You have to credit the President Obama and the democrats for audacious constituent relations. The 642 page stimulus bill is rich in the Chicago tradition of political payoffs.
The House Tax Committee has yet to find one new job in the bill.
Start with $4.2 billion to ACORN – an organization that’s being investigated in a dozen states for blatant voter fraud, and who’s leaders were forced to apologize for “mistakes.” You have to believe that ACORN can create a job or two with $4.2 billion.
It’s all about payback, Chicago-style. While former President Bush pumped up faith-based charities, Obama has put progressive-based ACORN on steroids.
Let’s try to find jobs in the following: Digital TV coupons ($650 million), new government cars ($600 million,) a $87 billion Medicaid bailout, $1 billion for Amtrak, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, and $150 million for the Smithsonian.
More new job searching in the following: $83 earned income credit for those who don’t pay income taxes, and $20 billion for food stamps.
Public employee unions also got theirs, $6 billion for urban transit systems. The teachers’ unions will be pleased with the $66 billion allotted for education.
President Obama has managed to placate every major group and institution that supported him during his presidential campaign.
That’s Chicago. In the 1910s and 1920s, that political environment let organized crime flourish to the point that many Chicago policemen earned more money from pay-offs than from the city. This same culture led directly to the Chicago Black Sox scandal of game fixing by the Chicago White Sox in 1919.
Audacious seems to mild a description the transposition of Chicago political culture to Washington, D.C. in less than two weeks.
It comes at a costs. The $825 billion ‘earmarked’ in the stimulus bill is equivalent to borrowing $10,520 from every family in America.
The Democrats and the President will have their stimulus package. It will have little impact on the economy or the current serious credit crisis. In the process, they have sown the seeds of a new opposition, one that is leaderless at the moment. But that will change. (There’s that word again, with new denotation.)
Comments