As President Obama defends the package and pushes the Senate and House to come to an agreement and push through this huge spending plan, I am struck by just how eloquent he is, even when he moves beyond his scripted. As I plot out a complaining post about the abundance of wasteful spending, he manages to anticipate each grievance with forcefulness and assertiveness. He is a masterful rhetorician and a passionate debater. As he drives home his points, I find myself willing to nod and agree. After all, as he made clear in his news conference tonight, he just wants to do right by this country. He wants to do good, and he cares passionately about helping right this toppling economy. He wants to do the job the American people for which hired him, and he's not about to let partisan bickering or ideological differences stand in the way of stimulating the economy.
And yet not every complaint against this stimulus plan emerges from party politics nor even ideological divides. There are real reasons to remain wary of this package and the speed with which it is being pushed through. While both houses of Congress have debated for days on the floors of Congress and still further in committee hearings, much of that debate has revolved around the insertion of more and more spending programs in the name of "doing something."
This is a very understandable human reaction to crisis. When something bad happens and it looks like things will only get worse, the temptation is to act immediately and aggressively. And yet, with the catastrophic misallocation of funds in last year's bank bailout, we must become aware that accountability and responsibility means caution and deliberate care in any action. After all, the Patriot Act was a piece of legislation that was pushed through because "something needed to be done now."
And there are issues to which nearly all ideologies and parties adhere, which have, even so, failed to receive adequate attention. So I would like to evaluate see exactly what is in this bill. We've been assured that there are none of the ubiquitous earmarks that pepper our normal legislation. No pork has been inserted to direct funds at specific companies or legislative districts. So what is in this bill?
Though the entire text of each piece of legislation that goes through the House and Senate is available to the public, very few of even those who sign the legislation ever read the entirety of most of the bills. Most people settle for the summaries written by the very committees that draw up the laws. It's understandable to want to rely on a short summary; after all most bills are hundreds of pages long. As a graduate student though, I'm far too used to reading hundreds of pages of mostly nonsensical half sentences. So here are some of the things I've uncovered in the bill: (I use the zeros to emphasize and help visualize the extent of the spending.)
- The act reads more like a supplemental federal budget than anything else. With "additional amount[s]" for everything from "tactical communications equipment" for local, state, federal, and homeland security forces as well as the defense department, construction funds for federal buildings, and "property acquisition" funding, it's hard to find the allocations directed at the actual economy beyond the federal government.
- The EPA receives $1,000,000,000 for Hazardous Material Cleanup and Leaking Underground Storage.
- Only $3,250,000,000 billion of the $825,000,000,000 go to "Training and Employment Services" targeted at improving the employability of unskilled workers and providing opportunities for young workers. Also, on top of that, $120,000,000 for community service opportunities for older Americans.
- $400,000,000 must be divided between the fifty states for unemployment benefits. This is understandable, as we want Americans working and not collecting benefits, but it's a "Recovery" act, and this would seem to be privileged over funding for broadband expansion in an economy stimulus.
- Oh, yeah. The broadband section. The Senate has allocated $9,000,000,000 to expanding broadband internet access to rural areas. That doesn't included the $650,000,000 designated for conversion from analog to digital signal. Of that $650,000,000, “$90,000,000 may be for education and outreach, including grants to organizations for programs to educate vulnerable populations...about the transition and to provide one-on-one assistance to vulnerable populations, including help with converter box installation.” Well, I guess that's a good one-off job.
- There is the $1,100,000,000 for the Early Head Start program aimed at educating pre-kindergarten children. That's something I can maybe get behind.
And I'm spent. I got through eight of the sixteen titles of this act. I didn't get close to the official titles on Health Information Technology, the state allocations, the creation of a new advisory and accountability board or read any of the subtitles to this act. I find it hard to believe many of the individuals who have voted for or against the piece have done more.
From what I did read, though, I can conclude that while a majority of the spending may be defensible standing alone, considering the pieces of this legislation in light of the claims of this package, this piece of legislation is merely a supplemental budget for 2009. We already passed a $3.1 trillion budget for this year. With this package, we bring it up to nearly $4 trillion (that's $4,000,000,000,000). I'm not even bringing up the previous bailout nor the proposed $1 trillion that Obama is rumored to be preparing for the near future.
While we've sworn to have more accountability this time around, I have my doubts. I understand the desire to act now, but hasty acts could plunge us further into the red. The intentions are good, and I want to have faith in our elected leaders. Yet, I urge caution and awareness as we take this giant leap forward in federal spending.
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