$184k of stimulus money goes to… imporoving transportation? No? Rebuilding electric grids? No? Retraining workers displaced by the economy? Sort of… if going to the “James Albert School of Cosmetology” is your idea of a retraining.

What’s worse is the list is endless. I’m so glad that we are increasing the tax burden on the next few generations so that former realtors can learn to trim hair at their local Supercuts when James Albert and their ilk graduate their paying students without being able to offer them a job.

Pell Grants have been around forever, why are they now suddenly “stimulus” and what other regular government programs have been similarly commandeered for stimulus use. Or are these an entirely different kind of grant and what criteria are being used to award them? The recovery.gov website provide no information on this, despite “transparent reporting of Recovery-related funds as they are distributed and used” being the mission of the website.

Seriously, how do we change this?
Folks feel there is nothing they can do and it is beyond their scope of influence, yet they keep voting for the Republican and Democrat candidates.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day:
I will keep my money, guns, and freedom.
You can keep your “Change”.

awgee - 30 October 2009 03:36 PM

Seriously, how do we change this?
Folks feel there is nothing they can do and it is beyond their scope of influence, yet they keep voting for the Republican and Democrat candidates.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day:
I will keep my money, guns, and freedom.
You can keep your “Change”.

How do you prevent people from voting in their own short-term self interest rather than voting to support the “minimum government, maximum liberty” view the country with which the government was created. Would you sacrifice your family’s safety and well-being if it meant a return to the vision of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington, Jay, Madison, and Hamilton? Would you give up all your wealth and goods if it meant your children would be free of the kind of Big Mother government we have today? Votes, cast by everyday citizens no longer matter, as evidenced by the TARP vote. Our laws are no longer enforced with any certainty or justice or even fairness, be it along the border or along Wall Street or even K Street. People aren’t willing to march for a return to fiscal responsibility, but nationwide marches against deporting illegals can be arranged with one phone call the La Raza. You can get hundreds of thousands to turn out for Michael Jackson’s memorial but only a few hundred to protest at a banker conference in Chicago.

In other words, we can’t change this. We tried in 1994 and the same people we made a “Contract” with then are supporting what the Feds are doing now. Obama, with all his rhetorical brilliance, took the hopes of people like me, people who really believed that we were voting for a new kind of Democrat, someone who could reach across the division and get a compromise done that forced both sides to accept realistic compromise. What we got was FDR: The Return.

What happened this guy:

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose - our sense of higher purpose. And that’s what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America’s promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that’s to be expected. Because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

And yet, personal responsibility and sacrifice have been discarded in favor of political wish lists and an unwillingness to accept any compromise from anyone but Republicans. What is our common purpose, Mr. President, breeding children who can continue servicing the debt you and your party are foisting on us? How is this a higher purpose?

Sorry awgee… the answer to your question is that the country, consistently chose temporary safety and comfort over liberty despite the warnings of Benjamin Franklin. I’m as guilty as anyone else. There is nothing that can be done short of revolution.

I pray it is a peaceful revolution.

awgee - 30 October 2009 03:36 PM

Seriously, how do we change this?
Folks feel there is nothing they can do and it is beyond their scope of influence, yet they keep voting for the Republican and Democrat candidates.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day:
I will keep my money, guns, and freedom.
You can keep your “Change”.

Can you imagine the chaos if the upset people created a new bank, “Tea Party bank”, sort of like a co-op like REI or Costco?  Then they closed their big bank accounts and put the money in the new Tea Party bank?
That would be funny to see the Fed’s reaction.  I guess they could just refuse to charter “Tea Party bank” if they felt strongly enough.

Anonymous - 01 November 2009 05:51 PM

Can you imagine the chaos if the upset people created a new bank, “Tea Party bank”, sort of like a co-op like REI or Costco?  Then they closed their big bank accounts and put the money in the new Tea Party bank?
That would be funny to see the Fed’s reaction.  I guess they could just refuse to charter “Tea Party bank” if they felt strongly enough.

You don’t have to use a big bank now.  There are plenty of community banks and credit unions.  In fact, what you describe sounds very much like a credit union. 

There is no requirement that you use a bank for anything.  You could live in the cash and barter economy if you wanted to.  It is just not very easy.

