I’ll Give You Your Stimulus Package…

Some things never change. As the serious members of our nation’s government, led by a President who actually leads (what a nice change of pace), try to fix the mess that we find ourselves in, the opposition continues to prove themselves to be nothing more than political clowns and empty suits, concerned with nothing other than political posturing and pandering to their base in preparation for elections in 2010 and 2012. Unfortunately for them, their base is quickly dwindling as their opponents race to get relief to the unemployed, uninsured, and homeless. However, some folks just don’t have it in them to give up on their lifelong rally cries of “free trade”, “anti-regulation”, “tax cuts for the rich”, and “I must be against everything Democrats say or do.” I imagine it’s like admitting that Santa Claus isn’t real. Instead, they prefer to continue to change the conversation or, at the very least, shovel a steaming pile of bullshit on top of it.

Case in point – instead of doing something productive as the former chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Richard Shelby (Idiot, Alabama) stepped to the front of the line of Obama denialists by publicly questioning whether our president is a US citizen. That old gag? I thought this was settled last year when it was repeatedly dismissed as “frivolous and not worthy of discussion” by the Supreme Court. It’s worth noting that the brains behind this movement is Philip Berg, noted crackpot that tried to charge Bush and other government officials with conspiring to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks, and has been charged numerous times for legal malpractice and ethics violations. Sounds like Senator Shelby has plenty of company in the fantasy land he’s living in. Scary to think that he’s actually an elected official.

Meanwhile, a number of Republican governors have garnered national attention for speaking out against the stimulus package. While responsible governors such as Charlie Crist (Florida) have eagerly accepted the stimulus money that their states’ citizens so desperately need, others have gone as far as claiming that they will outright reject any money allocated to their state in the stimulus bill. Booby Jindal (Louisiana), for one, has made a very public spectacle of “rejecting” the money. With the help of a sleep-walking news media, he made his round of guest appearances on TV, talking trash against everything Obama, and then secretly accepted $3.7 billion of the $3.8 billion allocated to his state. Turns out that it wasn’t such bad money after all, I guess. Refusing the money while his constituents lose their jobs, lose their homes, and their towns go bankrupt, would have been wildly irresponsible, and possibly an impeachable offense. Pretending to refuse the money so he could position himself for a 2012 presidential campaign is morally reprehensible. Fortunately for all of us, his childish speech on national television last night should put an end to his national career before it even gets started.

However, my favorite story of the empty outrage over the stimulus has to be a column I read by noted ignoramus Michelle Malkin. She goes in great detail about the “growing movement” against the “porkulus.” Aside from the fact that she goes on and on for an entire article without ever explaining what pork she’s actually talking about, I get particular amusement out of her use of the term “porkulus”. I can just picture her typing it over and over, thinking what a clever play on words it is. Much like everything else she writes, she clearly did not do her research. If she did, she’d find that her hilarious term isn’t exactly what she thinks it is. Assuming that the term “pork” is used to mean “unnecessary spending”, and given the fact that the Latin suffix “-ulus” literally means “small” or “little”, the term “porkulus” would roughly translate to “little unnecessary spending”. It’s sweet justice to picture the ignorant morons scrawling PORKULUS on their picket signs. That is if they can spell it.

But I digress. I am writing today not to criticize the defenseless, powerless, and ignorant opposition, or to congratulate Obama on his effective and inspiring speech last night (although I have to say it was pretty fantastic. He effectively outlined the problem, as well as his proposed solution, while also countering the anticipated arguments from the Republicans, basically cutting poor Bobby Jindal’s balls off before he even got a chance to open his mouth. I think the only person who enjoyed the speech more than I did would have to be Nancy Pelosi – she didn’t stop giving him hump-eye the entire hour. In any case, it was nice just to finally have a President who didn’t seem lost and confused). Today, I am writing to give my proposal for a stimulus package, including some criticism of the bill that was recently signed into law. Unfortunately, I will not be running for President of our fine country for another seven years, so I cannot put any of these ideas into action right away. In the meantime, I can only hope that Barry O is reading.

Let me start off with how I’m funding this stimulus package. First off, I end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let all the nut-jobs kill each other and sort it out. We don’t need them or their oil. Or at least we won’t after my stimulus gets passed.

So that gives us $200 billion per year per war, which comes out to $2 trillion dollars over the next five years. That should be enough to cover the programs I’m about to propose.

