Thinkin’bout Stuff

Let’s say you have five kids.  Four have jobs, one doesn’t.

You feel bad the fifth doesn’t have a job, so you take 25% of the income from the four employed kids and “hire” the fifth kid to do shovel ready projects around the house.

Does the fifth kid really have a real job now?  Is it self-sustaining?  How long before the other four kids get tired of paying the fifth kid?

Of course it’s not a real job…

When our government makes temporary jobs to hire people for shovel ready jobs, jobs that are not self-sustaining,  jobs that can only exist as long as people with real jobs are able to pay for these jobs out of their own pockets… these aren’t real jobs either.

The Pelosi controlled House has passed a “jobs” bill:

FoxNews - President Obama’s Democratic allies in the House have muscled through a year-end measure aimed at creating jobs through a second round of stimulus spending.

According to documents released by Democrats, the measure would cost $154 billion. But there’s also another $20 billion from the federal treasury to keep the highway trust fund afloat.

The bill is funded partly with unused money from the government’s unpopular Wall Street bailout program called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The bill redirects $75 billion in that fund to infrastructure and job investments to further stabilize the economy.

Ummm.. wasn’t that TARP money supposed to be repaid to us after it was no longer needed to save the country from imminent ruin?

This is nothing more than transferring money from the pockets of those who have jobs to the pockets of those who don’t.

Not that it is a bad thing to help folks out, but wouldn’t they be better served by stimulating the private job market so that there are self-sustaining jobs out there?

How do we expect private industry to afford to hire new employees if they keep having to send more money to the government to hire government workers?

The method utilized by this Democratic controlled government is an anemic attempt to address unemployment in the short term that will result in a extended weakness in the economy, extended weakness in the real job market, increased debt and taxes, and ultimately inflation and high interest rates.

Other than that… a great idea.

Someone overpays you $200,000,000,000 – do you:

1. Give them back their money
2. Buy them “something nice” and give that to them instead
3. Hang on to the money in case you need it for something later

That’s pretty much the question in front of our leaders in Congress and the White House:

Politico -

Congressional Democrats could be careening toward a head-on collision with the White House over $200 billion in leftover bailout money — money that Republicans think should simply be returned to taxpayers.

AKA give us back our money.

The Treasury Department is pushing for fiscal prudence and wants to use the money to pay down the deficit and keep a small rainy-day fund in case of economic catastrophe.

AKA hang on to the money in case they need the money later.

But Democrats are salivating over the possibility of $200 billion in unspent money.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut wants dough to fund job-creation legislation. Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, wants to direct $2 billion of repaid Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to loans for unemployed homeowners so they can avoid foreclosure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California admits that “there’s a good bit of interest” in spreading the money around to various economic projects.

AKA buy us “something nice” and give us that instead of our money.

That $200B, part of the huge $700 bank bailout at the end of 2008, was supposed to be repaid to we the people if it wasn’t needed.   The fact that there is even a question about whether or not that money should be returned to us proves that these people, especially the Democrats, can not be trusted with our money.

Might want to consider this very clear difference in the way our leaders view our money the next time you decide who you want spending your money … I know I’ll be voting for the guys who want to give me my money back.