? WE are. You my friend can pay my part... untill the gov can actually balance a dang budget they dont be needing to ADD more debt to my kids thank you very much

I haven't heard anyone claim that the money allocated in the porkulus bill isn't "needed".  What people have been saying is that a lot of the items in the bill are NOT stimulus, they will do nothing to actually stimulate the economy.  Energy efficiency is a great idea but putting money into it isn't going to create long lasting jobs and therefore is NOT going to stimulate the economy.  Arguing whether the money is needed is a completely different debate and should be left to the various appropriations bills that need to be approved every year.  The same can be said for the rest of those items as well.

It doesn't need to create long lasting jobs, it just needs to create jobs for a couple of years when things will have started to recover and those jobs can be filled elsewhere. At least with energy efficiency you will have a long term benefit (saving) that will help offset wholly or partially the interest payments on the debt you've had to take out to fund the spending initially.

So what are you proposing, that the government cuts back spending to balance the budget in the middle of a recession (and/or raises taxes)? That would be a near-certain recipe for creating a massive depression. Unfortunately the government has been put into the position of needing to borrow hefty amounts of money by the reckless overspending of the Bush administration during a time when it wasn't needed.

But see that's the danger of temporary jobs.  What if the economy takes longer to recover because of all the spending that the government is doing?  What if the spending is fueling the lack of confidence in the market, which is rather likely?  What if there aren't jobs for those people when the temporary work runs out?  We end up right back in this same position, so what do we do then.  Do we go through another massive spending bill in the hopes that this time the economy will recover in time to catch the people as the work dries up?  At what point do you say enough is enough?

Of course not.  The last thing you want to do in a recession is raise taxes, but what should have happened during all of those years of economic growth was government programs that were wasteful (most of them) should have been cut and the deficit should have been paid down rather than exploding.  Part of the reason for our current crisis is the size of the deficit, adding onto is hardly a way to solve the problem.  You don't dig yourself out of hole by digging the hold deeper.

I thought that was rather ironic myself.  The "good" news is that it sounds like the money for the polar ice breaker was one of the items cut out of the bill over the weekend.

You wanna pour gasoline on a raging fire, go right ahead.  I'd rather starve the fire of oxygen, myself.  Bush vs. Obama is an idiotic argument - Congress spends our money and is responsible for deficits.  The most any president can do is request &/or veto and, thanks to the way Congress is too chickenshit to consider spending measures on their individual merits (hence 'Omnibus' reconciliation bills), he's pretty much damned if does, damned if he doesn't.  We already know that massive deficit spending has failed to deliver - the unemployment rate in 1939 was virtually the same as it was in 1931.  We were told in October that TARP would 'solve' the crisis.  Well, it didn't, & now we're told the 'crisis' will be a 'catastrophe' if we don't mortgage our children's future beyond all hope of recovery.  There ain't enough money to satisfy the thug thieves of Reid & Pelosi's mob.

p.s.  I hate Congress.

You're not alone.  And before people go claiming that I'm only saying that because I hate Dems, I hated congress when the Republicans were running the show too.  Congress has a major disconnect with their constituents.  Why anyone re-elects these jokers is beyond me.  We need a complete overhaul in congress, kick everyone out and start anew, and start by adding term limits to the offices.

I stopped reading right after I saw this comment. That right there shows the ignorance of peoples comments just to have a disagreement with someone of an opposing party. The article said enough and would be pointless to argue when a comment like the one above is thrown in.

So when the former secretary that lost her job today finishes her BO construction job (building roads and bridges) in two or three years, she can start her job making bio-diesel. Great Plan, sign me up at that fantasy job center. You;d have to be 18 years old to go through all those career/skill changes. If I were an employer I would make sure the person I hired had no qualification to do the work I needed done   (got to love the liberal work ethic). BO must think people in their 40's, 50's, and 60's are not losing jobs. I suppose the new college major will be call "Everything" so you can qualify to work any job.

Here's the truth of the matter. Few people that are not currently working in "road" construction (they don't need carpenters and roofers to make roads) will not be getting that new BO job. They are doing major interstate road work near my home. I never see more than a dozen men working the project. Why? Because most of the work is done by specialized machinery. Obama loves to cite FDR, great, back then men (lots of them) used shovels and picks to build roads. Unless his "change" is to build as we did in the 1930's, that is the stupid solution I'd expect from someone that probably never did any manual labor in their entire life.

Now I'm all for fixing roads, just don't think for a moment this will solve the economic issues. Few average people will get some of that money and a few others wil get a lot of it.

There's so much shit in this massive Trojan horse that we will regret, makes me want to puke.  I feel so sorry for my kids & grandkids; sad thing is my kids were suckered by the rhetoric (and the fanned hatred of Bush) and voted for him.  My grandkids may never know the true joys of a free and unencumbered society.  Beginning to look like Orwell was only off by about 30 years.