Obama's Spokesman Gibbs: We Just Don't Have the Time to Patrol the Stimulus for Wasteful Spending
Update: Obama's Inaugural Promise to Spend the Public's Money Wisely Already Broken

We need to act. Now.

Do something, even if it's stupid as fuck. Obama and the Democrats have a plan for the economy: They're going full-on retard on it, coming at it like a whirlwind of badly-aimed punches and tapioca-studded drool. Giving it their full retard strength.

Thanks to CJ.

A Forty-Year Wish-List: Democrats are wasting no time wasting all the money they were prevented from wasting since Reagan.

This has probably already been linked, and it repeats most of what you know. But still. Repetition is sometimes useful.

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

...

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President's new budget director, told Congress a year ago, "even those [public works] that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."

...

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

Not only is the money being pissed away now, the bill commits us to pissing away future dollars, too. The nice thing about fixing a bridge is that once it's fixed, there is no ongoing demand for additional federal dollars every year.

But the crap the Democrats are spending your money on are, of course, intended to be -- and will become -- permanent additions to the federal budget. And will increase every fucking year.

All Obama Promises Come With an Expiration Date, Part 427: From his inaugural address:

And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

That was a week ago.

Thanks to Slublog for that.

And Fish wonders if this gives him the license to go full-on Geithner on his tax returns:

[GIBBS:] "If we get focused on this number and that number, and two-one-hundreths of one percent of the spending...

Right on Gibbs, and when I complete my 1040 this year, I will also not focus on this number and that number. It's just not important as you so in-eloquently stated. Gibbs, you unconscionable prick.

It's not that they lack time. It's that Obama lacks balls, leadership, and executive experience. And anything resembling a Clintonian impulse to hug the center.

posted by Ace at 03:28 PM

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