Fiscal Suicide: Another Alternative to Ignore
“If we’re going to slap a trillion-dollar debt on our children, we should at least invest in a critical nationwide project that will promote national security, lessen our dependency on foreign oil, and provide the next generation – who will have to pay for it – a more efficient way to transmit electricity.”
So, the crap sandwich of a stimulus bill passed through the House and the Senate on Friday. Apparently there was no time to wait for anyone to read it, you know, because if any read the largest spending bill in U.S. History people were going to lose jobs…even though there’s apparently enough time for the Obama’s to enjoy a weekend get-a-way before Dear Leader signs the bill, but whatever.
Of course, conservatives are partly to blame because we didn’t present a viable alternative, even though we did in both the House and the Senate, and through think tanks like “American Solutions.” Even Rush Limbaugh had an alternative, giving D’s 60% and R’s 40% tax cuts. That’s right’ even “El Rushbo” was offering ideas and looking for a bi-partisan compromise.
Well, add this to the list of conservative ideas the media is going to ignore. From the editorial pages of the “Washington Examiner,” who has this crazy idea to work on the energy crisis…
President Barack Obama has made it so clear that he intends to double the amount of renewable energy produced in the U.S. that environmentalists dubbed his trillion-dollar “stimulus” package the “Green New Deal.” So why does it contain a fraction of what’s needed to build the new “super grid” that is absolutely essential to move electric power – including that generated by all those new wind and solar sources – to places where it’s needed most?
Experts estimate that it will cost anywhere between $50 and $75 billion to add a 21,000-mile, high-voltage overlay to the existing power grid, which is dangerously close to capacity and increasingly vulnerable to devastating terrorist attacks. But instead of making the electrical equivalent of the interstate highway system a top national priority, the conference committee stimulus bill contains just $11 billion for this purpose – even though building the super grid would create 238,000 new jobs and provide vital capacity, to say nothing of protecting national security.
238,000 new jobs, and for a tenth of the total cost of the Pelosi-Obama Spending Bill. It’s even beneficial to Democrat special interest groups, which since President Obama is no different than President Bush and signs executive orders while no one was looking, the executive order stating that all jobs created by this bill have to go to unions, that would make 238,000 paychecks that union bosses can take money out of, keep some for themselves, and kick some back to the Democrat party in the way of campaign contributions and PAC money.
If only Congress had the time to do their jobs, take the time to debate things and hold hearings to discuss what the best possible economic stimulus bill would be, one that would actually stimulate the economy, and idea like this that both sides could agree on may have been brought up.
Oh well. At least we still have that upcoming budget appropriations bill to look forward to.
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Where did you find the executive order information?
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/category/topicarticle.aspx?feed=AP&Date=20090206&ID=9561897&topic=TOPIC_ECONOMIC_INDICATORS&isub=3
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/02/06/obama_executive_order_favors_union_labor/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/11/AR2009021103953.html