Stimulus 101: The Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan

Rory Cooper / January 27, 2009

With countless news stories, papers, editorials and experts giving their view of why Congress should or shouldn’t enact the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan, we thought it would be helpful to give you a short index of why spending does not equal stimulus.

HIGH COST TO AMERICAN TAXPAYERS

• After Congress appropriates the FY’09 omnibus bill, they may have spent over $1.4 Trillion in less than one month!
  The current “stimulus bill” will be the LARGEST SPENDING BILL EVER enacted by Congress, making the New Deal look small, accounting for inflation.
• The “Stimulus” Bills Your Family – $825 Billion is equivalent to borrowing $10,520 from EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA. This money has to be paid back.
• If all families were asked to equally shoulder the burden of $825 Billon, this debt would be equivalent to what they roughly spend on food, clothing, and health care in an entire year.
• If Government Spending solved recessions, we would never have recessions.

BAD IDEAS – “THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE”
The hidden liberal policy agenda inside the ‘stimulus bill’…

• Over $142 Billion in Federal education funds: Nearly double the total outlays for the Dept. of Education in 2007 – making good on Reid-Pelosi-Obama education promises to the NEA.
• $87 Billion Medicaid bailout: Medicaid is funded by a formula that matches state spending levels with federal dollars. If we keep bailing states out, they will have every incentive to continue irresponsible spending. Fiscally responsible taxpayers in Indiana are now paying for fiscally irresponsible bureaucrats in Illinois.
• Expanded Medicaid coverage and SCHIP: Reid-Pelosi-Obama are enacting a nationalized health care policy with no debate. The government will soon be responsible for more health care spending than the private sector, i.e. socialized medicine.
• Green Jobs?: The myth of ‘green jobs’ merely means replacing one job lost, with a new job that fits the left’s agenda. It is a zero sum game. More than doubling spending, the stimulus also has over $35 billion for the Dept. of Energy. DOE’s current budget is $23.8 billion.
• Family Planning and birth control for children, immigrants and the wealthy, which could also be used as a backdoor to allow federal funding of abortions. How is this stimulus?  **UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi agrees this is not stimulus and has removed it from the bill proving these measures are allergic to sunshine.**
• Redistribution: Refundable Tax Credits for people who don’t pay taxes.
• Pork Spending: Digital TV Coupons ($650 Million), Gov’t Cars ($600 Million), Nat’l Endowment for the Arts ($50 Million), Repairs to National Mall ($200 Million, including $21m for sod).

BAD RESULTS

• No Jobs: While they have not been able to support these claims, Pelosi/Obama promise between 3 & 4 million jobs, yet House Tax Committee staff can’t estimate even ONE job will be created.
• Ineffective: The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 52% of the spending in the ‘stimulus bill’ can even be spent by the end of FY’10.  Well short of the 75% benchmark set by President Obama.

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.” – FDR’s Treasury Sec. Henry Morgenthau Jr., architect of the New Deal.

BETTER IDEAS AND RESULTS

1. Make the 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts permanent, instead of raising taxes in 2011; Reduce Marginal Tax Rates for  Individuals and Businesses by 10% creating new jobs. Adopting just this one proposal would create between 500,000 and 1 million jobs in one year.
2. Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax & reduce the Death Tax to 15% ($5 mil. individual exclusion) Enact long-term reforms and budgets for entitlement spending., putting long-term obligations from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, front and center in the budget process.
3. Assess and enforce long term spending rules in Congress. Get us out of debt!
4. Go to Heritage.org for more ideas and ways to avoid giving Americans a debt they didn’t create.