More Stimulus, TARP dollars for jobs

Yesterday I posted correspondence to and from my Congressional Representative, Charles Gonzalez. I had expressed my concern with growing size of the debt of this country and the continued spending by Washington without regard to the results. His reply to me illustrates how detached Congress is from the reality of what is happening to folks around the country. The controlling party in Congress and the Administration is convinced that they can continue to borrow and spend  their way out of the financial catastrophe this country is currently experiencing. Representative Gonzalez made several statements in his response to me that I find very disingenuous at best. His response also clearly illustrates the mind set of the Democrats as they continue the insanity of borrow and spend.

Mr. Gonzalez vilified corporations and denied any tax cut to business would affect business growth, in fact claimed they would just keep the profits and not spend any money on job growth. He further explained how successful the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (HR 1) is and invited me to visit www.recovery.gov to see for myself how wonderful and transparent the program was. I invite you to go to the site and see how little of the money is actually being spent. I ask you to think about how few jobs are being created for the average American. If you really want to ask questions ask why a 6 million dollar contract was let to a PR firm to produce TV commercials for analog to digital conversion, Ask why million dollars was allocated to educate folks and implement this program. I would think that after a year or better of blanket TV coverage there would not be one person in this country that wasn’t aware of conversion from analog to digital TV. The FCC is reporting that most of the allocated dollars are spent and approximately 280k installations are completed. I would surmise the installers will soon be back on the unemployment rolls. I want you to ask yourselves what lasting jobs are being created by programs like this, what jobs are being created with the million of dollars the National Endowment for the Arts received? What permanent jobs are being created by any of this money?  I would maintain that only private industry creates “lasting” jobs and the Government can only create policies and an environment in which they can sustain those jobs or on the flip side, policies and an environment to lose those same jobs.

Mr. Gonzalez also explained to me how the tax cut for 95% of Americans put money into the economy and stimulated said economy. I ask you, how much extra did you get on your check as a result of these cuts? I ask you to look at how much smaller your check will be after the so called Bush tax reductions end in 2010.

While one can make the claim our infrastructure is in need of repair I ask you to look at all the money being spent on research for “green” technology and ask how many years away are these research projects from producing lasting jobs if any?

The President has been on TV touting how we have turned the corner, how he has save the financial institutions of this country, but we have a long way to go. I ask you how he can say a 2 tenths of a percent drop in unemployment is a sign of recovery? I ask you to look at the real number of under or unemployed people. I ask you to look at the number of foreclosures and projected foreclosures because folks have lost their job. I ask you if you really think we have turned the corner. The President made one correct statement, we do have a long way to go.

I keep hearing, give it time, he has only been in office for x amount of time, well its close to a year now and his focus has not really been on jobs has it? Seems to me his focus has been on health care, what he perceives to be the land mark of his Presidency. The current polls now show over 50% of us are opposed to the current health care legislation, but once again Washington isn’t listening to us are they?

This Recovery Act is law and we will live with its success or failure and have to pay the debt we have incurred. I ask you though, based on the current results what will the additional 200 billion in TARP funds get us?

Mr. Gonzalez’s job is safe, the demographics of his district assure his job for as long as he wants it. I can only hope that in 2010 he becomes a member of the minority party where his party line vote is irrelevant

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