Sugarpop.......You have my vote for Speaker of the Cellar!

Remember when the campaign promise was to repeal the Bush tax cuts?

That's off the table now. You don't hear it. Why d'ya think that is Sugarpop?

Well, I think it's because of the economy. I believe he will just let them expire, which they are set to do next year (I think).

Yep..the Bush 01 and 03 tax cuts were to be temporary stimuli for the minor recession Bush inherited and legislated to expire after 2010.

If there was any evidence that they contributed to job creation and long term economic growth or stability, there could be a case made to keep them. But that didnt happen.

I'll again state that I believe Obama is sincere in his nonpartisan desires. I will also state again that Pelosi and Reid and a few other want to fuck with the Rs as much as they can and want to wield their newly found power more than anything. I think they/this are/is as much, if not more/most of the problem as the Rs right now.

Cite. :p

Doesn't gibe with the fact that Reid and 70% of the other dems spent the last two years whoring themselves out to Bush for pork.

Or the fact that they stripped out a bunch of stuff from the House version of the stimulus bill, at the Republicans' request, and the Republicans still refused to vote for it. They could have passed the bill intact, by the same margin.

In fact the many of the same Republicans who voted for the Bush $1.3 trillion tax cuts in 01 and 03 are now the ones saying $800 billion is too expensive.

I agree it would be too expensive if those tax cuts had actually worked and created jobs and economic growth. But that didnt happen.

Didn't happen? The growth from 2003-2006 was quite brisk, third quarter 2003 after the cut was phenomenal. Negative growth didn't happen until third quarter 2007. It wasn't Clinton- or Reagan-era growth, but it was growth for sure. Unemployment dropped from 6% when the 03 tax cut happened to 4.5 by 2007.

The costlier of the two Bush tax cuts, the first in 01 at a cost of over $1trillion had little short term (month to month) impact on jobs in 02 and 03:

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/graphics/CES...4025321209.gif
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/Surv..._view=net_1mth

The job growth in 04-07, after the second Bush tax cut in 03 (over $500 billion) was at a healthy rate although real earnings were flat or decreased suggesting that the job growth (mostly in lower paying jobs) was not necessarily stimulating the economy.

But in case where we are now after the $1.8 trillion in tax cuts?

Talk radio has been hammering this porkulous bill for a week now. It's the wish list of liberal causes and groups that have been left out for the past 10 years or so IMO.

Watching the tides change from one extreme to another this bill is completely predictable and that's just the rules of the game. Who ever is in control takes care of "thier people". I completely get that.

What I thought was interesting was to find a chunk of the porkulous bucks for Filipinos. Specifically veterans that have been under the control of the US mil. Ok.

Reading further, this chunk is set aside for Filipino vets ....from WWII!

My next thought was, "didn't we ( the US ) give those veterans a big pension or lump sum in the late 40's under Magsaysay?" The answer would be yes, we did. That was under the Rogers Bill.

On April 23, 1946, Magsaysay was elected as an Independent to the Philippine House of Representatives. In 1948, President Roxas chose Magsaysay to go to Washington as Chairman of the Committee on Guerrilla Affairs, to help to secure passage of the Rogers Bill, giving considerable benefits to Philippine veterans.

I've been unable to locate my book to cite the exact sum but it was indeed granted. Was it considerable? I can't remember. The vets were very happy about it whatever the amount was.

So my point is.....

If this group of Filipino veterans benefits was included in the bill, a group that had already been paid nearly 60 years ago.....they were digging deep to find recipients for this money.

Stimulus for the American economy? Or the world?

Granted, it's a small amount in the scheme of things but talk about kitchen sink!

Talk radio likes to cherry pick the data to stir up their listeners.

I am not suggesting that the fact you presented is wrong, but simply that it is not representative of the overwhelming majority of provisions of the bill.

The Senate is taking out much of the pork and/or popular projects that arent stimulative...to the tune of $100+ bill less than the House bill.

US News has a good summary:
Its worth reading all five pages of the summary to understand the bill a little better than how it is presented on talk radio.

There is still more I would take out but that is what compromise is all about...give and take, with the majority rightfully having the greater voice and ultimately getting more of what they want...along with the greater responsibility if it fails to meet expectations.

This specific portion of the bill was mentioned in a blog and I found it doing a search.

The source link is from the ArmyTimes and not talk radio. It is absolutely true that there are issues that "talk radio" in general covers that get people riled up. In this example as with many others that I hear on the radio, I went to check up on this a bit myself.

On average I believe that at least half of those hot button issues on TR are to be concerned with and overwhelmingly true.

There have been some biggies that have been false. There have been some biggies that have been true. There are also details that through my wordly travels know for fact are not true.

So that's where I'm at.

Thank you for expressing your point in such soft friendly language. :) There are many here that do not. You hold a lot of credibility already even though we're polar opposites on the political spectrum.

Yes, it's great. Everything is listed out and all the grammar is perfect, the spelling is perfect and the format is perfect. It's very credible as source.

The entire article is very convincing.

But.

Let's take a look at page two. It's beautiful as the others.

If you take a look down the page you will find this:

"$17 billion in one-time payments to seniors, disabled veterans and others will provide an immediately usable payment of $300 to seniors on Social Security, low-income recipients of Supplemental Security Income, disabled veterans and veterans on pensions, Railroad Retirement beneficiaries, and others who may not qualify for the Making Work Pay."

If the red-bolded word "others" means the Filipino veterans from WWII that have already been paid, what might the other descriptions translate to in the details of the bill?

Take a look further down on page two:

"$5.1 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to secure the homeland and promote economic activity."

Would the bolded-red phrase be a huge stimulus gift of red roses to all the staff at the Pentagon? We can guess no but it's vague.

Just like the word "others". Is that money listed on the actual bill attached to peoples' names or groups' names? I'm guessing yes.

Why aren't they included in this fabulous looking article about the bill?

Talk radio often times digs in and tells us. No, not in the perfect format that is shown to us in US News but they often times get us to dig further.

Some things are bogus and some things are not.

Shrug. In the middle of the 18th recession since they started collecting economic data, which may become a depression due to the mortgage meltdown crisis.

I think Keynes would say either spending or tax cuts are both reasonable ways of managing the start of a recession. One works on one side of the Keynesian equation, the other works on the other side. One gives money to the government to spend, and the other gives it to the economy to spend.

Government revenues were higher not long after the tax cuts. But the problem is, Bush lost the Keynesian notion when he continued spending like a drunken sailor in 2004-2007. The deficit fell somewhat, but can you imagine where we'd be if we were in surplus right now? There would be room for all that additional spending; instead, 100% of this thing has to be financed, which will make it another couple hundred billion given to China.