Here's an update on President Obama's stimulus bill: It is currently bogged down in the senate due to a myriad of what GOP leaders are calling 'wasteful provisions.' Here are just a few of the add-ons they don't agree with:
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.
• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.
• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."
The list goes on and on, including my favorite; funding for a lobster observatory in Maine. Here's more of the list.
4 comments:
Republicans need to be careful about what they're calling wasteful, though. That $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal, for example, could be VERY useful around here. See also: the $500 million for fire stations, $650 million for wildfire management.
I guess a lot of it IS a matter of opinion, or what your cause is. I followed an argument on a different blog yesterday concerning the proposed $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees. One poster was against it, calling it government waste, while another thought it necessary to replace what he called 'gas-guzzling, emissions-belching government vehicles' and set a precedent for the rest of the driving public.
Agreed. I just think some of the anti-stimulus rhetoric is way overheated. (For what it's worth, count me in the pro-hybrid camp. I mean, if you've got to buy the cars evenually anyway... )
By the way, Jeff Selle in our office monitors the latest on the stimulus package on a daily basis and has agreed to start updating this blog about developments on a regular basis.
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