It's time for you to be stimulated........

[greg755]

82% of the people in this poll agree with the assessment below....









It wont take long for the rest of the country to realize what a tragic mistake this plan is.....

[campadk]

My take on things: Unfortunately the bailouts are necessary to help stabilize the economy, and give the county a change to come out of this mess... eventually... we hope. Obama inherited this mess... can't think of anyone else I would want to see having to deal with it all. At least he gives us hope.
And yes, in the end its the tax payer who has to bail out the GM's and AIG's of the world... sad.. but true.

We are still pretty lucky here in Canada. Housing prices around here have been somewhat flat since last fall but not falling. Interest rates are unbelievably cheap (paying a mere 2% on the mortgage now!). The banks are in fair shape... but alas our markets are pretty closely tied to the US so we have lost the same as everyone else in the stock market... I was never a gambler... but apparently I am one now! We call it our 'casino money' now

Eventually people will have to replace their cars and start spending again, but by then GM and Chrysler will be bankrupt and the Hondas and Toyotas of the world will take over the industry. Sad indeed.

[martha24]

If you'd like to see where some of this money is going check this site out. It has state by state money grabs (ok, they call them projects) listed.
I saw a few in PA they in my opinion are really stupid.....but that's my opinion.

Stimulus Watch

I didn't read the whole site Glenn so I have no idea who put this out...don't really care.... but I have heard of some of these projects previously so I have no reason to believe any of them are BS. Just found it interesting to see where the money is going.

Looks like NH (0), W VA (1), DE (7) and DC (8) need to get on the ball, they're way short on projects, of course DE and DC's 15 projects aren't cheap

The authors of the site seem credible, from what I could find.

I can't comment on projects other than ones in my area, since I actually know what these projects are all about.

One of the bigger projects in my area is the new water pipeline from Lake Tawokanee to my area, which will create 450 of jobs, and it is something we definitely need since the Dallas area population is outgrowing it's water supply very rapidly. We have water rationing in dryer summers because the local lakes we draw from can't keep up with demand from a rapidly growing population.

The IH-30 Bridges project is good for 2,450 jobs, and that is a major corridor with a lot of very old sections and bridges.

The projects in my own town looked pretty legit -- although I'm not sure why we need an armored vehicle. The chart shows no jobs created by any of them. That seems odd, since the work won't do itself. There must be missing data.

One project is 100 yards from my house. It will turn an old two lane blacktop road with drainage ditches into a four-lane divided roadway with storm sewers. That roadway stretches all the way across town, and this short section is the only two-lane section, which creates a bottleneck. That project has been delayed for about ten years due to lack of state funding (it is classified as a state highway).

Good site. Seems non-political, to me.

Well, I see California has proposed the most projects at a cost of $23,194,447,831. California likes to spend money, no doubt part of the reason we’re not that far away from bankruptcy.

Santa Barbara city, basically my area though I live just north of there, with a population of 92,000 is proposing projects costing more than most cities of equal size in California at $114,050,236. Some of the projects certainly wouldn’t rate as critical and some are controversial. The more recent Santa Barbara City councils are another group of people that doesn’t seem to understand the idea of budgeting and the difference between needs and wants.

One of the more controversial proposed projects is $45 million to add 60,000 sq. ft. and renovating the existing 7,000 sq. ft. original airline terminal, making the airport almost 9 times bigger than it is now. It is now a very easy airport to use and some who commented use it regularly and don’t find it over crowded. The times I have used it or picked people up or taken people there, I have found it very to use. We don’t have any big jets using it and some airlines seem to come and go. We are losing the American Airlines direct flight from Santa Barbara to Dallas. Even though it runs at 80% capacity, American says it is too expensive to run. I would guess the majority of flights go to either Los Angeles or San Francisco. We do have airlines whose main hubs are Salt Lake city, Denver & Phoenix and have some flights that go there as well as some other cities as well. I find it very hard to believe it needs to be made 9 times bigger than it is now. IMHO it will ruin it.

1 million dollars is proposed to rebuild the municipal tennis stadium. There are about 8 parks on the list for renovation of bathrooms, landscaping and or playground renovation.

The amount for bridges, roads & water projects isn’t broken down by project. The proposal for road resurfacing is $13 million. As a Californian, wanting federal money for road repair really irritates me because Sacramento originally promised the taxes on gasoline would go to roads. Well, Sacramento then put the money into the general fund and used it for other things than roads hence many of our roads are in need of repair.

I think a number of the projects on the list would fall under the label of pork and if I lived in another state I wouldn’t want my money funding them.
http://www.stimuluswatch.org/project/by_city/Santa%20Barbara/CA

[Dixie Flyer]

Martha said:

".....another group of people that doesn’t seem to understand the idea of budgeting and the difference between needs and wants."

I believe you hit the nail on the head.

Why can't folks (gov't) understand that you CANNOT spend more than you take in!

"Going Galt." ???

Indeed.

[Todah Tear]

...Obama inherited this mess... And yes, in the end its the tax payer who has to bail out the GM's and AIG's of the world...

IT's NOT TOO LATE TO LET THEM ALL GO BELLY-UP. THEN THEY DON"T HAVE TO PAY OUT THE CONTRACTS.

I think that every politician who is pointing a finger at anyone w/regard to the ballout money going to the execs should be taken out back and whipped. How is it that the clause slipped past them (rhetorical question - please, no answers.) Dejectors have said that it was slipped in the last minute and they didn't have time to read it thoroughly enough... at $174K/year, they should have pulled an "all nighter". Those of use in school do it all the time for less money.

This isn't the time to place blame; that "ain't" going move anyone who has lost their house back inside their home, or those who lost their jobs, back in employment. I do think that the names of the execs who got the bonuses DO need to be published. Afterall, when that FORECLOSURE sign is slapped in someone's yard, that's pretty public. Everyone in neighborhood knows who used to live in that house. Besides that, the American public ought to know who received their money.

...just my two cents!

Todah