Stimulus or Socialism?

February 10, 2009 by Standing on Truth
Filed under Politics

So the Senate passed the President’s Stimulus bill about an hour ago. Don’t you feel better now? The dow is scared out of it’s mind, down nearly 400 points with another hour until closing for the day. Maybe we should be too. Is it just me or is there very little stimulus in the nearly 1,000 page stimulus bill?

“The so-called American Recovery and Reinvestment Act amounts to nothing more than an $825 billion earmark designed to expand government on the backs of the American taxpayers using money we do not have. There is little guarantee of any short-term gain, but there is no question of the irreparable harm we can expect by saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of additional debt.” (Source: Politico.com)

Here are just a few things meant to stimulate our suffering economy:

$650 million for digital-TV coupons, so the government can control even more of what we do, what we watch, and how we watch it.

$600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids. This is to appease the go-green environmentalists, but will it stimulate the economy?

$20 billion for food stamps, or is this redistributing wealth?

$87 million for a polar icebreaking ship. I’m sorry, but what?

$246 million in tax breaks for Hollywood production companies got taken out of the bill, according to Washingtonpost.com, but what was it doing in there in the first place? What did pass is $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. So Hollywood did get a bailout after all!

(source: National Review Online)

Is this stimulus? The subtle start of nationalize healthcare in this bill? The fact that much of the stimulus doesn’t even begin until 2010 or beyond? Why does so much of this bill seem to be benefitting the governement, not the American people? I’m concerned that socialism is on it’s way (I’m sure that I’m not the only one) and it began with a man who promised change. Are we sure we wanted THIS change?

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

~~~ The late Dr. Adrian Rogers , 1931 to 2005

For an excellent breakdown of this monstrous stimulus, check out this link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/02/01/GR2009020100154.html