Stimulus Package

Whether the blame belongs singularly to one party or not, I do not care. What I care about is the blatant waste of money that embodies itself in the last three "stimulus" packages. Or, I guess I should say two stimulus packages and one spending bill. For the sake of brevity, I'll look at the most recent bill.

First off, this bill was passed with a 244-188 vote, with only eleven democrats switching sides to vote against it. This bill, in the House of Representatives, totals $819 billion. That number is divided between 544 billion in new spending and 275 billion in tax cuts for "working" class families.

This "stimulus" is just a thinly veiled spending package. According to the USA Today and the AP, 71.5 billion goes to social programs to raise jobless benefits this year and to boost "aid" to the poor, 153.2 billion goes to "subsidize health care to the jobless, help states with Medicaid, or other health programs", 103 billion goes to construction projects and repairs: "Highways, bridges, mass transit, federal buildings, water", 159 billion to school grants, aid to states, other school programs, boost Pell grants to 5,350, 53.4 billion to science facilities, high speed Internet, other environmental energy (read: GREEN), and last but not least 13 billion to repair and weatherize public housing, help the homeless, and repair foreclosed homes. For a more detailed breakdown look at the Wall Street Journal.

71.5 billion dollars are allocated to social programs to help jobless workers or the homeless. In other words, this money goes to pay out Medicare, Social Security, and Unemployment Benefits. I am not including Medicaid, because this program is joint funded by federal, state, and sometimes county governments. I'll knock off the three first ones easily. Medicare is an antiquated system to assist people age 65 or over or those who meet special criteria. This program, while it does do good, is over expensive. The Government Accountability Office, while also calling Medicare a "high-risk" program, found that it costs taxpayers 60 billion dollars annually in fraud. Only 5 percent of claims are audited. This system does not need more money thrown into its black hole of wasteful and wholly unnecessary spending. If anything, this system at the least needs major reform, or just out-right removal. Social Security is abysmal in it's functioning. When FDR put this program into practice, he intended it to assist people in living more comfortably. Now, it has been expanded and extended to include many programs that you can find on a government website, or if you distrust the government, like I do, you can go other places. People expect Social Security to pay their way through retirement, and in addition to adjusting to the cost of inflation, that is part of the reason it is expensive. Also, Social Security is fraudulent, that much is obvious. There are people in this country that live off of Social Security. It is also a huge strain on government funding, and transitively, your wallet. Social Security is so big and so full of holes, it is sinking. I said it, Social Security is sinking. What's worse, is nobody has the guts to do a thing about it. It means your political career. You are a joke, Washington. You are supposed to represent the people, and the people are pissed off! What do you do? Add to the problem.

Never mind. Never mind the simple concept of a "stimulus" package. What this is is the first giant bill of socialism that this administration will put out. Does $153.2 billion "subsidize health care to the jobless, help states with Medicaid, or other health programs" do one thing at all for the economy? No, what that does is try to make life easier for people. While good intentions are to be acknowledged, this is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Medicaid is, and has been acknowledged as, a black hole for government money. Subsidies for health care to the jobless? Why should I, as a citizen, pay for the jobless to have health care? Health care is not a right, it's a privilege at best. This is the first step to socialized, overpriced, and under-preforming health care. Think about this; Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, prefers American doctors, according to my political science professor. That means that our doctors provide the best care and have the best equipment. What does government have a propensity to do? Complicate the simple and make things difficult. When this comes to health care, this leads to lowered performance due to paper work and lost time. Also, funds are inadequate for the job. All that leads to a lesser quality of health care.

What does $159 billion dollars given to schools and states have to do with fixing the economy? Does it have anything to do with it at all? What about $53.4 billion to green energy, science facilities and high speed Internet to "underserved" areas? I don't have to be an economist to tell you that that does nothing to help the economy. That's akin to treating one symptom of a disease instead of the root cause. Don't get me wrong, the whole idea of stimulus is stupid in it's idea that throwing money into failed institutions will help anything. But calling this stimulus is appalling.

You know how to wash dishes? Well, you have to use water and soap. You don't use just water because, well that doesn't do the job. You use water and soap. This also applies to cleaning out finance. You don't just throw money at the problem. It takes something else. I'm a free market advocate, and I say, forget all the stimulus. The market always fixes itself, and humans just make everything drag out longer and longer....