Sleight of Hand

“Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods; a system of society or group living in which there is no private property; a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.”

– Socialism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism.  But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

– Normal Thomas, six-time U.S. Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America

“Share the wealth”

“We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people.”

Upper-class Americans should consider paying higher taxes “patriotic”.

Bailouts on top of bailouts

Stimulus packages that includes millions for honeybee labs, mosquito trapping research, pig manure management, Utah crickets, and shrimp

$7.7 Billion of YOUR money for 8,500 earmarks

Universal Healthcare

– President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and the Democrat-led Congress

Is it that obvious?

Stimulus or Socialism?

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?

~~~ 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