Blitzkrieg of Big Government

America is under attack. It is under attack by the very people that are tasked with preserving it. Yesterday the United State House of Representatives passed the massive stimulus plan promoted by President Barack Obama, a virtual blitzkrieg of big government. The bill in question is touted as being able to save the American economy by creating massive new government spending, but it does little to ensure that the jobs that it creates are American jobs. The amount of new spending is outrageous; by some accounts the total cost to the taxpayers of the United States for this hideous bill will top 1 trillion dollars when interest is figured into the mix. Some people may have a hard time coming to grips with how much money that is. It is enough to fund the State of Iowa under the current budget for more than 150 years. If you are still having a hard time understanding how much money that is I will type out the entire amount for you, $1,000,000,000,000. A lot of zeros isn’t it. President Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats are gambling the future of our country on a plan that has doesn’t really create new American jobs. Instead what it will do is create a more bloated and unresponsive government that sucks more and more money from the life blood of our great nation, its citizens.
There really is some provisions in this bill that would help create new American jobs, however, they are other provisions that limit and even negate the effectiveness of the stimulus plan. One attempt to make it appear that the so called stimulus package is actually designed to create American jobs is a provision that requires the usage of American iron and steel. Here is the actual text of this requirement.

SEC. 1110. USE OF AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL.
(a)    IN GENERAL.-None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron and steel used in the project is produced in the United States.

If it had been left alone this provision would have been enough to create numerous American jobs, however Congress had to put in a provision that would allow the government to get around it. The following provision is the one that would allow the government to skip out and purchase imported steel and iron.

SEC. 1110. USE OF AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL.
(a)    EXCEPTIONS.-Subsection (a) shall not apply in any case in which the head of the Federal department or agency involved finds that-(1) applying subsection (a) would be inconsistent with the public interest; (2) iron and steel are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities and of a sufficient ; or (3) inclusion of iron and steel produced in the United States will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent.

Another ludicrous provision of the stimulus bill is targeted at the National Endowment for the Arts Grants. You guessed it; the stimulus would provide an additional $50 million in grants to fund art projects. Quick question for the brains in DC that developed this bill, just how do additional grants to artists whose artistic talent is questionable to begin with stimulate the economy? Really I am puzzled as to how this is supposed to help our national economy recover?

In short the stimulus bill will do very little to stimulate the American economy, instead it will put us more increasingly under the shadow of debt that will take years to dig out from under. What also should be clear is which legislators have no problem selling the future of the United States in order to pad their political pockets now. Each of Iowa’s three Congressional Democrats fit this category. All three of them; Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley, and Dave Loebsack; voted to pass this bill.  These men had the opportunity to bring accountability and fiscal responsibility back to Washington, but they failed miserably.

On the other hand I must congratulate Iowa Congressmen Steve King and Tom Latham for standing up to the Obama administration and demanding fiscal responsibility in Washington. These gentlemen withstood the blitzkrieg of big government.