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CAPITAL NEWS - BREAKING STORY
HOUSE PASSES $819 BILLION ECONOMIC STIMULUS BILL, 244-188
NO REPUBLICANS VOTED FOR BILL

finally, someone is being SANE.
This gives me hope...

Maps of the 2008 US Presidential Election by Mark Newman

Maps of the 2008 US presidential election results by Mark Newman of University of Michigan
Red = Rep
Blue = Dem

Electoral Map by State


Electoral Map by State using a population cartogram.

Electoral Map by County

Electoral Map by County cartogram by population

Smaller Government

If we have a smaller government... then we'll have less taxes and less debt.

If we had less taxes and less debt, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

Why can't we leave it to the people to take care of each other? Do we really have so little faith in each other? Oh. You're right... without the government everyone would starve. All of these NGO's and non-profit organizations do nothing. People never donate, volunteer, serve or give.

Oh Government, come save us from ourselves please.

I don't understand...

THE ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN from Whitehouse.gov and my notes (in red) as to how each could directly affect our economy...

• Doubling the production of alternative energy in the next three years. - It seems like our economy would boost with cheaper energy. I just hope that 'alternative energy' will make the cost go down and not up. I also hope there's a combination of alternative, with us drilling to have more in general and helping us as we become less dependent on foreign oil sources.
  
• Modernizing more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills. I think reconstruction can wait until after the recession, I don't see how a new AC is going to help the economy. Maybe they're confusing economy with climate?
  
• Making the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized. I really don't see how THIS helps the economy.
  
• Equipping tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries. This is great too, but still not seeing the correlation to the economy.
  
• Expanding broadband across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world. How can they compete with no job? Since this is an "economic plan" maybe we should talk about how to FORM those jobs?
  
• Investing in the science, research, and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries, and entire new industries. This is a big one, and new discoveries could lead to new jobs... but how much are you investing? Are you investing in the public sector, where it will actually help people's jobs... or just give more money to government organizations?
  

If you can explain to me, why these are the MOST IMPORTANT bullet points they could come up with during our time of economic crisis, I would greatly appreciate it.

This stimulus bill is nothing but the permanent implementation of the pet projects of the House and Senate

"It's time to wake up. This stimulus bill is nothing but the permanent implementation of the pet projects of the House and Senate. There is nothing temporary about any of the spending increases in this bill. They are all designed to make the American people more dependent on the federal government. And there is nothing stimulating about that."

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/01/26/morning-bell-a-conservative-alternative-to-obamas-permanent-spending-plan/

Papa Government teaches us that debt ROCKS!

Our Crisis: Our crisis began with the Papa Government getting too happy about giving everyone what they want. Papa Government said, “hey American constituent kiddos, be easier on people by giving them loans when they can’t pay their rent, and just crashed their car”.

What led us to our crisis?

Papa Government didn’t let his little kiddos live their own lives and make their own mistakes. It’s not Papa Governments responsibility to give the constituents everything they want… just to make sure they don’t kill each other.

Our lives are based on thinking we can have everything we want, even though we don’t deserve it, and yes I said deserve it. Cringe if you will, but what makes you think you deserve to have a house, if you can’t even make your rent payment each month?

We’re headed into an even bigger crisis, by doing exactly what got us into this mess. Credit. Instead of taxing us, the new administration and even our senators want to tack on more to our deficit (crediting).

Dear American constituent kiddos,

We will not be raising taxes (this is where everyone stops reading and throws away the letter), however… you owe us 1.31 trillion If Congress passes an $800 billion, two-year stimulus bill.

Good luck!

With Love,

Papa Government.

In my eyes: Adding to the deficit is the same as raising our taxes.

HEADLINE NEWS: paying taxes isn't a big deal

Republican Jim Bunning of Kentucky told Geithner his failure to pay the taxes fully until just before his selection by Obama was announced was "hard to explain to my constituents who pay these taxes on a regular basis."

Grassley said he recognizes that many in Congress view Geithner, who worked closely with the outgoing administration on Wall Street's meltdown as head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, as "possibly the only man for the job of healing the recession before us and a very fractured economy."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090121/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/treasury_geithner

Geithner's our new Treasury Secretary, unfortunately he didn't know how to pay his taxes for a few years, helped with our current economic crisis and is going to lead us into an even darker red hole of debt. If you haven't already heard the Senate Confirmation hearing for Tim Geithner, take a looksy below.

If you listen around the 40 second mark, you'll learn Geithner's been helping out with our current downfall: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1007899019

start at the 1 minute mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY2TNV5X8aM&eurl=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video_log/2009/01/geithner_faces_questions_from.html

My thoughts: They couldn't think of someone else that could do this job? Sad. I can think of a few Republicans, but you're right... not many democrats.

Your Opinion?

only $120 million

Headlines On This Date 4 Years Ago:

“Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops Die in unarmored Humvees"

Headlines Today:

"Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million"

"Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party"

I was just looking for sources to back myself up and here's what I found:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Inauguration/story?id=6665946&page=1

their angle is so "forgiving" ... but notice that Obama's is paid for by the feds, and Bush's was private funds. Interesting.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/01/13/2009-01-13_obamas_inauguration_is_most_expensive_ev.html

I think this was a projection from before the fact. This is the the article accused below...

Here's what the other side says:

"It also highlighted the type of news you can generate when making blatantly false comparisons. In this case, it was the cost of the Obama and Bush inaugurations. The connection was unfair because the Obama figure of $160 million that got repeated in the press included security costs associated with the massive event. But the Bush tab of $42 million left out those enormous costs. Talk about stacking the deck.

The misinformation first arrived in the form of an underreported newspaper article in America, and then one in London. Between them, and thanks to furious transatlantic online linking, the reports gave birth to the story that Obama's inauguration was going to cost nearly four times what the country spent on Bush's bash in 2005 -- that the Obama inauguration would cost almost $120 million more."

Source: http://mediamatters.org/columns/200901170003

Let's Trade

Our country has decided to trade

Safety... for clean air.