. . . asks Instapundit, as Pace Of Stimulus Spending Plummets:
Stimulus bill spending has slowed to a trickle, despite President Obamas June order to his Cabinet to speed it up.
The average stimulus spending per week has dropped severely, to just $4.2 billion over the past month from $9.7 billion during the prior four months. The government spent $2.9 billion in the week ending Aug. 7.
It’s a hit-or-miss operation?
Taxpayer groups say the numbers show spending decisions are random and prove that the $787 billion stimulus program has had no effect on the economy.
What do you expect?
This is a typical bureaucracy. They dont operate in an efficient way. They cant operate in an efficient way and make an impact, said Leslie Paige, media director for Citizens Against Government Waste.
The boss said one thing, minions do another:
The spending has slowed despite Mr. Obamas declaration in June that he was not satisfied with its pace, and his demand that his Cabinet secretaries accelerate the distribution of stimulus funds.
Insta answers “tentatively”:
Im going with good news. It certainly undercuts calls for a second stimulus package, when they cant even manage to spend the first one properly.
Blithe Spirit 
So OK we sorta disagree again! Given my career in the history classroom I tend to take the long historical view…day to day details of bureaucratic failures are just that — day to day…what counts in history, and in countries, is the long term effects…every New Deal idea, Great Society package, and new Detroit rollout has always had bugs…naturally nothing since Eden has been perfect!…..so you gotta wait for the bottom of the ninth to make a final judgment…players and politicians alike try their best, but their best can only be judged at the end of the game…I’m a Cub fan, so naturally I’m hoping Obama’s “game” will eventually beat the odds..besides, what do the critics have to offer except more of the same broken system in the lacy name of “My America?”..time to bite some bullets, not just shoot them off!
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Eloquent! But do all history teachers end up like you? Only the keenly perceptive ones, maybe.
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It was an excuse to pump money into Leftist groups, i.e. ACORN. It also houses the infamous Comparative Research provision for limiting medical treatments to those determined to be “proven effective.” This will act to stop new treatments because they don’t have a track record yet. So says my doctor son. Also, due to our differing DNA, what works for one person may not work for another and vice versa. This was buried in the bill so that the Health Care Plan could be promoted as not rationing care.
Obama has never cared about improving the economy because the worse it is, the more people will clamor for government help, the more beholden everyone will be to government. We’ll be told by the media that things are getting better, while jobless claims rise and falling retail sales tell the real truth.
The grab to nationalize our corporations, health care thus insurance companies and medical practioners tells me that Obama & Co. just want power, not economic prosperity led by large and small businesses offering consumers variety and innovation at prices constantly being driven down by fierce competition. When a critical mass of people work for the government, they must bow their head to their leaders whether the head bureaucrat or the unions that organize them. That’s the end of real freedom and creativity.
We’ll become like the Europeans, self-indulgent children wanting the nanny to care for them. They have stopped having enough children to replace themselves — too much work when they can retire young and carefree. Soon there won’t be enough children to support them. The Muslims coming in and reproducing on the State dole hate them. Then what?
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Well said, Margaret! But I also have a doctor son. And a nurse daughter. And they see and sense Obama quite differently. When they hear people talk about the American healthcare system, they ask: “What system?” Right now it’s catch as catch can. The same government that builds our interstates and inspects our meats pretty well, also provides you and me with Medicare pretty well. Not such a bad “government plan” from all the reports. As for the “government death panels” hysteria, I suggest the hysteria out there check with the international Hospice Movement which — god bless them — has made dying a whole lot easier and holier. What, pray tell, is the difference between Hospice and these proposed panels??? And as for the critics — many of whom are all around me in my Park Ridge — who bemoan “socialized” medicine, I ask each one what they mean by socialism. So far, not one of them knows what it means in theory or in overseas practice. But by golly. they’re still against it! My experience as a history educator is that “socialism” is one of those words like “Hitler.” It automatically triggers a knee-jerk response that never once passes through the brain.
Now I have the very same CONCERNS the critics have.. I’ve just reached different and calmer CONCLUSIONS.I hope I’m right, but I know I can’t be wrong until we know more than these hysterical town halls have been producing…
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Jack, your global disbelief in ability to generalize is disconcerting. Please advise.
My advice to you is to go easy on words like “hysteria” and “hysterical,” which generate knee-jerk responses.
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Jim, I’m often attacked for OVER generalizing, but almost never for UNDER generalizing…. thus I admit using “hysterical” is generalizing a bit hyperbolically….but some of the critics just stir up my Sicilian hyperboles!
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From Reader D:
Out here on West 103rd St. [city of Chi], Streets & San or the Illinois Highway Dept. are getting more than their fair share of Stimulous bucks.
For a month they have been tearing up sewers along a 1/2 mile of the road and then closing up the holes, and then getting out the jack-hammers and opening them again, and of course closing them again.
Then paving the street and then digging up the sewers again. A different Hispanic crew every time. The 19th Ward is getting its fair share.
And maybe we can’t define socialism and Hitler — but we know them both in our gut when we sees ’em.
If Medicare is run so well, how come it’s almost out of money? Where’s that lock box???
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