There are many reports of what is included in the $921 billion stimulus package. There's even a summary put out by the House for the press to review. The data is extremely difficult to decifer and looks much more like a federal budget than an economic stimulus package.
HR1 of the 111th Congress is extremely vague and fails to outline specific projects or demonstrate which states, schools, healthcare systems, etc. will be receiving funding. What is also ambiguous about the bill is the repetative nature of most of the Sections. There are several separate sections, for example, listed as energy spending yet it lacks specific reasons for those sections.
In an effort to dig deeper and find out who exactly will be receiving the government checks, I turned to the usual publications- The New York Times, The Washington Post and news station websites such as CNN and FoxNewsChannel. They listed some of the individual projects, but again, I couldn't find a comprehensive list of spending line items.
www.recovery.gov, the website that President Obama has promised to be the place to track the funding of this bill, won't be functional until the passage of the bill.
I also did some digging around the House Appropriations Committee and found the Department of Labor report that shows how much each state will be receiving from the bill for various education, job training and infrastructure projects. Not surprisingly, the data is difficult to find. Also not a surprise is that the Blue states are receiving more than double what the Red states will be getting from the stimulus bill. Here's how that report breaks down.
Red states will receive $19,260,524,000 for the above mentioned items. The largest red state appropriation will go to Texas in the amount of $5.1 billion.
Blue states will receive $43,137,348,000. That amounts to more than double what the red states will see in their budgets this year and a grand total of $23,876,824,000 more than their neighboring republican states. The largest amount of funding will go to (drumroll please.....) California. Not surprising with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pulling the proverbial puppet strings. California is set to receive nearly $8 billion should the bill pass. There is also $2.9 billion for Illinois, $3.5 billion for Florida and another $4 billion for New York, which just happens to be home at the moment of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
I am not satisfied with my search just yet. Next to tackle is the US Conference of Mayors report that details what projects they have asked for in the stimulus. It is another extremely long document, but I should be through it by tomorrow morning if I pull an all-nighter. If Harry Reid can burn the midnight oil trying to get passage of this enormous and rediculous excuse for fiscally responsible legislation, I'm sure I can spend a few hours to bring to light what our tax dollars are paying for. So far, my favorite entry on the USCoM report is from Citrus Heights, CA. They requested and somehow are included in the bill for $1 million to institute a "Carbon Footprint Reduction Program." More to come on this saga...
Comments
Kammie, you are obviously one of those people who gets their news from The View, SNL, Oprah and late night comedy shows. Governor Palin is the most successful governor in the US. She has a PROVEN track record of success and has already been highly effective in a position of incredible authority. Can you name one program she has implemented that has failed? Can you name one thing she has done as governor of the largest and most prosperous state in the Union? I'm sure you can tell me how many kids she has and what her husband does for a living, but I doubt you know one thing about how she leads her administration. And as for smarts, I dare you to match wits with McCain. Just because they lost doesn't make them losers. Unfortunately, we the people are the losers here. We let the most ill-informed, uneducated, underachieving sector of our society choose our leader and now we will all pay for it.
Hillary Clinton....Hillary Clinton...Thats right she the one married to one of only to Presidents ever impeached in the history of the United States...ahh the good old days are returning.
Just a simple question for Erin Haust. Is there as much as one item being requested by "Red State Representation" that falls into the category of ludicrous? Or like HR1, is your research somewhat vague, failing to specify any egregious actions underway on your side of the aisle? If you are going to call out the pork, please have the decency to show us all of the pigs.
Like I said, the research is still forthcoming. The bill, to reiterate, is extremely vague and I have had to dig through thousands of pages of government documents, the US Treasury website and many articles already written on the subject. Please understand, I don't think for a second that there aren't reps from both sides of the aisle that have taken advantage of this situation to make paybacks and earmarks for their own gain. I'll be writing an article soon on what Arlen Spector said just after Saturday's debate in the Senate. My point is that the stimulus package is not intended to help the American people but is rather a political wishlist. It just so happens the dems are pulling the strings at the moment.
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