My first political blog post!

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

I never thought I’d see the day. However, like many in our country since January 20, I feel myself more politically aware and interested in the process for the first time in about 8 years. Full disclosure: My knowledge of politics, economics, and worldwide monetary process lies somewhere between “shit” and “Shinola” – most of what I know comes directly from Al Franken and my friends who are in the know. However, when I read on CNN.com the details of what’s been cut from the Economic Stimulus Bill that is being proposed, I feel compelled to add to the discourse, even though there are only 2 or 3 of you who will be reading this. So, here goes:

The allowance for “energy-efficient Federal buildings” was cut in half, from $7B to $3.5B. Maybe I’m naive, but doesn’t “energy-efficient” mean “lest costly to operate”? Wouldn’t we want to focus more money on something like this, so we save more money in the long run? If that’s the case, does this cut make sense?

Similarly, the budget for “Law Enforcement Wireless” was cut in half, from $200M to $100M. You know that thing about “if we make guns illegal, only criminals will have guns”? Well, if you throttle wireless for law enforcement, only criminals won’t have to be tethered somewhere to steal identities, credit card numbers, and communicate with aiders and abetters. Why the hell would you want to hobble law enforcement like that?

The “Federal fleet of hybrid vehicles” allowance was cut from $600M to $300M. See my question regarding energy-efficient buildings above. If spending now means spending less later, why would you want to reduce spending for such things? I don’t get it. Someone explain it to me.

$2B for broadband was cut entirely. I can’t properly articulate my apoplexy about this. You want to limit efficient communication? Are you serious? C’mon, neocons, level with me — this is because Obama wanted to keep his Blackberry, isn’t it. (I know that Blackberries and broadband have little to do directly with each other, but based on this line-item cancellation I can’t imagine anyone on the right side of the aisle does).

Another full cut? $98M for “school nutrition”. If it’s not about how greedy we are, it’s about how fat we are, but please — eliminate funding to, you know, do something about that.

$50M from DHS and $200M from TSA. Fucking amazing.

No Child Left Behind got a full line through it too — guess we finally figured out that’s working about as well as DHS and the TSA.

$16B for school construction, and $3.5B for higher education construction got wiped off the board too. Because God knows if we improve the conditions of our nations schools we run the risk of not producing another straight-C student who can illegally and unfairly take control of the White House.

Now, there’s a few things there were eliminated that I can’t really have an opinion about because, admittedly (remember, full disclosure) I just don’t understand what they are. Like what the hell is “Health Prevention Activity”, and why did it need $5.8B? Why did we allocate money in the first place to prevent health?

Also, I’m all for any cuts to funds for the GSA. If there’s a government agency that needs to figure out how to do more with less, it’s the fucking GSA.

That’s all I can really comment on, because the rest is stuff I absolutely have no input on (for instance, I have no clue what the “BYRNE Formula grant program” is) or I don’t know enough about (like how “cross agency support” works). So, from my perspective, I think this is a good everyman’s take on the recent activity with the stimulus package. Please teach me what I don’t know and tell me why I’m wrong.

Tags: politics
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