Oh, by the way, all of these numbers have been thoroughly researched, analyzed, calculated, and verified by experts in each field. *

Proposal # 1: Convert all US Postal Service vehicles to electric (if money is left over, convert as many government vehicles as possible)

Cost: $123 billion

Benefit: Immeasurable. In place of an auto industry bailout, I propose that we award the Big 3 automakers contracts to manufacture a fleet of electric postal trucks. This has several long lasting effects. First, the US government gets a fleet of vehicles that use zero gas and have zero emissions. Second, it gives the US auto industry work for the short term, while also preparing them to better compete against foreign automakers in the future. And don’t tell me that electric vehicles are unrealistic – this one can drive for 200 miles on a 10 minute charge (and it has 1,000 horsepower!). Or, if you prefer hydrogen fuel cells, we could do that instead and also add hydrogen fueling stations at all post offices, giving us a country wide infrastructure for alternative fuel.

Proposal # 2: Massive public works / infrastructure projects, WPA style

Cost: $186 billion

Benefit: Immeasurable. This would create countless jobs, as we rebuild our roads, bridges, damns, levies, etc. It is not debatable that this work is needed – for decades the Army Corps of Engineers has reported on needed repairs to our nation’s infrastructure, only to be underfunded with disastrous results. We can also bring our nation’s mass transit system into the 21^st century, helping our workforce’s productivity match those of other nations. I recently heard a story from someone who had travelled to Tokyo, and noted that traveling from such a state-of-the-art city back to the US is like traveling back in time.

Anyone who is quick to argue against government funding of such projects and rail against the WPA, please let me know what you think of LaGuardia Airport or the Golden Gate Bridge. Or how about the Riverwalk in San Antonio – not only is it beautiful and it attracts countless tourists to the city every year, but it has created hundreds of flourishing small businesses in the restaurants and bars that line the river. It’s important to remember than one man’s “pork” is another man’s wise investment in the local infrastructure that stimulates surrounding businesses. Sounded catchier before I typed it…

Proposal # 2A: The new Manhattan Project

Cost: $281 billion

Benefit: Furthermore, we should be investing in research and development projects for alternative energy, with a Manhattan Project type of urgency. FutureGen is a start, but politics has gotten in the way of progress. As we continue to cling to coal and oil, other nations are speeding past us on the road to innovation. See Australia’s solar tower project for example. For about $200 million, this experimental plant will produce electricity to power 100,000 homes. Why are we letting Australians lead the charge on this? We can do better. America is supposed to be the world leaders in innovation – and if we come up with the answer to alternative energy, not only will we manage to become energy independent of all those crazies in the Middle East, but we’ll be able to name our price on building these plants around the globe. At the very least, we should be building nuclear plants like it’s going out of style.

Proposal # 3: Bailout for the print news media and/or create a publicly funded news network a la BBC

Cost: $23 billion

Benefit: A more informed nation. The rise of the internet has contributed to the slow death of print media. The result is that our information increasingly comes from unpaid (and amateur) online “journalists” in the form of bloggers (note – I exclude myself from this critique, because I’m so much better than all the others). With this change in the field of journalism, we are witnessing the death of investigative journalism. Newspapers can no longer afford to have their reporters spend weeks or months chasing a story, digging for facts, searching for truth, when they have to compete with free internet content and the 24 hour cable news networks. This paradigm shift created the perfect storm of ignorance that gave us eight years of the Bush administration, where the news media failed to hold our public officials accountable as countless crimes were committed. We cannot afford to let tabloid news networks and uninformed bloggers be our sole source of information, or we are at risk of turning into a nation of uninformed sheep (more so than we are already).

My solution – a publicly funded news network similar to BBC. Currently, our most reliable sources of news are NPR and BBC (which isn’t even based in this country). Why? Because they are not beholden to any corporate investors, and are free to report the news as they see it. This would hopefully result in a rebirth of journalism, with a television network, print publications, and online publication to be staffed with journalists who seek to find and spread the truth to the American people. And that would be priceless.

Proposal # 4: Refinance homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages and whatnot

Cost: $212 billion

Benefit: If you haven’t noticed, the unprecedented foreclosure rate is leaving some American cities in third-world-like conditions. In some towns, vegetation and wild animals are taking over the abandoned buildings, leading to scenes that appear to have sprung from I Am Legend, minus the cool zombies and Will Smith. We need to put a stop to the downward spiral of the housing market, which is dragging the entire economy down with it. And before you start screaming about bailing out idiots who bought homes they couldn’t afford, and how unfair it is, let me explain. And let me also say that I believe Obama completely agrees and this will be put into law shortly:

I propose to have homeowner’s who risk foreclosure apply for federal refinancing of their mortgages. The federal government would purchase their loan, and offer a new mortgage with a fixed interest rate of say 2%. If the homeowner still cannot make payments, then they can’t afford the home in the first place, and will get no help from me. However, for other homeowners who were duped into signing on for mortgages with adjustable rates and balloon payments, this proposition is a win-win for all parties involved. The homeowner gets to keep their home at a more reasonable monthly rate. The lender gets a 2% return on their loan, which is much better than the -100% they would get if the borrower had to foreclose and no payments were being made at all. And the nation sees the foreclosure rate drop drastically, resulting in a stabilization of the housing market, which is good for everybody.

