Re: What waste exist in the fiscal stimulus plan

On Feb 27, 2:08 pm, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Joe" <josephbl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:394f4ca6-aa41-4aac-9ea4-7c15a341119e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Feb 17, 11:50 am, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



That is an easy question. Any spending that does not give you the most
bang
for your buck, when that spending is all borrowed money, is spending that
should not occur. Building new schools, while it may be a good thing to
do,
is not what one should do, when the goal is to stimulate the economy as
quickly as you can. Because the goal should be to create permanent jobs,
not to create temporary jobs, which is what more spening on building
schools
are. Spending money on heathcare, has near zero impact on stimulating the
economy, and is basically throwing good money after bad (if you want me to
explain why, I will be more than happy to do that, on one condition, that
you tell me why I am wrong). Infrastructre spending is in the same
category
as school construction. These are temporary jobs, when what is needed is
permanent jobs. As to your final question, all you need to do is know
about
all of the "pork" in the bill, to know what is wasteful spending. And just
a little bit of effort on your part, would answer your question, that is
if
you really want to know the answer.

I asked you the question as an opponent of the bill what you thought
was wasteful spending.  I support the stimulus plan and believe it has
many good features that will stimulate the economy both short and long
term so I was curious what the oponents don't like about this.  You
made it pretty clear you oppose spending on building new schools,
infrastructure and health care.

Yes.  The goal is to "stimulate the economy".  If you are going to achieve
that by saddling future generations with the debt, then you should only
spend the money on those things that will achieve that goal, and not spend
money on things that will not give you the most bang for your buck.
Building schools, is not achieving the goal, because (1) those jobs are only
going to be temporary (they will disappear, once you stop spending tha
tmoney on building schools), (2) the same argument applies to
infrastructure, these are temporary jobs, when the goal should be to create
permanent jobs.  Finally, health care has nothing to do with what the goal
should be.

I totally disagree with your views because all 3 are necessary to
improve the standard of living and will create both temporary and
permanent jobs.

Yes, it will improve the standard of living, but that is not the purpose of
what the money is intended to do.

FDR also inherited a depressed economy and figured it
was better to have unemployed people building infrastructure earning a
paycheck that being unemployed.

And all his efforts failed.  This country came out of the great depression,
when we went to war.

Despite the attempts by Bush neocons
to rewrite the history of the Depression, what FDR did had a
stimulative effect, helped many Americans, FDR's stimulus plan helped
get the economy out of depression.

At what cost?  At the cost of anincrease in the National debt, which meant
you solved a problem, off the backs of those who followed.  And we are still
paying the price for that effort.

That is why FDR got reelected and
Bush will go down in history as another Herbert Hoover.

Yes, one way to get re-elected is to give people what they want, that does
not mean that was a good thing.

Health care
is also another vital necessity, people who have health problems can't
work or take care of themselves and the republican opton of letting
sick people suffer does not improve the standard of living.

As for healthcare, this is an issue of cost.  When someone pays for what you
want, you have no effective way to control prices.  If you have no effective
way to control prices, the cost of providing that benefit will consume a
larger and larger percentage of our GDP.  And unless some miracle happens,
it will continue to consume a larger and larger percentage of GDP.  That
means that other priorities that also are important are going to be squeezed
out.  And it is an issue of whether you want to be treated like a child, or
you want to be treated as an adult.  When you depend on someone else to
provide what you think you need, you are saying yu want to be treated like a
child.  It is also a matter of how important you feel about your individual
freedom and the fredom of everyone else.  When someone pays for what you
want, you also give them the right to infringe on your freedom.  As one
example of that, is what the City of New York is doing.  They are trying to
limit the number of fast foods establaishments in their city, because eating
fast foods, is bad for your health, but the real reason is, since they pay
for part of the cost of health care, they don't want people eating such
foods, because it increases the money they have to pay for that healthcare.

Schools
and roads will create long term benefit for the nation as will
broadband, solar energy, automated health care records etc which will
improve the standard of living in the long term and create jobs in
both the short term and long term.

Yes, they may create long term benefits, but that is not the goal.  The goal
is, to get this economy back on its feet as quickly as possible.  All the
things you mentioned, using your own words is for the "long term benefit" of
the people, which can be a good thing, but that is not where the problem
lies.

Of course you seem to think having
1/3 of the workforce unemployed and banks collapse like they did in
the great depression is "stimulus".

One third of the "workforce" is NOT unemployed, so your premise is wrong.
As for banks collapsing, you have to first understand why the banks
collapsed in the great depression, do you know why they collapsed?

I find it sad that Neocons could afford to spend $1 trillion on the
war in Iraq and yet oppose building new schools, roads, hospitals, etc
in America.

It is a real simple issue.  If you want to build new schools, roads,
hospitals, etc. don't use the excuse of "stimulatiing" the economy.  Those
things, were needed before this current economic crisis occurred and they
wil continue to be things we can argue about being needed.  As for the war
with Iraq, whether we should have gone to war with Iraq or we should not
have gone to war with Iraq, depends on what the justification for going to
war is.  What we do know, is that the world, via the United Nations believed
that Iraq was a threat to the peace and security of the world, or they would
not have taken the actions they did take.  What we do know is that under
both the Clinton Admiinstration and the Bush Administration, the President
believed they were a threat, or they would not have taken the actions they
did take.  What we do know is that under the Clinton and the Bush
Administration, the Senate of the United States passed respective
resolutions on Iraq, saying that Iraq presented a problem that had to be
dealt with.

The Reagan experiment with less regulation has proven to
be a catastrophe.  If you want to find real pork and waste and fraud
you should look at the private sector executive pay where these guys
bankrupted the nation and their companies but walked away with huge
bonuses.

NO!!!  It is a matter of too little or too much regulation.  Either approach
has its advantages and disadvantages.  And NO, when excutives get the pay
they get, it is because the Board of Directors of those companies gave these
executives the pay and benefits they got.  So, it is an issue of "choice".
Should they have the "choice" (menaing the members of the Board) or should
they not have that "choice".  If you want to have a successful company, do
you want someone who is running that company to do a good job or a bad job.
Can you have both.  Can you get someone who will make the company
successful, by doing it on the cheap?  If you were someone who has the
ability to make a whole lot of money for the company and of course the
stockholders, would you work for a company that will pay you what you think
you are worth, or would you work for a company that is not willing to pay
you what you think you are worth?

Using the stimulus money for as capital improvement such as building a
school does not "spend" anything.
The school is useful for 30 or more years and the debt it creates can
be paid off over the period of the schools useful life.

The jobs created by public construction are permanent jobs. There is
so much neglected work that by the time they catch up with the roads
and bridges that need repair and replacement they can start all over
again.

Meanwhile all of America benefits from the roads, bridges, and fuel
savings from energy efficient government buildings.

.

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