Money, It’s A Gas

The United States is in deep deficit doo doo. Like Greece, we are flirting with insolvency. So what do you do if you are one of the Democrats who has driven us to the verge of bankruptcy? How about spend more money? Pink Floyd once said about money: “if you ask for a raise, it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away.” Apparently, Congress is intent on proving that wrong. Here are some of the spending bills Reid, Pelosi and the crew are planning before November.

Another Jobs Bill: First, they need another jobs bill because the last three or four jobs bills didn’t produce any jobs. . . unless you count the people who got paid to print the bills. This time they want to spend $190 billion. But there’s a problem. Moderate Democrats are freaking out about the price tag. Said Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) “With the entire world focused on sovereign debt, [this] is not moving in the right direction. I am highly skeptical.” Government “worker” unions aren’t skeptical though, so look for this giveaway to pass.

Interestingly, to get the price tag down they cut a few things from the bill. First, while the bill does extend jobless benefits, that provision will now expire on November 30. Call me crazy, but something about that timing seems suspicious. . . though I can’t quite put my finger on what is happening in November? Secondly, they have cut back on the “doctor fix,” because those greedy Medicare doctors don’t deserve to be paid 50% of the cost of the treatment they provide!

As an aside, the New York Post is now reporting a “jobs creation” scam that the Census Bureau is running. Apparently, they have been hiring people, firing them for the slightest cause, and then rehiring them. . . repeatedly. The reason is that any employee who works one day or more gets counted as a new job created, even if they were just fired from the same job. Thus, several whistleblowers are now claiming that they’ve been counted as new hires as many as four times in recent months.

Afghanistan: This week, the White House will send a second emergency appropriations bill to the Congress, seeking $58.8 billion, give or take a few pennies, to keep the troops in Afghanistan long enough to make it look like the administration isn’t soft on terror.

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats are hoping to add numerous spending provisions to show that they aren’t soft on pork. After all, this is the same Congress that passed an omnibus spending bill in December that included 5,000 earmarks costing $447 billion.

Skool Is Cool: Finally, the Democrats are planning to give $23 billion to local school districts to prevent them from laying off fat-cat administrators, er, teachers. Sadly, the teachers unions apparently haven’t donated enough yet, because the White House has been noncommittal on this (though Secretary of Education Spending Arne Duncan says this is “an absolute myth”. . . as compared to the “partial myth” about Democrats being tax and spenders, or the just plain old "myth" that is the Easter Bunny). Still, the Democrats plan to sneak this into the military emergency appropriations bill, because nothing says national defense quite like wasteful spending.

No word on any new mascots they may be planning to create, but I hear a crack team of government operatives are working on a budget mascot called "Willy Wasteful."


So there you have it: $271.8 billion in good money to be thrown after $2.184 trillion in bad money. Thank you team Donkey.