The alternative is to just buy the bad loans from the lenders, let the homeowners lose their homes, and have no guarantee that the financial companies will start handing out credit any more freely. You might as well just burn the money. Or just cut out the middle man and buy a fleet of private jets for the CEO’s of all these companies. Either way, it’s a completely idiotic idea. So there.

Proposal # 5: Funding for vocational schools, trade schools, and community colleges

Cost: $12 billion

Benefit: I think one of the problems this country is facing is the idea that we’re all better off if everyone goes to a four year college. College is definitely the best path for some folks, but not for all. A blind race to get a college degree often leads to a mountain of student loan debt and a degree in sociology with no jobs to be found. Think how much better equipped that student would be to get a job in today’s economic climate if he had instead attended a trade school and learned to weld steel, or fix cars, or become an electrician, or operate a crane. While we have an overabundance of lawyers, there is a constant demand for people who can actually build or fix things. So not only would someone with such training be able to get a job, but they’d also have at least four additional years of earnings, and no student loan debt. Sure, there are certain careers that a college degree is a prerequisite, but there are countless fields to make a good honest career in that can be learned in trade schools or community colleges.

This is also a good opportunity to point out how much I liked Barack’s challenge to America to finish high school. He proclaimed that not only is it a duty to yourself, but it is a duty to your country to, at a minimum, get a high school diploma. As our work force is consistently surpassed by those in Asia and Europe, this is of utmost importance as we reshape our economy to better compete in the global marketplace.

Proposal # 6: Bailout for troubled states

Cost: $163 billion

Benefit: We cannot let states or towns go bankrupt and left without basic services like police or fire departments. However, we also can’t simply hand out money with no stipulations. Any state or local government that requests government funding must submit their books for review. Any unnecessary expenditures must be reduced or cut before any federal dollars are seen. For example, is it fair to hand out money to a state that is paying their state university’s football coach $50 million dollars? In fact, maybe state schools should cut their athletic programs entirely. I’m just throwing that out there.

And before you argue against this one, consider the alternative. If state or local governments need more money they have two options – get it from the federal government or raise your taxes. Which one do you choose?

Proposal # 7: Create a federal bank

Cost: $1 trillion

Benefit: So everyone is freaking out that the government might start to “nationalize” banks? Guess what – they already are. Every time the FDIC steps in to insure accounts at small, local banks that go belly up, that’s nationalization. Furthermore, all that money we gave to Wall Street – that’s nationalization too. The worst part is that we only nationalized their debt. The profits are theirs to keep. Explain to me how that makes sense. If we’re buying their debt with taxpayer money, shouldn’t we be sharing in the profits as well?

Anyway, instead of getting into the mess of nationalizing huge banks like Citigroup, how about we create a Federal US Bank? I’m pretty sure this was suggested over 200 years ago by Alexander Hamilton, but I don’t recall what came of it. I’ll have to look it up. Anyway, I propose that instead of the government buying up banks run by the greedy idiots and criminals who got us into this mess, we just create a new federal bank that would offer mortgages, small business loans, auto loans, etc. to the American citizens. I do not see the drawbacks to this, and can’t figure out why I haven’t heard this mentioned at all. And trust me – I am an economic expert with a master’s degree from Yale in Economic Expertise.

Proposal # 8: Open a torture amusement park at Guantanamo

Cost: $28 million

Benefit: This would be a cash cow. I can picture it now – re-open Guantanamo and ship Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld down there. Put them in some sort of torture exhibit and charge admission to have people fly down their and watch them get treated like the war criminals they are. For an extra couple of bucks, you could get the Deluxe Package and get to hook them up to a car battery. Or pose for a picture with them as they’re stacked in an Abu Graib-style human pyramid. The possibilities are endless.

So there you have it. I’ve just solved all of the countries problems in about 3,000 words. You can thank me later. Unfortunately for my loyal opposition, the only argument left is the tired old mantra – “Government is incompetent and screws everything up. You can’t let them get involved in all this. People need to work things out themselves in the free market.” My response – if you think the government is incapable of helping our citizens in a time of historic economic crisis, I suggest you get out of the way and let us competent folks take care of this one.

(PS – If you forward this to 10 of your friends, you will have good luck for a year)

Regards,

KP Silverman

* Actually, they’re completely made up. What did you expect? I actually have a day job, unlike the supposed “political analysts” you see on TV. I figure these numbers are close enough.