Anonymous - 01 November 2009 05:51 PM

awgee - 30 October 2009 03:36 PM

Seriously, how do we change this?
Folks feel there is nothing they can do and it is beyond their scope of influence, yet they keep voting for the Republican and Democrat candidates.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day:
I will keep my money, guns, and freedom.
You can keep your “Change”.

Can you imagine the chaos if the upset people created a new bank, “Tea Party bank”, sort of like a co-op like REI or Costco?  Then they closed their big bank accounts and put the money in the new Tea Party bank?
That would be funny to see the Fed’s reaction.  I guess they could just refuse to charter “Tea Party bank” if they felt strongly enough.

The money? You mean the Federal Reserve Notes we call “dollars”? If you are still using their currency, then they wouldn’t really care where you put it, they still control it. At the most, you would take down one megabank and replace it with another.

awgee - 30 October 2009 03:36 PM

Seriously, how do we change this?
Folks feel there is nothing they can do and it is beyond their scope of influence, yet they keep voting for the Republican and Democrat candidates.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day:
I will keep my money, guns, and freedom.
You can keep your “Change”.

So, job training is not something worth spending the stimulus funds on.  I’ll keep that in mind.

Just because you think that particular job is beneath you, doesn’t mean that somebody else doesn’t make a good living cutting and styling hair.

Geotpf - 03 November 2009 02:09 PM

So, job training is not something worth spending the stimulus funds on.  I’ll keep that in mind.

Just because you think that particular job is beneath you, doesn’t mean that somebody else doesn’t make a good living cutting and styling hair.

I know of several who do, that isn’t the point. The point is that there aren’t enough people in non-service jobs to support the number of people in those service jobs as it is, and here we are subsidizing new students who are going to flood the already crowded market, which effectively wastes the money spent on job training. It’s akin to training people to be dance instructors or gardeners or some other profession that depends largely on other people’s use of their disposable income: success is totally dependent on a reversal of the economic factors that required the job re-training in the first place. It does absolutely nothing to address the reason jobs were lost nor does it provide new employment opportunities once the “training” is over, in that there is not a driving demand for more and more beauticians.

Job training is most effective when it provides generic education that can be applied to a wide variety of areas, like accounting classes, software classes, management classes, etc. Then people are able to apply those new skills to a much wider variety of job opportunities and career choices. I’m not saying that there isn’t StimPak money being spent on that kind of education. I’m saying that spending it on anything other than that kind of education had better have a specific job on the other end or the money is wasted.

Just because you think something sounds good doesn’t mean it is, and you really need to think it all the way through before you criticize someone who has.

Just because you think something sounds good doesn’t mean it is, and you really need to think it all the way through before you criticize someone who has.

Oh Great all knowing one. Your ideas are so old and out dated. You can`t bring Ronald Reagan back so get over it already.

I would rather some of our tax dollars go to young women learning cosmetology than some of the hair
brained Military Programs. Or sending money to help pay the President of Afghanistan`s brother to export more heroin.

This thread is lame.

Geotpf - 03 November 2009 02:09 PM

So, job training is not something worth spending the stimulus funds on.  I’ll keep that in mind.

Just because you think that particular job is beneath you, doesn’t mean that somebody else doesn’t make a good living cutting and styling hair.

No it is not.  I don’t think any job is beneath me but I have had to pay for my own “training” all of my life. 

I don’t need to pay for someone to learn how to cut hair.  If that will better their life let them pay for it.  If they can’t then work a second job until you can.

That is what I did to get through college I am sure the can swing it while learning to cut hair.

Why do you feel like we owe it to anyone to pay for them to better themselves.

Nude - 03 November 2009 03:48 PM

The point is that there aren’t enough people in non-service jobs to support the number of people in those service jobs as it is, and here we are subsidizing new students who are going to flood the already crowded market, which effectively wastes the money spent on job training.

Well, getting the Chinese to stop pegging their currency to the US$ would be a good start down the path to regaining non-service jobs.  And you’d get the trade deficit under control as a bonus.

Folks like Awgee will complain we need them to keep buying our debt, which is false.  The truth is they don’t have a choice unless they want to give up their (un)competitive advantage.