Porkulus: Lies or Incompetence?

RUSH: You’ve got a mix of incompetence and radicalism that is posing a huge threat to the future of the country. There’s no question about it whatsoever. ‘What do you mean, incompetence, Rush?’ Well, the New York Times has the truth today — and, by the way, it really would be a mistake to say it’s incompetence. This was the way the plan was written. ‘Nearly three months after President Obama approved the $787 billion [Porkulus] package intended to create or save jobs,’ and, by the way, that was always gets me: saving jobs. How the hell do you calculate a ‘saved’ job? Honestly?

You can’t. You cannot! Now, they’re doing it. They’ve got their websites with a running total of jobs ‘saved,’ but you can’t do it. It’s a lie. It’s a myth. But I digress. We are 90 days after this stimulus package, $787 billion that was going to ‘create or save jobs.’ How much money has been spent? Six percent of it. In the middle of ‘the worst economy since the Great Depression,’ in the middle of ‘we’re going to put people back to work,’ in the middle of, ‘We’re going to have make-work projects! Roads and bridges are shovel-ready! We’re going to get ’em to go! Caterpillar is gonna go back to hiring people. When the stimulus bill signed, we’re gonna be bats out of hell putting this company and country and economy back together.’

Six percent of the money has been spent, and most of the 6% has been spent for ‘social service payments’ to the states: food stamps, welfare, you name it. But this was the design. We tried to tell everybody. This is why the Republicans didn’t vote for this thing. You can say this is incompetence. I say it’s a lie. I think it’s misleading. I think it’s purposeful. This is about expanding the welfare state. ‘The stimulus bill has directly injected $45 billion into the economy mostly to help the states cover the cost of Medicaid and unemployment benefits, one-time, $250 checks that were mailed to Social Security recipients last week and income tax cuts that began to take effect this spring.’ Somebody — AOL or somebody — is doing a poll on these tax cuts. Fifty percent say that the $13 a week is making no difference in their lives.

Nine percent are saying it’s making a big difference, fifty-eight percent say no difference, and the others don’t know. So you have to combine the ‘don’t-knows’ and ‘no-differences,’ because if you don’t know if it’s making a difference, it’s not making a difference. I know it’s not gonna be permanent. It’s going away. You’re going to be paying that back next January, this tax ‘cut’ that you’re supposedly getting. ‘At the same time…’ Get this from the New York Times: ‘At the same time, some economists have questioned the administration’s claims the bill has saved or created 150,000 jobs.’ Some economists are questioning? What is happening here? ‘At the same time, some economists are questioning…’ Six percent, and it’s all gone to non-producers! It has not gone to out-of-work people to help them get a job, because it was never going to in the first place.