Despite claims of cutting costs, new report by the Congressional Budget Office reveals the new Nelson-Collins “compromise” stimulus bill will cost at least $838.2 billion, an increase of $18.7 billion from the House-passed stimulus bill.
This is contrary to reports, like this article from CNN, that the Nelson-Collins compromise would reduce spending from the House bill:
But Collins also said she could not support a bill as large as the $819.5 billion package passed by the House last week. “We don’t want a package that is too small because that will end up just wasting money. On the other hand, we’re very leery of having an enormous package that would not be necessary and would just boost the federal deficit,” Collins told CNN as Nelson nodded in agreement.
As noted earlier on this blog:
But a closer look at the new 778-page bill (based on information available on Sen. Nelson’s site) reveals that the new Nelson-Collins compromise increases spending on over 130 government programs over the original House bill.
In the end, of course, no one knows what is in the bill – not really; it will end up being some low-level bureaucrats and Administration officials who will really decide how the money is spent, and they’ll spend it with a mind towards their future prospects for advancement. The only thing we can be sure about is that a lot of money will be spent – allegedly by borrowing, but I don’t know who has got $800 billion to loan us right now, so we’re probably going to end up printing a very large portion of it. As a good friend of mine points out, when you dump this much money on an economy, it will have a positive effect – temporary, to be sure, but it will be there. Of course, the fine print here is the utter catastrophe of dried up investment funds and runaway inflation which will be the price we, the people, end up paying for this.
A lot of grief is – justifiably – being directed at our three wet-noodle Republican Senators who signed off on this dog of a bill. But, no matter – it is to be expected that some GOPers would fall for it, given that we’re the Stupid Party for a reason (here you can listen – painfully – to Senator Specter try to defend his vote to Laura Ingraham). No sense in expending our efforts on Collins, Snowe and Specter – we really must concentrate fire on Obama, Pelosi and Reid. They are the authors of this bit of national destruction, and any time we spend on the “wets” of our party is that much less time spent on the people actually responsible for our impending economic doom (though if Specter gets in trouble in his 2010 re-election bid, I’m not exactly going to extend myself to help him out – one must pay the price of one’s folly, after all).
What can we do? We failed in 2008 to craft a winning message and put forth a winning candidate – now our running away from the Bush record seems to have been a large mistake; we could hardly have done worse in 2008, and had we stoutly defended the previous 8 years, we might have done better. Who can tell? But one thing I know from my studies of history is that doing the right thing is always best – and any attempt to toss someone under the bus to save one’s self is always punished. For now, we just have to bear up under it – issue our warnings, offer our alternatives, and start working to regain power…with Virginia in November being our first step.
Keep faith and keep a stout heart – this, too, shall pass…and remember, when we’re in national bankruptcy, it really is only money, and only liberals really care about such things.
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