Today in Washington, D.C. - Jan 25, 2011: Obama Is Perpetually Stuck On Stimulus

Around 8:45 pm the Senate and House members will gather for the State of the Union address. At 9 PM, President Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has still not announced his legislative agenda. A resolution concerning the shootings in Tucson is expected to be offered today by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

Today with other GOP leaders, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said the number one priorities of the American people are cutting government spending and creating new jobs, and that Washington’s spending binge must be stopped in order to spur private-sector job creation. Boehner also noted that Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) will deliver tonight’s Republican Address to the Nation which can be seen live on Speaker Boehner's FaceBook Page following the State of the Union.

Previewing President Obama’s State of the Union address in a speech on the floor this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “The President has talked about the need to cut spending and reduce the debt. Yet over the past two years, his policies have added more than $3 trillion to the national debt, much of it through a Stimulus that promised to keep unemployment, now hovering just below double digits, from rising above 8 percent. And now we hear that he plans to stick with the same failed approach of economic growth through even more government spending with a call for 'investments’ in education, infrastructure, research, and renewable energy. We’ve seen before what Democrats in Washington mean by investments. In promoting the failed Stimulus, the President referred to that too as an investment in our nation’s future. Fourteen times alone during his signing statement, he referred to the Stimulus bill’s ‘investments.’ We all know how that turned out.”

Indeed, consider the areas where President Obama is expected to call for “investment” in during tonight’s speech. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Obama will call for increased ‘investment’ in areas he believes are necessary to keep the nation competitive internationally, such as education, infrastructure, scientific research and renewable energy.”

In the $814 billion stimulus bill that Obama called an “investment,” education “investments” included $336,000 to collect plants in Ohio for a database and $219,000 to study “the sex patterns of college women” at Syracuse University.

The stimulus bill also featured infrastructure “investment” such as $1 million for a “facelift” for The Sunset Strip in Hollywood and $50,000 to fix cracks in the city tennis court in Bozeman, Montana. Even Democrat Montana Gov. Brian Schwetizer criticized the tennis court “investment,” saying, “What they violated was that rule of common sense.”

In terms of “investment” in scientific research, the stimulus bill included $300,000 for “mapping radioactive rabbit feces” and another $325,000 to study “the mating decisions” of female cactus bugs.

And when it came to renewable energy “investment,” a stimulus loan of $535 million was given to Fremont, California, solar panel maker Solyndra, which then shortly announced that it had “scuttled its factory expansion in Fremont, a move that [would] stop the company's plans to hire 1,000 workers,” and would “eliminate 155 to 175 jobs in Fremont.”

by William Warren

As Leader McConnell said, “This is what happens when the government decides to pick winners and losers without considering what the marketplace really wants: competitors are left out in the cold, employees get a false sense of security, and taxpayers are left holding the bag. Unfortunately, the President doesn’t seem to have learned this lesson yet. But taxpayers now know that when Democrats talk about investments, they should grab their wallets.”

In an excellent column today, National Review’s Rich Lowry points out, “Going back at least 20 years, ‘investment’ has been what Democrats say when they want to spend. In his 1993 State of the Union address, Pres. Bill Clinton used the word about two dozen times, right before a liberal bender that ended the Democrats’ 40-year grip on the House. Obama isn’t changing his economic philosophy. He’s not even dressing it up with a new word. It’s the same old spending, although presumably not quite as reckless as the first bout. His administration is perpetually stuck on stimulus.”

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