Minority Leader John Boehner released a list of the Top 20 Fast Facts About the House Democrats' Trillion Dollar Spending Plan.
1. The $825 billion package slated for a House vote later this weekwill exceed more than $1.1 trillion when adding in the interest ($300plus billion) between 2009-2019 to pay for it.
2. The Capitol Hill Democrats' plan includes funding for contraceptives; regardless of where anyone stands on taxpayer funded contraception, there is no question that it has NOTHING to do with the economy.
3. The legislation could open billions of taxpayer dollars to left-wing groups like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been accused of voter fraud, is reportedly under federal investigation; and played a key role in the housing meltdown.
4. Here are just a few of the programs and projects that have been included in the House Democrats' proposal:· $650 million for digital TV coupons.· $600 million for new cars for the federal government.· $6 billion for colleges/universiti es – many which have billion dollar endowments.· $50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.· $44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.· $200 million for the National Mall, including $21 million for sod.
5. The plan establishes at least 32 new government programs at a costof over $136 billion. That means more than a third of this plan'sspending provisions are dedicated to creating new government programs.
6. The plan provides spending in at least 150 different federal programs, ranging from Amtrak to the Transportation SecurityAdministration. Is this the "targeted" plan Democratic leaders promised?
7. Even though the legislation contains at least 152 separate spending proposals, the authors of the plan can only say that 34 have anychance at keeping or growing jobs.
8. Just one in seven dollars of an $18.5 billion expenditure on"energy efficiency" and "renewable energy programs" would be spent within the next 18 months.
9. The total cost of this one piece of legislation is almost as much as the annual discretionary budget for the entire federal government.
10. The House Democrats' bill will cost each and every household $6,700 in additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.
11. The bill provides enough spending – $825 billion – to give everyman, woman, and child in America $2,700. $825 billion is enough togive every person in Ohio $72,000.
12. $825 billion is enough to give every person living in poverty inthe United States $22,000.
13. Although the House Democrats' proposal has been billed as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, in actuality only $30 billion of the bill – or three percent – is for road and highway spending. A recent study from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that only 25 percent of infrastructure dollars can be spent in the first year, making the one year total less than $7billion.
14. Much of the funding within the House Democrats' proposal will go to programs that already have large, unexpended balances. For example,the bill provides $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants(CDBG) – a program that already has $16 billion on hand. States also are sitting on some $9 billion in unused highway funds – funds that Congress is prepared to rescind later this year.
15. All board members of the "Accountability and Transparency Board"created by this legislation are appointees of the President; none will be appointed by Congress.
16. A scant 2.7 percent, or $22.3 billion of the overall package, is dedicated to small business tax relief.
17. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the legislation increases by seven million the number of people who get a check backfrom the IRS that exceeds what they paid in payroll and income taxes.
18. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit at the center of the plan amounts to $1.37 a day, or about the price of a cup of coffee.
19. Almost one-third of the so-called "tax relief" in the HouseDemocrats' bill is spending in disguise, meaning that true tax relief makes up only 24 percent of the total package – not the 40 percentthat President Obama had requested.
20. $825 billion is just the beginning – many Capitol Hill Democratswant to spend even more taxpayer dollars on their "stimulus" plan. Infact, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. DavidObey (D-WI), told Roll Call earlier this month, "I would not besurprised to see us go further on some of these programs down the line."
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I am not sure where all these facts come from (i.e., your source) or how they are the ranked to be top 20 (money allocated, disbursement type, personal offence/outrage?), but I had just finished reading another political RSS feed about the misconceptions (and dare I say, mis-representations) of the bill and one quote jumped out at me in your posting. # 3: "The legislation could open billions of taxpayer dollars to left-wing groups like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been accused of voter fraud, is reportedly under federal investigation; and played a key role in the housing meltdown."
ReplyDeleteThis a rote quote of a talking point from John Boehner's (R-OH) office.
Please consider this point of view, in regards to this particular point, from MMFA.org:
...
The [claim] echos material released by House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-OH) office. A January 26 "fast facts" release claimed of the stimulus bill: "The legislation could open billions of taxpayer dollars to left-wing groups like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been accused of voter fraud, is reportedly under federal investigation; and played a key role in the housing meltdown." A January 23 release to which the January 26 document links stated that "the Democrats' bill makes groups like ACORN eligible for a $4.19 billion pot of money for 'neighborhood stabilization activities.' "
In fact, the bill contains no language mentioning ACORN. The false claim is based on a misrepresentation of a provision that would appropriate $4,190,000,000 "for neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008." The provision requires that money will be distributed through competitive processes. It states that "not less than $3,440,000,000 shall be allocated by a competition" to "States, units of general local government, and nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities." It also provides that "up to $750,000,000 shall be awarded by competition to nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities to provide community stabilization assistance."
If you have a legitimate beef with that aspect of the bill, please help us all to better understand your objection so we can discuss the merits of the issue and of your concern. I enjoy a healthy debate, especially when it's based on merit and not knee-jerk emotional-based, straw-man arguments and guilt by association.
If you want your blog to be read as a one-sided, no-room-for-disagreement soap box, let us know. I need to ween my RSS feeds of those anyway.