This bill delivers an additional debt burden of $6,700 to every American man, woman and child.
by Ron Paul
This week the House is expected to pass an $825 billion economicstimulus package. In reality, this bill is just an escalation of agovernment-created economic mess. As before, a sense of urgency andimpending doom is being used to extract mountains of money fromCongress with minimal debate. So much for change. This is déjà vu. Weare again being promised that its passage will help employment, helphomeowners, help the environment, etc. These promises are worthless.This time around especially, Congress should know better than to passanything of this magnitude without first reading the fine print. Thereare many red flags that I have found in this bill.
At least $4 billion is allocated to expanding the police state andthe war on drugs through Byrne grants, which even the Bushadministration opposed, and the COPS program, both of which are corruptand largely ineffective programs.
To help Big Brother keep a better eye on us and our children, $20billion would go towards health information technology, which wouldcreate a national system of electronic medical records without adequateprivacy protection. These records would instead be subject to the misnamed federal “medical privacy”rule, which allows government and state-favored special interests tosee medical records at will. An additional $250 million is allocatedfor states to nationalize individual student data, expanding Federalcontrol of education and eroding privacy.
$79 billion bails out states that haphazardly expanded their budgetsduring the bubble years, but refuse to retrench and cut back, as theirtaxpayers have had to, during recession years.
$200 million expands Americorps. $100 million goes to“faith-and-community” based organizations for social services, whichwill further insinuate the government into charity and communityservice. Private charities are much more efficient and effectivebecause they are directly accountable to donors, while public programstend to get rewarded for failure. With its money, the FederalGovernment brings its incompetence and its whims, while creatingfoolish dependence. This is sad to see.