A look at how this stimulus effects Middle Tennessee

A friend recently introdiced me to Stimulus Watch, a website that says it is dedicated to helping the new president “keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend.” 

This website is a database of all the projects in the recently agreed upon Stimulus Bill, that should be going to the President’s desk any day now. I wanted to see how this bill helps ME, since I for some reason seem to be paying federal taxes every April despite my lack of income. I wanna see how my money is coming back to me.

But upon review, I noticed that not a DIME of stimulus money goes to Middle TN. Not a dime. Rep. Jim Cooper voted against the bill, thankfully, probably because he was unable to put any Nashville benefits in this. But Rep. Bart Gordon, MY representative in Murfreesboro (a Democrat for whom I have voted before), voted for the first draft of the bill, and none of this money comes to my town. 

Tennessee has a total of 103 projects for a total of $338.37 Million… of $789 Billion. Thats 0.04%. How about that. 

All of the projects are located in Cleveland, Germantown, Jackson, Johnson City, and Knoxville. Cleveland, which gets 1050 jobs and $62 Million, is in Rep. Zach Wamp’s district. Wamp voted Nay on the bill. Johnson City, which gets 0 new jobs but $85 Million, is in Rep. Phil Roe’s district, who also voted nay. Knoxville gets $74.5 Million and a couple hundred jobs, represented by Rep. Jimmy Duncan, who also voted nay. Jackson, Tennessee got $86 Million. Their congressman, John Tanner, voted Aye. He is the only TN Representative who voted Aye to get money.

The last city in the state to get Stimulus money was….. Germantown? Is this the same Germantown that is near Memphis? The same Germantown with 37,000 people and a median household income of $113,000? Germantown gets $29.4 million for mostly blue collar jobs, so the workers will probably commute from Memphis. Germantown is Represnted largely by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who voted nay, but will likely benefit Rep. Steve Cohen, who voted Aye. 

But thats no money for Nashville. No money for Murfreesboro. No money for Franklin or Cookeville or Clarksville or Lebanon or Shelbyville or Gallatin. So if Middle TN is completely getting the shaft here, why are there so many people in this area supporting it?

The truth is much of the stimulus money is going to impoverished areas. I looked at Michigan, which is nothing but a giant impoverished area, save a few select cities. Detroit, perhaps America’s poorest dense city, gets $1.1 Billion (0.15% of total stimulus spending), most of which appears to be for bridge construction. Good to know that there will be some jobs that will be gone a year later. The entire state gets $2.7 Billion, or 0.35% of total stimulus funding. 

So if the giant homeless shelther shaped as a glove doesn’t even get one half of one percent of the total stimulus funding, where is it all going?

America’s biggest state pulls in $23.2 Billion or around 3% of the total spending. California must really be hurting. Well Beverly Hills (remember that city of celebrities?) gets 22 Million (or the George Clooney’s salary for one movie). Santa Barbara gets $114 Million, but creates no jobs. Santa Monica gets $14 Million, Napa gets $43 Million,

Inglewood, a poorer area, gets $151 Million. Merced, the poorest city in California, gets $106 Million. Compton, another poor city, gets $117 Million. Lancaster, which has a poverty rate of 24.9% gets…… you guessed it $0.

San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi terrotitory and land of the progressives gets…$1.1 BILLION?!!!?!?!?! San Francisco, which has one of the lowest poverty rates and one of the highest median incomes in Ameica for large cities gets as much money as Detroit?!

sigh…

What are we stimulating?

After late night negotiations last night, some “moderate” Republicans reached a compromise with Democrats on the bill in exchange for their support. This compromise was basically $100 Billion slashed from the bill, bringing it down to ONLY $820 Billion of borrowed money. 

What does this “bi-partisan” Stimulus bill include?

$116 billion in infrastructure improvements; $88 billion in new funding for education; $40 billion for the development of clean energy; $23 billion for programs to help those most hurt by the economic downturn; and $14 billion for healthcare, including $3 billion to jump-start a plan to computerize health records.

The plan includes a tax cut of up to $1,000 for working couples. An amendment adopted this week would add a tax credit of $15,000 for home purchases.

