The monstrous stimulus bill passed in the Senate late Friday night. It passed moments before Nancy Pelosi had to hop on a private plane for a week long trip to Italy. To say that this vote was rushed is more then an understatement.
In the President’s speech to citizens in Elkhart, Indiana he said about the stimulus bill:
“We’ve had a good debate. Now it’s time to act. That’s why I am calling on Congress to pass this bill immediately.”
I guess he considers 48 hours a good amount of time to debate on the bigest single spending bill in our nation’s history. His definition of fast reaction is telling Congress to get the bill on his desk on Friday so he can go on a holiday with his family to Chicago and sign it, not on Saturday, Sunday or Monday but on Tuesday. I guess the upside is that our nation goes a few more days without being a trillion more dollars in debt. I would have rather seen these wasted days used by debate and public oversight.
The biggest issue here is that this bill passed despite even one person reading the thing! Is there anyone out there who does not find this odd? Why is everyone seemingly silent about this issue? Presindet Obama has told us that this may be one of the most important bills of our time yet no one has read it? Seriously? Reading any of it became difficult after the changes that were made behind closed doors were then scanned in so the 1,000+ page document could not be easily searched.
I thought there was good news when a motion was passed on February 10th, unanimously, to make the text into a searchable and downloadable PDF file and to also allow for 48 hours for review. The motion was H1096 and can be found HERE. It is also stated below:
“Mr. LEWIS of California moves to instruct the managers on the part of the House that they shall not record their approval of the final conference agreement (as such term is used in clause 12(a)(4) of rule XXII of the Rules of the House of Representatives) unless the text of such agreement has been available to the managers in an electronic, searchable, and downloadable form for at least 48 hours prior to the time described in such clause.”
This motion was ignored, despite its passing, as the text was never provided and the bill was voted on anyway.
I want to know who is going to hold President Obama accountable when he told the public that his administration was going to be transparent and provide 48 hours for the public to view major bills before they were passed. This is one of many campaign promises that we have seen and will continue to see broken.
If you wonder why this stimulus bill bothers me so much, the answers are many. However, one question I still have not received an answer for is Does anyone know where we are getting this money from and how we intend to pay it back? I have heard many Democrats complain that the Bush administration spending was absurd but somehow they feel it is okay for them to spend money we don’t have. I don’t think I would do well in Congress because I simply don’t understand their logic in thinking.
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Just for the record, there are still some good financial things happening in the United States. Some CEOs and owners of businesses have stepped up their games and are finding ways to give their own forms of assistance to their employees. Leonard Abess, Jr. is one of those people. After selling his bank to a Spanish country, he was awarded $60 million. He then distributed this $60 million to all of his current emplyees as well as 72 former employees. Read the story here.
My Plowshare 