This is getting better and better, spending hundreds of billions of dollars to keep jobs, how long this can keep going is beyond me, there is only so much infrastructure one can build, aside from that what happens after these projects are done??? The hundreds of thousands of jobs these projects can create will only last so long, then what?? What does the government throw money at next? The spending is getting out of hand, there is no way these type of free handouts can keep going, eventually this will break as well. This is not real growth for an economy, spending trillions of dollars is not the way to prop up an economy, those gdp figures are completely upside down. False impression of economic success is all it is. US House Approves $155 Billion Jobs Bill Published: Wednesday, 16 Dec 2009 | 9:20 PM ET Text Size By: Reuters The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday narrowly approved a $155 billion measure that seeks to create jobs and blunt the impact of the worst recession since the 1930s. AP By a vote of 217 to 212, the House approved additional spending for "shovel-ready" construction projects and money to avoid layoffs of teachers, police and other public employees. No Republicans voted for the bill, and 38 Democrats voted against it. The Senate is expected to consider the measure early next year. Leftover money from the government's $700 billion bank-bailout fund would cover $75 billion of the bill's price tag. President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats hope to bring down the 10 percent unemployment rate before the November 2010 congressional elections. Though the recession has eased its grip, the economy is still shedding jobs and voter anxiety remains high. The bill reprises many approaches taken in the $787 billion stimulus bill that Congress passed in February. Congressional budget analysts say that effort has created up to 1.6 million jobs and blunted the impact of the recession. "We are on the road to recovery and we are there because this Congress made some very important and difficult decisions to take us there," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. Republicans, who deride the first stimulus bill as a costly boondoggle, said the newer effort would only drive the country deeper into debt. "This is nothing short of a taxpayer-funded Christmas shopping tree financed by our friends, the Chinese," said Representative Jerry Lewis, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. Money for Construction, Schools The bill would provide $48.3 billion for infrastructure projects that promise to get workers back on job sites by April. Highway construction projects would get $27.5 billion, while subway, bus and other transit systems would get $8.4 billion. As in the earlier stimulus bill, steel and other products used in these projects would have to come from the United States. The bill would also help cash-strapped state and local governments avoid layoffs of public employees. States would get $23 billion to pay 250,000 teacher salaries and repair school buildings, and $1.2 billion to pay for 5,500 police officers. States would also get $23.5 billion to help pay their share of federal healthcare programs for the poor. The bill does not include two approaches backed by the White House: increased lending for small business, and funds to make buildings more energy-efficient, but Democrats say they plan to take up additional job-creating measures next year. The bill also extends unemployment benefits and healthcare subsidies for the jobless for another six months, at a combined cost of $53.3 billion. Because the Senate is not expected to act until January, the House included a two-month extension of the jobless benefits in a must-pass military spending bill that could be signed into law as soon as this weekend to ensure they do not run out at the end of the year.
Previous tax bill was teachers, police and fire fighters. This bill is for the same group. I have nothing against teachers or fire-fighters, but how about jobs for other folks? Is there any help for IT workers whose jobs were off-shored or lost to the recession? Extending unemployment benefits is great for some. It is no help to the freelancers as we don't get unemployment benefits at all. It seems Obama only helps unions that get him into office.
Someone once said "You cannot create wealth by dividing it". What does Obama think? That he can be the 21st century version of Roosevelt? Roosevelt was dealing with much different scenarios and the capitalist world economy was much different then. Globalism was much less developed, outsourcing was unheard of. There were no problems of "dollarization". The US economy was not 78.6% service based, rather it was the manufacturing center of the world. This was largely due to the destruction of the means of production in Europe after WWII. A different problem requires a different prescription. I realize it is hard to fix the structural problems in an economy. The free market will readjust itself to the new productive (IE: profitable) enterprises if left alone. Non productive yet worthy enterprises such as alternative energy is where the spending should be directed. Spending on bailouts and extending unemployment checks is a total waste of resources.
how long is unemployment for now? it was like 52 and they extended that 20 weeks....so is it like 82 or 92 weeks now???
This is getting better and better, spending hundreds of billions of dollars to keep jobs, how long this can keep going is beyond me, ----------------------- I read that in ny they are using stimulis money to build a parking garage. The old parking garage employs 25 people, the new garage will employ 6.
Many of the scum don't. However, the trick is not to be a single man. Live with your wife or common law wife, have lots of children fake some stress condition and you'll probably get about £500 a week tax-free plus your home all paid for.
Yay. Live on a run-down council estate with equally deviant people, send your kids to an atrocious comprehensive where they'll learn how to sniff glue and steal cars, drink yourself into oblivion and a painful, early grave on White Lightening, learn how to read The Sun without a single thought passing through your grey matter, discover how to appreciate the finer things in life like two for one deals at Asda on pizza and chicken-fkn-kiev, spend your days watching endless repeats and daytime 'chat' shows about the mysteries of mortgages and holidays, live hand to mouth(s), play the lottery as if your life depended on it, wake up each morning dreading you'll be caught, fined and sent to jail for fraud while your children are put in care in a home locally known as pedo's paradise, have the highlight of your week not getting a red bill, finding that your electricity has been cut off as you're considered 'high risk' and thus you have a meter which means your electricity is now more expensive and you're always running out of 50p pieces at 2am when your toddler is awake with a cough that your eldest brought home from school because the parents of the kids at her school are too drunk to take them to the doctor, etc.