Despite the fact that the final text of this bill wasn’t available until after 10 PM last night, a few dedicated folks in the Senate Republican communications Center began sifting through the Porkulus stimulus bill and found, to no one’s surprise, many of the same pet projects and pork that Democrats have stuffed the bill with since the beginning.
In the conference report, the reviews have found tax benefits for golf carts, electric motorcycles and ATVs, $300 million for federal employee company cars, $1 billion for ACORN-eligible block grants, $50 million for an arts endowment, $165 million for fish hatcheries, and $1 billion for the Census. While some of these may need to be funded, they are not part of an economic stimulus and need to be debated and funded via normal authorizations and appropriation procedures and not forced through hidden in a late night document being voted on the next day by both the house and the senate.
Democrats had previously said “So What?” to "Billions In Waste":
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): $50 Billion “Not Going To Make The Difference” “So frankly, you know, the difference between $50 billion on this bill or $100 billion -- let's get it moving. That is not going to make the difference to the economy.” (Sen. Kerry, Floor Remarks, 2/6/09)
REP. DAVID OBEY (D-WI): “So What?” “‘So what?’ Obey asked in response to a question on NPR's ‘Morning Edition’ about the perceived lack of direction from Congress as to how money in the stimulus should be spent.” (Obey On Stimulus Waste: ‘So What,’” The Hill, 2/06/09)
SEN . DICK DURBIN (D-IL): $16.4 Billion “Is A Trifle.” CHRIS WALLACE, Fox News: “Senator Durbin, let's take a look at the bill and where the money goes -- on the spending side, $15 billion for college scholarships; $1 billion for problems with the census, which doesn't take place until next year, 2010; $400 million to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease.” … SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): “Some of the things -- you went through your litany there, Chris, and I added it up. It is a trifle compared to the overall cost of this bill.” (Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday,” 2/1/09)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): $3 Billion Or More Just “Fiddling At The Edges.” Q: “Do you anticipate the spending to go down and the taxes to increase and by a large margin or is it more just sort of fiddling at the edges?” SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “Well, I think it's more fiddling at the edges. … As I said, I have an amendment to just increase mass transit by $3 billion, but the highways and water and sewer and other things like that.” (Sen. Schumer, Press Conference, 1/30/09)
SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-CA): $400 Million Program “Just One Speck Of An Issue.” Q: “Well, you've heard some of the criticism from the Republican Party. They are jumping all over what they call family planning funding in this spending bill, calling it wasteful. Do you believe that that will ultimately be dropped from this plan, those types of projects?” SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-CA): “Well, talk about just one speck of an issue. … So if the Republicans want to nitpick, God bless them, I love them, but, you know, we'll do it without them if we have to.” (MSNBC, 1/27/09)
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