Wake up! We are now spending $5,000,000,000 every 24 hours.Ok, there the supplemental budget bill went to committee on March 24. It was 6 pages long and contained:
* $5.1 billion in disaster relief money for FEMA
* $600 million for Summer Youth Jobs programs
* $174,000 Widows payment to the wife of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)
*
Only $20 million for Small business loansDems added a few symbolic cuts.
Cuts to:
* $111.5 million from the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program (stupid program anyway)
* $44 million from a Traffic Safety Recycling Program (plastic cones & aluminum signs)
* $362 million from Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs
Then it was off to Committee. . .
Then it grew to 80+ pages and got some more good stuff:
* $950 million for an Agricultural Credit Insurance Fund program
* $18 million Emergency Forest Restoration
* $13.4 billion to compensate Vietnam vets on exposure to Agent Orange
* $465 million for humanitarian aid to Haiti
* $219.8 million to cancel debts owed by Haiti to the U.S.
* $6.18 billion for extra State Department operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Haiti
* $33.45 billion for military operations in Afghanistan
* NASA to keep funding contracts related to the Constellation program, which President Obama wants to kill.
* $13 million for a new radio system for the Capitol Police.
* $33 million for Defense Health Programs.
* $94 million for Counter-Drug activities.
And only $68 million for various federal agencies to deal with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.Not to worry, There is a Blue-ribbon committee appointed by the president to study the disaster headed up by Bob Grahm (D-FLA), he's on top of things, he said yesterday. . . "I have not talked to anyone from BP yet", He said he is waiting for the president to appoint the other 5 members of the committee. The Committee is scheduled to spring into action by the end of December.
Anyhoo. . . we are now spending 5 billion a day. 3 times as much as Bush during the height of the Iraq war. That amount is increasing every day. It would be different if the administration was spending the money on things designed to aid the economy, but each increase passes freely through congress like cheap wine through a hooker. . . and the spending has very little to do with addressing current economic problems.
Can aid to Haiti possibly wait? Couldn't we instead spend those billions on Small Business loans? I mean 20 million is a joke. That's only a hand full of loans. In the meantime they are devoting over half a BILLION to summer youth programs. Yeah, $2 out of the pocket of each man woman child and infant to pay for SUMMER YOUTH PROGRAMS. I guess sending our kids to camp will give us more time to look for jobs Ay?
Now we are spending good money on Afghanistan in this bill, and it is a very popular war. I am glad we are making progress there, but there are other new (and existing) programs in the bill that don't need to be the focus right now. Those programs will cease to exist anyway if we don't fix the economy that provides the tax base to fund them. The administration needs to stop appointing committees, stop giving speeches, and stop campaigning.
They need to do just 2 things:
1. Stop spending.
2. Stop using "crisis" as an excuse to build totally unrelated government.
Who wants to bet this thing is over 500 pages by the time they're done?
Sorry guys, but that's my rant for today. The bill is on Thomas.gov and still in flux.
http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.4899:
