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2009 Recovery Bill
January 25th, 2009
I read most of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the bill making its way through congress which is supposed to stimulate the economy in such a way that we will avert certain doom. If this document is our saving grace I suggest you start limbering up so you can reach your head around and kiss your own ass good-bye – you won’t be able to afford to pay someone else to do it.
Reading the draft I quickly came to the realization that most everything costs about $300 million – it seems to be an arbitrary amount thrown at just about everything. Another eye catcher was the nearly $233.5 million appropriated to oversight to ensure the money is spent correctly, and that doesn’t even take into account the $14 million to build and maintain a website, recovery.gov. So far it appears they spent $14, and it is already more effective than just about any other GOV site out there. I figure they pay a dude $30 a week to update the single existing page with updates like, “Bridge to nowhere completed without a toll booth, we saved tax payers $300 million!”
Here is what the site looks like today;
Recovery.gov as of 25 Jan 2009
Some verbiage from the image just in case you’re text only;
“An oversight board will routinely update this site as part of an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government.”
I guess we’ll see…
I had to pull out what I could find that would directly effect the Navy and came up with this; Department of the Navy would receive $350,000,000 under the heading of Military Construction – $170,000,000 shall be for Sailor and Marine housing and $180,000,000 shall be for child development centers. The Navy also would get an additional $624,380,000 for “operation and maintenance” to ensure sustainability of facilities, restoration and modernization programs (including minor construction and major maintenance and repair). Even though the Navy has been making its own headway in this department, I hope a lions share of the $624 million is used towards berthing and recreation, not to include a golf course – the only part they seemed to have really thought out,
SEC. 1109. PROHIBITED USES. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool.
:) – Dang it!
Also, for energy research and development, the Navy would get $87,500,000 to fund evaluation programs improvements in energy generation, transmission, regulation, use, and storage, for military installations, military vehicles, and other military equipment. What a great time to be an electrician!
The Navy Reserve would receive $30,000,000 as long as they spend the funds to carry out planning and design of military construction projects in the United States. The USNR would get another $62,162,000 for operation and maintenance.
Don’t see any of the funds appropriated towards the maintenance our ships, submarines or aircraft.
Each section of the bill I suppose you could argue has merit, what I disagree with is the lumping of it all into a single package. This sweeping bill attempts to target so very much with, well, so very much that if ran correctly the recovery.gov web site will have 1000′s of pages. Normal budgetary allotment and spending should take place, departments should forward unfunded requests after due thought and consideration. Don’t build for building sake, make sure the building will have a purpose greater than the ground breaking! This bill
appropriates nearly a trillion dollars of borrowed money, yup, $1,000,000,000,000 – 12 zeros, and that’s not even considering the interest…
Feelin’ stimulated yet?
Read Comments (1)
That is the typical spend now and deal with the outcome later. Funny that the Navy only needs $87 million for energy generation. I thought the new administration did not like nuclear power. You are right about the upkeep to our fleet and aircraft. That must be in a separate stimulus package that you know will come soon. Great research!