the official blog of the evergreen freedom foundation

$819 billion in the latest version of President Obama's Stimulus Package - how tall a stack of dollar bills would that be?  How many times would it reach to the moon and back again?  More importantly, who exactly will receive the money, upon what will it be spent, where will it go, when, and, the question being hotly debated at kitchen tables to Congressional hearing tables, why are we doing this?

 

I can wrap my puny brain around $819 - that's pretty simple.  You can get a decent laptop or a root canal for that.  But $819 billion?  Too big to be explained in words, especially in the detail necessary to parcel it all out.  I need pictures to help me understand it, which is exactly what The Washington Post has gone and done. Did they have me in mind?

 

Want to know how much is going for health insurance assistance for the unemployed (the answer is $40.8 billion) ?  How about capital improvements to national parks ($6.2 billion)?  You'll find the answers well layed out in this fascinating graph.

 

Not only that, but it dissects the rhetoric over how much of the package is spending ($637 billion) versus how much is tax cuts ($182 billion).  And of the spending, how much is direct payments to individuals (e.g., health insurance assistance for the unemployed) versus purchases of goods and services (capital improvements to national parks). 

 

Further still, and I give The Post real credit for this, it deflates some of the political posturing associated with the package.  Alleged "tax cuts" that are really direct payments to individuals are called for what they are.  And the actual percentage of the package that even remotely resembles stimulus spending (22 percent, not the one-third claimed by some in the Administration or Congress) is clearly identified. 

 

Plus, there's a time line that shows when all this is to happen, which, when you look at it, isn't encouraging.

 

We've also linked to this on our educational website, www.YouChooseNetThem.com together with polling data from Rassmussen Reports that shows how conflicted the American people are about this issue.

 

Good stuff...check it out.

 

The Piper