Treasury Demanded Loophole

The Treasury Department demanded that Sen. Chris Dodd insert exemptions into the stimulus bill that allowed bailout recipients to receive bonuses, the Connecticut Democrat said on Wednesday.

According to Dodd, officials at Treasury expressed concern that if the government were to prohibit payouts, it risked being sued by companies like AIG, which had contracts stipulating that bonuses were to be paid.

At the urging of Treasury officials, Dodd modified a clause he had previously inserted into the stimulus that prohibited bonuses from being issued by bailed-out companies. An exemption was added to allow bonuses that applied to in-place contracts. - The Huffington Post

Wall Street's in Washington!

Obama Signs Stimulus Bill Into Law

DENVER - President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday one of the most costly pieces of legislation in U.S. history — a $787 billion program to breathe life into the country's failing economy.

Speaking in Denver, the city where he won the Democratic presidential nomination last summer, Obama said the massive government spending and tax cut program opened the road for Americans to begin "laying claim to a destiny of our own making."

The president put his signature to the bill in a highly unusual ceremony away from the partisan tensions still gripping Washington. As he spoke in Denver, he was closing out his first month in office — opening days of a new administration that have seen a relentless storm of economic bad news and public pessimism. - MSNBC


Image Courtesy: Deathby1000papercuts.com

Health Care and the Stimulus

From Newsmax.com

...According to Smith, the stimulus bill contains over $100 billion of temporary Medicaid money. In an unprecedented use of Medicaid, that money will go to provide medical coverage for 1.2 million unemployed workers. What happens to those people in two years, when most of the temporary federal funding ends, is a major question. It will eventually lead to huge budget shortfalls when the federal spigot shuts off.

“It’s going to be very serious,” Smith says. “The GAO, the watchdog agency that works for Congress, has already said the current Medicaid program is unsustainable, and that states for the current program have to either cut spending or raise taxes by 7.6 percent every year to stay in balance.”

After the federal money is gone, Smith says, states will have to either drop millions of people from the rolls or face massive shortfalls. That probably means they’ll soon be back at the federal trough pleading for more money.

How does that stimulate the economy???!!!

Fin. Institutions Not Affected by Salary Caps

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and hundreds of financial institutions receiving federal aid aren’t likely to be affected by pay restrictions announced yesterday by President Barack Obama.

The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the record bonuses the financial industry doled out last year, will apply only to top executives at companies that need “exceptional” assistance in the future. The limits aren’t retroactive, meaning firms that have already taken government money won’t be subject to the restrictions unless they have to come back for more.

C'mon Barry, I thought we could trust you with this.

Anti-Smoking/STD Prevention Dropped

(CNN) — Senate Democrats have dropped two controversial spending programs in the Senate economic stimulus bill: $75 million dollars for anti-smoking programs, and $400 million for STD and HIV prevention.

Two Democratic leadership sources tell CNN they did it as a “symbolic gesture” to show Republicans they are listening to their objections.

But one of the Democratic sources also admitted that “it’s hard to explain when you’re in the midst of a crisis, why these programs are important. When people are struggling and thinking about their jobs, it’s hard to make that connection.”

Thankfully.

IBM Makes Stimulus Pitch to Obama

Standing beside President Barack Obama, who was touting his $825 billion stimulus package this week, IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano stepped up to the lectern and waxed patriotic.

“We need to reignite growth in our country,” Palmisano said. “We need to undertake projects that actually will create jobs.”

He is positioning IBM to get a slice of the stimulus pie.

Since November, Palmisano has been making a pitch to Obama’s transition team that investing $30 billion in expanding rural broadband access, computerizing health-care records and improving the electrical grid could create 949,000 U.S. jobs. - Recordonline

Yeah, let's just give everyone a slice of this useless stimulus pie.

Take this man's word for it:

Politicians and bureaucrats have already done their fair share to ensure that jobs in the private sector are prohibitively complicated and expensive to create. They are now shocked that the economy is shedding jobs, and want to simply create hundreds of thousands of jobs to make up for the job losses, through another so-called economic stimulus package. The private sector must be permitted to do that, but instead they are massively burdened with taxes and webs of red tape and regulation. Washington’s band-aids will only prolong this agony. The Austrian school of economics teaches that only a free market economy, unencumbered by onerous government controls, creates long-term prosperity. Politicians, however, tend to be notoriously short-sighted.

A New New Deal?

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday that he thinks the economic stimulus package should be between $500 billion and $700 billion.

In an interview with ABC's "This Week," Schumer said, "I believe we need a pretty big package here." He added that Congress is working on getting the economic package to President-elect Barack Obama by Inauguration Day. "I think it has to be deep. In my view, it has to be between $500 and $700 billion, and that's because our economy is in serious, serious trouble."

"It's a little like having a new New Deal, but you have to do it before the Depression. Not after," Schumer added. - Politico

Sounds like a bit much, but what do I know?