IBC Bonus! Mid-Week Rant

“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”  -Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff

Well, it looks like the House of Representatives is going to vote on another stimulus package. Another $1.2 trillion down the drain. I was reading yesterday the items that are actually in this bill - and it's hilarious.

Take a look:

• Billions in taxpayer dollars for left-wing "community organizing" groups like ACORN.  This money will be used to buy cigarettes for homeless bums that agree to vote for Democrats.  Awesome! 
• Another $650 million for DTV coupons.  That's $650 MILL-ION.  For coupons.  To buy converter boxes made in China.  So people can watch TV.  That'll stimulate things. 
• $600 million so the federal government can buy new cars.  A chicken in every pot.  A Prius for every bureaucrat.  Oh wait.  Prius is not made by one of the companies our central planners support.  They aren't unionized.
• $6 billion for colleges and universities.  WHEW!  Basket Weaving 101, The Evils of Capitalism 204 and Reinterpreting American History 303, WILL be offered next semester by your favorite America-hating tenured professor who has NEVER had a a real job in his/her life. 
• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.  Millions of starving artists will finally get to go back to work painting poop-smeared portraits of the Virgin Mary. 
• $44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.  Tom Vilsack, that intrepid Iowa farmer, says thanks. 
• $200 million for the National Mall, including $21 million for sod.  After seeing the Obama Wasteland the other day, $21 million for new sod may not be enough.
• The plan establishes at least 32 new government programs at a cost of over $136 billion.  Rule #1 of Bureaucracy development:  Make the bureaucracy permanent.  Check!   
• The plan provides spending in at least 150 different federal programs.  Andrew Lesko is already working on his next book...   

A few othe tidbits:

• The cost of the stimulus is enough to give every man, woman and child in the United States $2,700.
• It's enough to give every American living in poverty $22,000.
• The bill will cost each and every American household $6,700 in national debt.

But at least they've dropped the millions that was in it for contraceptives.  All of this crap is going to pass, too.  Please - raise your hand if you honestly think it is going to do one bit of good...Seriously.  It's a total waste of money.  How will this stimulate the economy and create good permanent jobs and national prosperity?  It won't.

But I know what will work - CUT MY TAXES and let me keep more of the money that I earn (Along with every other American and the businesses they own.)  I looked it up - in 2007, the federal government collected something like $2.6 trillion in income taxes.  Why not let the people who earned this money decide how to spend the money and what parts of the economy need "stimulus"? 

Friends and neighbors, it's craziness - and this stimulus will not help bring our economy out of recession or create permanent, good paying jobs.  Another $1.2 billion, down the drain.  Thankfully, the printing presses still work, right?