Under the terms of the deal, Senate Democrats agreed to cut some $100 billion from their original proposal. Spending for the states and education took the biggest hit, compared with the House bill. State fiscal stabilization funding was cut back $40 billion, school construction dropped $16 billion, and a proposed $3.5 billion line for higher education construction was zeroed out.

So we’ve got nearly $90 Billion of unbudgeted money for education (not economically stimulating). Billions for clean energy (probably economically discouraging).  A few Billion to computerize health care?!

I’m not saying these ideas are bad ones. What I’m saying is they do not belong in a package to “stimulate the economy.” 

And don’t forget about the relatively small $335 Million in STD prevention. What have condoms ever done to stimulate anything?

EDIT:

The National Review has also published a few things that have been included in this stimulus bill. 

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$300 million for grants to combat violence against women
$2 billion for federal child-care block grants
$6 billion for university building projects
$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”

Bi-Partisanship is a load of crap

During my 2 month hiatus from blogging, I took the time to re-evaluate my views of American politics. I talked to a lot of really smart people on multiple sides of the political spectrum, from Rhodes scholar liberals to hyper-libertarian activists, to conservative idealists to optimistically blind liberals, and even one admittedly raging socialist. I talked primarily about this economic stimulus that the new President is pushing. There actually seems to be a consensus within these political minds: something has got to be done to deal with this failing economy, but everyone is scared to spend too much money. 

Liberal bloggers, now calling themselves “progressives” are certain that their new Christ has got the right idea. Throw thousands of unrelated projects together to create one giant “stimulus” project that takes place over several years, create several temporary jobs to fulfill these projects, make every state and every special interest group happy by giving them a few b/million dollars and then hope for the best when having to pay it back some day. And if Republicans don’t vote for this bill, they are not looking out for the best interest of their constituents.

The President is calling on “bi-partisanship.” This means supporting him because he won. When President Obama was calling Senate Republicans poop-faces today for not supporting him, he threw in for at LEAST the third time in recent weeks the fact that Democrats won the elections. 

Bi-partisanship is nothing but one ideology conceding defeat to another. And that is exactly what this President is asking for and is probably what he is going to get. 

So says the New York Times. 

The negotiations in Congress will test whether Democrats, who say they won a mandate in November to pursue their goals, are willing to give up some favored long-term policy initiatives to win over more Republican votes.

They may have won a mandate from their districts, but Republicans that were re-elected also were handed a mandate to do everything they can to defeat these measures.

Your congressman probably doesn’t care what you think

Do you support a bailout of the American auto industry?

Didn’t think so. I haven’t met anyone that does yet, including the most liberal of my liberal friends.

Nevertheless, Congress is probably going to give GM, Ford, and Chrysler $25 Billion each that they can whipe their noses with.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said over the weekend the House would aid the ailing industry, though she did not put a price on her plan. “The House is ready to do it,” said Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. “There’s no downside to trying.”

No Downside to trying, except $150 Billion in tax payer dollars to failing companies.

Looks like it might be more beneficial to just write a check to the employees than the executives.

The implications of this story for Washington policy makers are obvious. Investing in the major auto companies today would be throwing good money after bad. Many are suggesting that $25 billion of public money be immediately injected into the auto business in order to buy time for an even larger bailout to be organized. We would do better to set this money on fire rather than using it to keep these dying firms on life support, setting them up for even more money-losing investments in the future.

As the WSJ article explains, if Ameican automakers go out of business, that doesnt mean American’s are going to stop buying cars. Toyota, Honda and Nissan already have plants in the US that make millions of cars a year, so who’s to say that the workers who lose their jobs with GM wont find new work with one of the foreign manufacturers? They may not have the union “protection” that they had under the American companies, but it doesnt seem like the Unions have done much good to keep GM and Ford going.

Back to the point. This $700 Billion bank bailout (apparently of which the car makers are going to get a slice) was probably the most publicly opposed bill in US History. It was so hated by the American public that the phone lines and internet servers were OVERLOADED with constituent phone calls and emails telling Congressmen and Senators to vote NO on the bill. They passed it anyways, and we, the American people, re-elected almost every one of them.

sigh…