A Rush at Imperfection

Haste makes waste as it is commonly known, yet will the current economic stimulus be simply that; waste? The debate is common whether the stimulus will have the desired affect that Obama said it would. It targets nearly every sector of the economy, and reaches out at nearly every individual across the United States. Could it be trying to do too much? That is a question that I believe is true since the current stimulus is simply handing out billions of dollars for the main causes of Tax Cuts, Healthcare, Education, Aid to low income workers, unemployed and retirees, Infrastructure Investment, Energy, Housing, Scientific Research, and even more areas not mentioned. It seems that this immense list may have money put into places that are not even significant to rebuilding the broken economy of America. The three main alterations that need to be made to the current economy, in my opinion, are a change in the banking structure and a clearing of toxic assets, fixing of the housing crisis that originally started this mess, and a creation of jobs to offset the side-effects of the first two and allow the economy to get back on its feet. I feel that much of the money is simply being wasted and spent on programs that have no relevance to fixing the economy. There were also a multitude of earmarks in this bill that illustrates a hypocritical side of Obama. Last Wednesday he spoke these words, "This piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and demand." If the American people deserve a new beginning and knowledge that their tax money and investments are not being wasted, then why would he let all this money simply slip by with these earmarks? Yes, some of these earmarks are going to be spent on worthy causes, yet there is a great percentage of it that will simply be misused, misspent, and simply wasted. The last important point with the stimulus bill was that it was rushed. It was not too long ago when Obama was sworn in, yet he seems to have thrown this stimulus package together in only a few months. This is the package that is expected to have an effect for years to come, yet was definitely pushed out far too soon in my opinion. The majority of the money will not be used until later this year, or even in later years, so why would Obama not spend more time on perfecting the deficiencies rather than sending it out before almost anyone could make sense of it? He easily could have taken a few more months where him and his advisors could have stitched out the problems and saved the money that the government needs so desperately at the moment. Therefore this stimulus was a rush at perfection that will have an end result that nearly no one will be able to predict.

Sources-http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/14/hope-fear-obama-walks-fine-line-recession-talk/
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1477075,CST-EDT-simon15.article