Budget-Strapped States Pin Hopes On Stimulus

For the pool analogy; even dumping the water in the same pool is still moving that water which is essential for economic health. The government likes to refer to their theory of "trickle down economics" (dumping water into the deep end to fill the shallow end), but when corruption and greed are entered into the equation, money ends up being more like bricks. You can't keep stacking the bricks in the deep end of the pool and expect them to distribute themselves to the shallow end. What you end up with is all the bricks stacked really high in the deep end and little or none in the shallow end. At the same time your foreign neighbors are funneling off of that huge stack since it seems that you think you have a surplus. The water must flow for the economy to run, otherwise it stagnates which is exactly what we're seeing right now. I'd like to see more "trickle UP economics", stop trusting the top 1% to take care of the rest, it clearly hasn't worked!

Bottom line is, before you criticize Obama's new trillion dollar deal, don't forget to examine how the previous administration wasted far more and spent it on things that did not help the average American and actually helped kill hundreds of thousands, and displaced millions of people half way around the world (regardless of why, it did happen with our money).

I received an email that made an analogy of Obama's stimulus plan. The analogy compared the bill to scooping water out of the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end, inferring that it's pointless to wast time moving that water since it didn't change the level of water in the pool. (you can't make the shallow end deeper).

I think that analogy misrepresents the big picture here. I'd actually be surprised to see any economist say that moving money around in the same national system isn't productive. I would think that it's actually essential for a healthy economy, just as moving water keeps it viable for life. Stop the water from circulating and it soon becomes stagnate and nothing can live in it.

I know there are many drawbacks to any stimulus bill, but when it comes down to it I still won't mind getting additional tax rebates and the induced surge in alternative energy, infrastructure improvements and vast improvements in efficiency standards on everything from cars to homes. All this activity and funding will certainly open up many opportunities for a soon to be engineering graduate like myself.

The way I look at it, our government has this huge credit account from which they can pull from to spend on important things, but it's who defines what's important that is the problem. While the Bush administration was in power, they rung up about $7 trillion in additional debt (more inclusive estimates sat it's actually in the tens of trillions). The problem was that they spent most of it on wars in foreign nations and other extremely wasteful programs while ignoring what was actually happening to our own economy. To top it off, they finished their reign off by handing about a trillion dollars over to investment bankers and corporations, who instead of issuing more credit to consumers and spurring the economy like they were supposed to, they basically stole it and used it to enrich themselves through big bonuses and new asset purchases.

Yes, Bush blew a huge hole in our deficit (huge is an understatement) and managed to raise our debt to levels never before seen and somehow in spending all that money he has left the nation in shambles with many states close to bankruptcy. I would accredit this to the very isolated group of recipients of most of this money, much of which left our country to never again be seen. At least Obama's stimulus plan is focused on OUR country's future, instead of spending it by rewarding corrupt CEO's and financial institutions as well as bombing other countries and paying huge sums to countries like North Korea as virtual bribes for cooperation. If that $7 trillion had been spent within our own states, keeping the money within our economy, I am confident that we would not be in the mess we are now.

Pool analogy; They didn't dump the bucket in the other end of the same pool, they dumped it in private and foreign pools, leaving our pool almost empty)

Do you realize that the $800 billion dollar stimulus is equal to about one year of Bush's military budget?? So, should we be spending more on war in an apparent effort to establish global domination OR should we be spending it on rebuilding and improving our country when we need it the most? Credit can be a wonderful thing to get you through tough times, it's just unfortunate that the last administration nearly maxed us out and did nothing to really help America, but actually managed to do much in damaging both our freedom and our safety. I say, give Obama's plan a chance to work. I'm banking on the fact that it will, for my career as well as this country's future.