Wonderful Suggestion for Stimulus Money from World Hiker

World Hiker

Life is a Business that Cannot Cover its Costs

 Schopenhauer said that life is a business that cannot cover its costs,  and from the look of all the earmarks slipped into the stimulus package,  he may be correct.   Get a load of the hefty bundle of earmarks from GOP hypocrites: 


Earmark hypocrisy? - First Read - msnbc.com

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This Was Sorely Needed: Mirror on America Calls to Rude Pundit

Mirror On America: For all those GOP Hypocrites, I give you Rude Pundit

"Shock and Smut": New York Post Political Cartoon Deeply Disturbing

Op-Ed news online rightly cries, "shock and smut".  A political cartoon appearing in a recent edition of the New York Post has created outrage,  and rightly so.  The cartoon,  depicting Obama as the chimpanzee who recently went psychotic in Conneticut and had to be shot by local police,  taps into racism,  hysterical fears of a socialist uprising,  and conveys that assassination may be the true answer.  Those who defend it as "clever"  and say that it "foreshadows that which is coming"  -  as a recent press release by BB's Conservative Wisdom,  (which proports to continue the Reagen revolution  - a revolution  now thouroughly dead in the historical moment within the  inevitable saeculum seasonal shift)    -  has done ;  ought to see that it is less the chimpanzee aspect,  and more the suggestion of violent assassination,  which is highly suspect and deeply disturbing. It is pernicious and irresponsible in the extreme.    I am among the signers of the protest petition being circulated by the color of change. org.    Below are some pro-Obama political cartoons which were my favorites:  

For Stimulus Bill, The Devil Was in the Details. Hidden Deep Within Stimulus Bill: Severe Restrictions?

Ideology can be applied.  Philosophy can creep into empirical details.   See this New York Times piece,  from NYTimes.com


Stimulus Plan Sets New Limits on Executive Pay - NYTimes.com

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In 246-183 Roll Call, House Passes Stimulus Plan

787.2 Billion Dollar Stimulus Passes House;  No Republicans Pro,  7 Dems Contra;  White House Press Secty Gibbs says quick tax relief and jobs creation should jumpstart a failing economy;  House GOP leader John Boehner called bill an "act of generational theft". Now it remains to be seen what will actually come of it.

No More Gipper versus the Great Society : Newsweek says we are fast becoming a European State

In Newsweek's current issue ( February 16,  2009) ,  its cover story ,  "We are all Socialists Now",  makes some startling observations.  Journalists Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas are telling it like it is,  I am afraid to say.  Pointing out that government and its spending expanded and grew under Ronald Reagen,  and kept right on through Clinton and Bush,  both double term administrations,  they assert that where we are now is the only place we could have landed,  considering our precedents.  Bigger government and a quasi-socialism are the way of the 21st century.  To complain about it will not change it.  It is something we have simply become;  we are now joining the European states, and will use their economic model.

"History has a sense of humor",  the article continues,  going on to state that it was none other than Geroge W. Bush who laid the foundations for President Obama and his stimulus.  Bush closed out the era of Reagen.  Even before him,  government grew largely with Reagen, and continued apace.    The illusory war against "big government"  and "the L word" ,   which began with Reagen ,  is finished.  It is gone;   vanished, as it were,  in the whirligig of time.

Irrelevant also have become all historical revisions of the New Deal,  claiming it hindered and not helped the Great Depression.  FDR rises again,  like the return of the repressed,  to haunt us.  Americans want health care,  they want protection from banking and housing failure;  they want the government to get them out of this impasse.  In the article's final paragraph, these closing words :  "The Obama Administration is caught in a paradox.  It must borrow and spend to fix a crisis created by too much borrowing and spending.".   Let's hope Obama's sense of irony will serve him well.

Commerce Secretary Nominee Judd Gregg's Withdrawal: What was the real reason?

Yet another withdrawal in Obama's first days:  Secretary of Commerce nominee,  Judd Gregg.  According to Pajama's Media , it may well have had something do do with Obama and the census.  I had of course thought this on my own,  as soon as I knew of the census plan.    Redrawing and realigning   districts to favor minorities and Democrats would change the shape of things for the GOP and for the country,   for many years to come.  Rather  than a bipartisan effort,  there now seems to be a Democrat versus GOP war brewing in Washington.  Is this surprising,  given what the Democrats have been enduring,  with internal and external conflicts and tangents,  throughout the last 8-25 years,  depending on whether one takes the short or long view?  Our nation has been gearing up for a major shift for a long time.   We shall have to see what comes of it;  certainly a mix of advance,  regress,  but always change.

Of course,  there is the area of the federal stimulus package itself,  which as a Republican,  Gregg said he would not be able to "support 100%".   Speaking at a press conference on Capitol Hill,  Gregg told the assembled press,  "I am a fiscal conservative,  as everybody knows, and a fairly strong one."   Fiscal ideology is in fact very different between the two parties,  and that they cannot agree about where and how much to spend in a federal stimulus,  even in this time of urgent economic crisis,  is to be expected.  But perhaps this was actually an act of hostility on Gregg's part;  a statement on the census manouver?

Agreement reached on Bill in House and Senate

House, Senate agree on stimulus bill; IT spending plans unclear

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Huffington Post Sees Major Misstep with Bank Bailout

 As if it were not obvious enough,  reading this piece makes one increasingly certain trouble is afoot: 


Robert L. Borosage: Can't Get There from Here

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Obama's Stimulus Package gets a Victory from House

President Obama's Stimulus Bill Passed by House:  244 to 188

Obama's 819 billion dollar stimulus package has been given the go ahead  by the US House of Representatives,  comprising an important victory for the President.  Opposing Republicans have called the bill wasteful,  claiming it will not stimulate the US failing economy.   

Reportedly,  the Bill passed with virtually zero Republican support, and has been slammed by economists and pundits on the blogosphere.   

Using his weekly video address to push the package,  the President called the economic situation "dire"  and called for its immediate address.  While many feel the package is flawed and needs revision,  Obama has received support from major CEOs. 


  Fox News has charged the plan with being "veiled Socialism", and submit that Obama and Pelosi are in  truth attempting a long term reshaping of the American economy in the form of Socialism;  they call for the President to "call a spade a spade"  and encourage "open debate". 

CAN OBAMA CREATE AN FDR- STYLE PUBLIC WORKS NATIONAL PROGRAM?

Reading this blog essay,  A Federal Stimulus for Public Parks,  in tandem with dwelling on the Fourth Turning scenario described by Howe and Strauss,  and targeted for this era, regarding  a resurgence of civic pride in times of economic crisis  -  seen in the FDR era  -  has given me a feeling of anticipation.  But we shall see.  The blog,  Going Coastal, has this fine piece out today:  http://goingcoastal.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/a-federal-stimulus-for-city-parks/