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Monday, July 20, 2009
11:52 AM EDT
Sandra Fabry

So What Are We "Stimulating"?

The following is cross-posted at www.fiscalaccountability.org:

So what are we "stimulating"? - Well, it is not economic growth. 
 
As the Associated Press reports, the release of the administration's annual midsummer budget update, which is usually released around mid-July, has been pushed back to mid-August
(...) giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.
 
The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.
Contrary to the administrations rosy predictions that unemployment would peak at about 8 percent if Congress were to pass the "stimulus" package, unemployment has risen to 9.5 percent, even higher than the 9 percent administration economists predicted absent the package.  And rather than having reached the peak, the unemployement rate may well soar into the double digits.
 
So if we're not "stimulating" economic growth, what are we "stimulating"?
 
Today's Drudge Report links to a few items now posted on Recovery.gov, the website that was supposed to allow taxpayers to track every dollar of the "stimulus" package.  While the website is far from accomplishing that, the posts linked to on the Drudge Report only add fuel to critics' arguments that the trillion dollar spending and debt package was a waste of taxpayer dollars.
 
Consider these headlines (as displayed at 11am on Monday, July 11, 2009):
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $2,531,600 FOR 'HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB' ...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $351,807 FOR 'REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $5,708,260 FOR 'PROCESS CHEESE'...
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $16,784,272 FOR 'CANNED PORK'...
We were sure that the package contained pork - but we didn't think it was going to be quite so literal.
 
But kidding aside, this spells trouble for the administration, especially in light of what the official "stimulus" overseeer Earl Devaney told the National Journal:
NJ: What about the potential that this flood of data will be used by opponents of the president, or the stimulus plan?
 
Devaney: I thought about that two months ago. It is kind of a scary thing to think about. We could start, I don’t want to say a revolution, but we could start a big kerfuffle in this town in October. If you think the political environment right now is ablaze, I’m assuming that people will see a lot of good things when they see this [as well as bad things]. I think that it is going to take a while for the American psyche to understand that this has been going on forever. What they are going to see in October, those that have worked in government long enough — I know the way this spending looks, because I’ve seen the underbelly, but I don’t think the American people have seen it yet. It is a sausage factory.
Posted by Sandra Fabry on Monday, July 20, 2009 11:52 AM EDT
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