Senator Spooky has no clue as to whats in the bill, and he votes for it anyway, what a tool. PA that's piece of work ya got there. Call me crazy, but does anyone else think they bought him off or have something on him?

"Just 'cause we don't know what's in it doesn't mean we shouldn't vote for it!"

Sigh.

"Arlen Specter and John Tester's Ignorance of the Stimulus Bill Contents"

You could have save some letters there and just said

"Arlen Specter and John Tester's Ignorance"

It is the same thing.

Reid probably promoised the 3 of them if they CONTINUE to vote with the dems as they have done for years they wont have dems running against them in their next election.

Of course if Franken steals the MN election they only need 1 senator maybe 2 so it will be interesting to see who they throw under the bus.

Gotta vote NOW, the world is COMING TO AN END! Pass the bill NOW! Oh, you expected me to READ it first. How quaint!

Fucking dumbasses!

I really think the biggest test is whether this legislation really works to revive the economy or inspires many of the other 191 nations in the world such as China, Japan & the EU who had already taken steps towards recovery to view this as good economic leadership by Washington or not.

It is not so much whether a few know all the details here that well or not, but whether this really works that will be the real test. This bill will be results tested, and one side or the other will have a potent argument for the 2010 midterm elections.

Yeah Hooson lets pay out the @ss for something and NOT have a clue as to weather it will work or not.

CAUTION: Blithering idiot at work - "It is not so much whether a few know all the details here that well or not, but whether this really works that will be the real test," hoo-swoon.

Yeah, that's the ticket, lets not know what, when and where and how the gov we pay for does with trillions of dollars.

That said, can anyone explain how Barack Hussein Obama will keep his promise to have everything "online" so us peons can judge this bill?

More to the point, does anyone truly believe when the final version is drafted and "ready" for a final vote of passage the entire thing will be online BEFORE any voting takes place?

Anyone?

Paul "Hoswoon", bet you do.

http://shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQ_nkwZdontQ20blameQ20meQ20iQ20votedQ20forQ20mccainQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ

Hey, remember the last election campaign when Obama's stimulus package, which he campaigned on, was only $174 billion and contained things like decent-sized tax cuts that might've actually done some good?

Sigh. Those were the days.

Hey, considering how the economy is - what would you think about throwing away 160,000 jobs and $1.7 trillion in revenue?

Bush-era offshore drilling plan shelved - Environment- msnbc.com

The preliminary plan drawn up by the Bush administration would have authorized 31 energy exploration lease sales between 2010 and 2015 for tracts along the East Coast and off the coasts of Alaska and California.


The Republican lawmakers cited a study that concluded the untapped offshore oil and gas reserves would create more than 160,000 jobs by 2030 and provide the government with $1.7 trillion in royalties on the oil and gas drilled.

But we won't drill offshore! Or allow oil shale exploitation.

It would be awesome, it would be just FANTASTIC if these guys would actually READ what they sign. Who is actually running this country anyway???
http://www.rightklik.net/

I'm curious as to what these morons are getting in return for their vote. How do you vote on a bill that you don't fully understand or have fully read? Unconscionable...

I finally figured out Obama's master plan.

With 100% inflation he can solve a few things.

a. People will make more money. THere will be more millionaires and people will be happy because they are millionaires. Of course they will pay more taxes but they wont care. They are millionaires.

b. THe housing crisis disappears. With people making so much more money due to increased inflation they will be able to afford the morgages on houses purchased prior to the 100% inflation. I mean think about. A house valued at $250k prior to 2009 will now be valued at at least $350k so folks will start to pay their morgages and they wont be upside down again.

c. The govt can pay the debt off easier as everyone will be making more money and tax receipts will be at record levels.

d. No increases of Social security or anything. So that problem goes away because so much more money is flowing into the treasury.

See Obama is an ABSOLUTE GENIUS. 100% inflation will solve ALL our worries.

ANd when asked by bread costs $50 a loaf he will smile and respond "Hey you are a millionaire so you shouldnt complain"

I've worked for the VA, I've worked with VA physicians in a combined VA/Active Duty Hospital, and I am a VA patient. The bureaucracy is a problem, the EMR is a functional mish-mash of several systems that has some great aspects to it but is not anywhere ideal, and huge sums of money are spent to keep this system alive. Trying to break into the system as a provider (new hire) is not pretty. Care can be great, but also limited and frustrating, as a lot more is promised than is feasible with the resources the VA doesn't waste. Attempts at improving the system are ongoing - its not a static organization.

Medicare and Medicaid already tell providers how to practice medicine and nag them if they are not happy with what they are doing. Through formularies that constantly change, they force providers to limit their prescribing habits based on economy (though carefully sheathed in evidence-based medicine recommendations). All this does in broaden the scope and centralize things. Hmmm. Now what kind of system does that?

If there was a truly independent medical organization that could be trusted to be free of political, economic and social bias, I'd still be hesitant to centralize control of medicine. There are many regional peculiarities to our society that make cookie-cutter approaches to medicine inappropriate.

Hurry 'cause the country is on the brink of "crisis," "disaster" and utter ruination.

At least that's what the scar-mongers would have you believe.

It may, or may not be but that's just as unpredictable as what the results of "Porkoplis" will be.

But there's a price to be paid with the speed they want to act:

The Obama administration's economic stimulus plan could end up wasting billions of dollars by attempting to spend money faster than an overburdened government acquisition system can manage and oversee it, according to documents and interviews with contracting specialists.

