Uninformed

A line in Grimp's last post reminded me of something I read yesterday.

And while they [politicians] remind you how you are unengaged and uninformed...

I find this interesting and ironic. Literally no member of congress read the entirety of the porkulus bill. It was too big and rushed out the door too fast for anyone to read it. It was rushed because Mr. The One and his friends said it had to be rushed, the economy was going to collapse tomorrow if it wasn't passed, strike while the iron is hot, etc etc. As Grimp said, look where it's gotten us. The dire emergency wasn't really averted or helped at all by rushing a crap piece of legislative pork out the door.
The health care bill is another matter. There is no, literally no, excuse for rushing a health care bill. Health care costs cannot be definitively shown to significantly impact or be a danger to the US economy. The economy is certainly not in danger of collapsing again tomorrow (or next week or next month or in six months) if Our Politicians don't do something to radically overhaul the health care industry.
I bring up the stimulus bill and the health care bill for one reason: Steny Hoyer's honesty.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference. (via cnsnews.com)

Unengaged and uninformed. Yep. That describes Washington to a "t".

To my son, and his son, and his son:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry the government of my day is full of nitwits and socialists. I'm sorry that on my son's 2nd birthday, his future was irrevocably made a little less bright.
I'm sorry. I hope that one day you will be able to crawl out from the crushing mountain of debt and taxes you will be responsible for, and you can forgive us for being stupid with your future.

Here's the full list, broken down by category, of what $318,723,307,000 (plus interest) has bought the people of today, at the expense of the people of tomorrow.
Here are the tax cuts, credits, bonds, and grants, totaling $480,533,000,000 (estimated).

Remember, not one single member of congress actually read the entire bill before voting on it. There were a grand total of three Republican votes in all of congress.

I need a drink.

Stimulus Lite, or a Reasonable Facsimilie Thereof

Now, here's a Democrat plan I might get behind.
Walt Minnick (D-ID) has taken the ideas in the Porkfest Act of 2009 that might actually create some short-run stimulus and stripped out everything else. Then he puts a short time line on the bill (2010) and public accountability (sadly, sadly lacking in TARP and the Porkfest Act of 2009) and shockingly comes out with something slightly resembling a reasonable use of taxpayer funds.
Funnily enough, as noted here, this is very similar to a plan Obama campaigned on. Why isn't this the plan he's pushing instead of one $700 billion more expensive? He does want to keep his campaign promises, right? Will anyone pay attention? Will anyone call him out on it?
I note that there's no tax cuts in here, as the Republican alternative bills have proposed, and it's silly to think giving money just to the lower and middle classes (they are not the job-creators) is the way to jump start the economy, but it's a start.

Pop quiz

Question: What's laden with pork, a burden on my child's future, and costs twice as much as the Iraq War? Oh, and ineffective at stimulating the economy.

Two guesses and the first one doesn't count.