by Dave Nocera

Created on: February 15, 2009   Last Updated: January 05, 2010

The Obama stimulus plan in a sentence: the government spends another trillion dollars of our money with little oversight in a gamble that it will create jobs and stimulate the economy.  Gambling is for people with poor Math skills and Congress is terrible at Math. The Stimulus plan doesn’t spend our money wisely on sustainable projects that create jobs,  it wastes our money on a series of puny special interest projects, like putting solar panels on municipal buildings.  Not that solar panels are bad, but each of those solar panel projects only employed some guy for a day or two and those puny sized projects do not stimulate the American economy significantly, they just waste our money. Those solar panel projects should serve as billboards to America to remind us that the consequences trying artificially stimulate the economy by lining the pockets of special interests can bankrupt America.  And with these trillions in dept, our children will have a much harder time achieving the American Dream.

Congress obviously did not learn anything from the financial meltdown they created either.  Before late 2008, Congress mandated that home loans be given to poor Americans who could not afford them.  When the poor Americans who received these loans could not make the mortgage payments, the American tax payers needed to bailout the banks. These poor Americans were also victims of Congress’s Math skills, because they lost their hard earned down payments.

Mortgages should not have been given to people who could not afford to repay them. Why did Congress make such a huge mistake and mandate that banks give away “Sub-prime” mortgages?  Because once again people, “Congress is terrible at Math”.  By mandating banks to give loans to the poor, Congress did not understand the basics, "loans need to be repaid".   And not a single congressmen or their staff was fired for this incompetence,  in America we do not hold our lawmakers accountable.

Speaking of loans, while Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac and Lehman Brothers fell into financial collapse, Congress passed the 700 billion dollar financial bailout package, which lent our money to the banks.    As our lent TARP money is repayed by the banks, Congress is now spending that money on Stimulus Plan II.  Our one time loan became another gift to special interests and Congress proved once again they do not understand that loans should

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