The $827 billion stimulus legislation under debate in Congress includes provisions aimed at ensuring oversight of the massive infusion of contracts, state grants and other measures. At the urging of the administration, those provisions call for transparency, bid competition, and new auditing resources and oversight boards.

The stimulus plan presents a stark choice: The government can spend unprecedented amounts of money quickly in an effort to jump-start the economy or it can move more deliberately to thwart the cost overruns common to federal contracts in recent years.

Question: Has anyone seen a list of the so-called "Shovel Ready" projects?

And if you have have they been submitted to the EPA and other agencies and are actually cleared ALL the environmental hurdles that can take years to clear?

"And if you have have they been submitted to the EPA and other agencies and are actually cleared ALL the environmental hurdles that can take years to clear?"

You are kidding right. shovel ready? Sure. Turn over a spade of dirt and get sued by PETA, FEMA, Greanpeace, and an ABC group of organizations that dont want you hurting the earthworms in the area.

Marc, I bet on any given day that I have far more money than you have and far more money to manage than you. Maybe I know a thing or two about economics to get to that point, you think?

Paul, it's a given you're not only better looking, sweeter smelling, more intelligent, healthier, sicker, taller, thinner, fatter and shorter than anyone else here - you're also richer and much more humble than anyone else could possibly be.

Have I covered everything? Oh, I forgot your hottie girlfriend who stays with you because anytime you pop viagra you have to get new pants and the local crane services look at you with envy until the swelling subsides.

In short, Paul, the "I'm better at everything, so I'm the final authority and your opinion is worthless" crap is really starting to wear pretty thin.

Marc -

"Anyone remotely familiar with gov procurement is well aware the process take months and months just for the bidding process."

Oh, hell yeah. The squadron I was in back in the early '90s had a hell of a time buying desktop computers - by the time the request for purchase was put out, bids collected, judged, evaluated, passed over to finance to request the funds, get them allocated and disbursed - we couldn't buy the computers we orginally had bids on because the particular model wasn't being made any more. Long procurement lead times suck.

And you ain't gonna shorten them by throwing more money into the system.

I'm really thinking the best thing to do is pass the tax cuts - then sit on the rest of the package for 3 months to see if it's needed.

Of course, that would mean that the 'do something, right now, even if it's wrong!' crowd would explode from frustration, but maybe that's a chance we need to take.

Paul, then by your criterion we would have to say that those in the government must be absolute brainiacs because they have enormous amounts of money to manage and look how damn well they do it.

p hooswoon - "Marc, I bet on any given day that I have far more money than you have and far more money to manage than you. Maybe I know a thing or two about economics to get to that point, you think?"

There's an old saying "clothes make the man."

There's another one (that I just made up) that says "air-headed long-winded, overbearing, self-important pompous pricks, who are more hot air than substance" will always be air-headed long-winded, overbearing, self-important pompous pricks, who are more hot air than substance.

P.S. And they have in most cases Hot Girlfriends that are dumb as a box of monkey wrenches for coming within 10 miles of the aforementioned "air-headed long-winded, overbearing, self-important pompous pricks."

JLawson - "Oh, hell yeah. The squadron I was in back in the early '90s had a hell of a time buying desktop computers"

And all that is made WORSE by the "end of fiscal year" rush to spend already allocated cash if it hasn't been to that point.

The "thinking" being if it's not spent your branch of service won't get the same amount dolled out the following year.

People will make more money. THere will be more millionaires and people will be happy because they are millionaires. Of course they will pay more taxes but they wont care. They are millionaires.

Many Zimbabweans are trillionaires now...I wonder how that's working out...

James

You may have missed the sarcasm in my post. :)

And besides James. They can now pay off their houses they had 20 year notes on (if such a thing exists in zimbawe) by only working 1 hour.

THe democrats love that. No more foreclosures. People have homes. What a deal.

Just destroy the US economy to do it.

I explained a few weeks ago that Paul Hooson's resume is 88 pages long. He has a long nose that he looks down on us "common folk". ww

Wildwillie, I actually care a great deal about people who are suffering financially and I do a great deal of charity for others. But I consider myself to be a pretty darn good financial manager. I only wish some of the banks and other financial institutions could have had better managers available. But I'm always open to taking a job as a CEO somewhere if the money is reasonable and not too high, and the institution is willing to accept change and belt tightening.

As far as waste goes, Bank Of America for example flew a bunch of executives to a purely political conference hosted by the former CEO of Home Depot and millionaire former restaurant and beer industry lobbyist, Rick Berman to address political strategy prior to the 2008 elections. This expensive conference had nothing to do with banking, and things like the Employee Free Choice Act will not impact this bank as the workforce there is non-unionized. And this came after this bank received a $25 billion taxpayer bailout as well. Many of these banks just don't have serious CEOs that know how to cut the jet planes, high price vacation retreat conferences, etc. A lot of these are expert money wasters.

I'm pretty tied down to my real estate holdings, but if some company needs a good CEO or manager, I'm always around and they can look me up. I always like to accept the jobs that people ask me to take.

Per the Republican Policy Committee, the report of these "socialist" provisions about government between the doctor and patient and electronic health care tracking, that were picked up by Limbaugh and FOX, were misleading and at time false. Check your facts, all.

As a Montana resident I can assure all readers that Senator Tester is a pathetic follower of liberal policy and he clearly has a short circuit between his headset. Just call his office and ask a question and you will get a non responsive answer in double speak; try it! I got an email from his office last summer at 8AM on the day he was to meet with veterans and discuss veterans issues. Unfortunately the veterans were on their way to work when the email was sent. Can't wait for next election. Tester is a good replacement for professor Irwin Corey.