Herman Cain is a conservative black businessman from Georgia. After a successful business career, he ventured into politics several years ago by running for the United States Senate. Although he lost his bid to become the first black Senator from Georgia, Mr. Cain has remained as an active advocate for conservative principles. He has written a book entitled “They Think You’re Stupid.” I have not read the book, but I love the title, and I think Mr. Cain hit the nail on the head. They—referring to our politicians—think we are stupid. I hate to say it, but I think they are right. At least for me, I am feeling a little more stupid with every passing day.
I feel stupid because there are so many things I don’t understand. I don’t understand, for example, how we can solve a problem caused by too much spending and too much debt by spending more and incurring more debt. I don’t understand why members of Congress are putting pressure on the banks that have received federal bailout money to take more risks and make more risky loans. I am simply not smart enough to understand why it makes sense for the government to pressure banks to make risky loans in order to help solve an economic crisis caused in large part by the government’s pressure on banks to make risky loans. I also don’t understand why we are expecting our politicians to solve our problems when we have no reason whatsoever to have confidence in their decisions and every reason to believe they will make the wrong decisions.
At least our politicians are trying to help me out by simplifying their vocabulary so I won’t have to understand the meaning of so many different words. In the interest of simplification, several words have been eliminated from the political dictionary. The new word for “pork” is stimulus. The new word for “spending” is stimulus. The new word for “bailout” is stimulus. During the recent Presidential campaign, the term “tax cuts” was used instead of “welfare” when referring to government payments to people who don’t pay taxes. Both terms have now been replaced by the word stimulus.
Today, our politicians think they can justify any expense of taxpayer money as long as the word stimulus is attached to it. I don’t understand, but I’m not that smart.
If an effort to understand the meaning of the word stimulus—the new word that has replaced the terms pork, spending, bailout, tax cuts, and welfare among others—I decided to take a look at H.R. 1, the new 647-page bill now pending before the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill is entitled the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” The bill, if adopted, would permit the federal government to spend an additional $825 billion—that’s BILLION—that it doesn’t have supposedly for the purpose of stimulating the economy. If you want to read the bill, you can find it by clicking on the following link:
http://www.rules.house.gov/111/LegText/111_hr1_text.pdf
If you don’t want to read the entire bill, I don’t blame you. You can take comfort in the fact that your elected representative in Congress, whoever he or she may be, almost certainly will not read the bill before voting on it. Even if you don’t know its contents, how could you possibly be opposed to a bill entitled the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009?”
I admit I have not read all 647 pages of the bill. But I have read enough of the bill to realize it contains a long Christmas list of spending projects submitted by hundreds of different special interest groups who have access to politicians. I realize I am stupid because I cannot understand how many of the projects mentioned in the bill will help stimulate our weak economy.
One of the best examples of spending being justified in the name of stimulating the economy surfaced this past weekend when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended allocating billions of dollars from the stimulus bill for an expansion of “family-planning services,” which is a code term for birth control and abortion. Speaker Pelosi’s theory is that family planning services reduce costs because babies cost money and the government will save money if fewer babies are born. There may be a lot of stimulus involved here, but I don’t understand how it has anything to do with the economy. Here again, I know I must be stupid because I thought one of the major challenges facing our economy was the anticipated shortage of the future workers that will be necessary to maintain the government Ponzi schemes known as Social Security and Medicare. By wanting to reduce the number of future workers, Speaker Pelosi clearly understands something I do not.
For those of you who don’t want to read the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, I have provided in this paragraph a few additional examples of the many spending projects mentioned in the bill. The amount being allocated to these projects is staggering, and these projects represent only a small portion of the projects contained in the bill. As you read the remainder of this paragraph, focus on the amount of money being allocated to each project: $245 million for maintaining and modernizing the IT system of the Farm Service Agency; $1 billion for periodic censuses and programs; $650 million for a digital-to-analog converter box program; $100 million for scientific and technical research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology; $400 million for habitat restoration and mitigation activities at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; $140 million for climate data modeling; $250 million for accelerating the development of earth science climate research missions recommended by the National Academies Decadal Survey; $200 million to modernize academic research facilities; $3.4 billion for state energy programs; $1 billion for advanced battery manufacturing; $2.4 billion to demonstrate carbon capture and sequestration technologies; $1.7 billion for critical deferred maintenance in the National Park System; $200 million to revitalize the National Mall in Washington, D.C.; $100 million for National Park Service Centennial Challenge programs; $550 million for Indian health facilities; $150 million for deferred maintenance at the Smithsonian museums; $50 million in grants to fund arts projects and activities through the National Endowment for the Arts; $1.2 billion in grants to states for youth summer jobs programs and other activities; $1 billion for renovation and repair of health centers; $1.5 billion for the National Center for Research Resources; $100 million for Social Security research programs; $200 million for aging services programs, $2.3 billion for the Centers for Disease Control for a variety of programs; $13.6 billion for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; $500 million to improve processing of disability and retirement claims; $1.6 billion for military housing and child development centers; $300 million for roads on Indian Reservations; and $500 million in Native American housing block grants.
I am too stupid to comprehend the amount of money being spent in the name of stimulating the economy. I try to think about what I could do with $1 million. I then think about how our politicians spend hundreds of billions of dollars of our money on their favorite projects. Government entities are notorious for being inefficient and for wasting massive amounts of money, but we are expected to go along with this spending spree because the spending is being justified on the basis that it will stimulate the economy.
Even with my simple mind, I am sure many—if not most—of the projects included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have merit. The advocates for each of these projects undoubtedly can make a good case for them. What I don’t understand, however, is how these projects will help improve the economy. I also don’t understand why it is the federal government’s responsibility to pay for state and local projects and to decide which state and local projects get funded. The federal government cannot pay for everything. Like every other entity, the government needs to live within its means. It cannot satisfy everyone’s Christmas list.
In summary, I have concluded that I must be stupid because I am too dumb to understand much of what is happening today in Washington, D.C. In his book, Herman Cain wrote that politicians think we are stupid. I have concluded he is right, and they are right.
Let me make one final plug for Herman Cain. He is trying to educate those of us who are stupid. If you want to be educated, go to his website, www.hermancain.com, and sign up for the Intelligent Thinkers Movement by clicking on the link on the left side of the page.
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