13 February 2009
Stimulus Bill is “Generational Theft”
Posted by Terrie Soberg under: Constitution in Peril; Emergency Preparation .
The following three posts come from Family Leader Magazine today.
Stimulus Bill is “Generational Theft”
The House passed a $787 billion stimulus bill this afternoon and the Senate may have passed it by the time you read this. According to Sen. John McCain R-Ariz, the bill is “nothing short-nothing short-of generational theft.” Larry Summers, a former Clinton administration Treasury secretary said in an appearance on “NBC’s Today show, “It is the biggest fiscal expansion in our country’s history.”This means we are saddling our children and grandchildren with a burden of debt whose end we cannot foresee-since, with interest, this bill alone, will be over a trillion dollars, and most of the money will not be into the economy until 2010, perhaps after America is already recovering from recession.
Edwin J. Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation wrote of the bill, For the last 35 years, educators and analysts at The Heritage Foundation have been intimately involved in the nation’s great public policy debates. In all that time, we have never encountered legislation with such far-reaching and revolutionary policy implications as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act currently before Congress. And never have we seen a bill more cloaked in secrecy or more withdrawn from open public exposure and honest debate.
In addition to being the single most expensive bill ever proposed, this measure calls for a massive expansion of the federal government’s reach into the day-to-day life of virtually every citizen, business and civic organization in the nation. That, in itself, should be the subject of an extensive public conversation and thoughtful debate. Instead, we have seen Congressional leaders schedule snap votes on a 1,434-page bill that no one-repeat, no one-has had a chance to read in its entirety, much less digest and deliberate.
This bill has been advertised as an economic stimulus bill-despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will actually weaken our nation’s long-term economic growth. While the stimulative utility of the bill is, at best, questionable, it would unquestionably rewrite the social contract between the American people and their government. For example:
- The bill reverses the bipartisan and highly successful welfare reforms of 1996 and drastically expands the welfare state. For instance, it will start rewarding states for adding people to their welfare rolls, rather than for helping them find gainful employment. And contrary to long-established practice, it will entitle able-bodied adults without children to receive cash assistance.
- It does extreme violence to the concept of federalism-bailing out states that have spent irresponsibly at the expense of taxpayers in states that have been fiscally prudent.
- It greatly shifts the responsibility and power over health care delivery and decision making from individuals to government. Among other things, it would create a new federal health board to decide which medical services are “effective” in America, paving the way for government effectively to overrule the clinical decisions of private physicians.
- It deliberately censors religious speech and worship on school campuses by prohibiting use of any “stimulus” funds for facilities that are used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school of divinity.
The list goes on. These and similar provisions will mean fundamental changes in our society. In many instances, the bill would establish policies that directly challenge widely held American values.
We are appalled that Congress is even contemplating such profound changes with so little openness and due diligence. In the past, major policy changes in our welfare system, or health care, or trade policies, etc., were always, quite properly, preceded by extensive public conversation and full debate. That is how a democracy should make important decisions.
The failure of Congress and the Administration to allow that debate is damaging to our democracy. To read the entire letter, see the post below.
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