GR Stimulus?

[Turtle_]

This came from the Michigan State Revolving Loan Fund in Lansing.

... I can say, that to date, everything we have seen is that stimulus money will ONLY be available to communities/projects on our PPL, so I can only advise communities that they would have to complete planning and get a final plan submitted...

[NorthCoast]

This came from the Michigan State Revolving Loan Fund in Lansing.

Grand Rapids currently has NO projects on the Project Priority List.

I hope this changes or GR gets crackin' on their submittals to the list.

[GR_Urbanist]

Ugh!

Everyone with their head in the bucket, bankrupting 6 generations for park enhancements and sewer repairs!

Count me as one that hopes none of this money goes to fund anything.

[Raildudes dad]

The discussion and draft legislation says shovel ready. This means plans drawn, all permits in hand, environmental assessments and all federal requirements completed. The time lines for complying with the federal requirements are terribly long. The draft language says contracts shall awarded to a contractor either 75 or 150 days after the signing of the bill. If the locals miss the deadlines, the funds will go back to the state. If the state misses the deadline, it will go to other states. I know for a fact most of the projects on that list are NOT ready or close to being ready. It makes a farce out of the whole process (pigs to a trough so to speak). I don't see these projects as doing much more than restoring consumer confidence. The value will be more physiological. I do cringe at the amount of debt.

[aowwt]

BTW our National Debt is still not that bad. You have to consider our national debt to avg citizens debt. If you look at our GDP as a typical persons income and our national debt to the debt of a typical american its quite interesting. In anycase when you start thinking like that then consider this. The GDP of the US is around $14.33 trillion and our national debt right now is around 10.7 trillion dollars. When you put this in as a percentage of our debt you are only looking at 60%. That is ranking around 25th in the world for highest percentage. Right now there is around 10 western style nations that above the US in percentage. Personally if it were up to me I would be vetoing every spending bill that comes to me that would not cut the departments spending by 10 to 5 percent except for Defense which would only be allowed to be no more than the rate of inflation.

[jas49503]

we might not be that bad compared to others but that's like saying you don't get as high as the top 25 other crack heads. one third of our taxes goes to pay interest on our national debt. we may be able to make it work because other countries need us as much as we need them but it does cost a lot of money. I personally would like to pay one third less taxes each year. that is the best kind of economic stimulus I can think of.

[aowwt]

True but until we get another Jackson in office that rules Congress with the VETO we will NEVER get the national debt down. Frankly its a scary thought when you look at what he did. Here is some info I gathered. Of the 6 presidents before jackson only 11 vetos were cast. Of those 7 were vetos cast because the presidents at the time felt the bills were unconstitutional. Jackson on the other hand casted 12 vetos. Which gives him the nick name King Jackson by the press. BTW he also was able to appoint 6 supreme court justices. 4 of those justices served a combined 108 years or so. The other 2 well only served a combined 7 years. So he truely shaped the court before the civil war. I still think when it comes down to it, until a president takes the iniative and just say to congress no more pet projects and no increases in spending will we ever see the national debt go down.

[crinzema]

If you can convince me that pollution is GOOD for the environment, than I'll support this bill.

[aowwt]

Frankly I am not in support of either party. This bill does help matters all that much. Frankly I think we need interstates that make sense but the biggest issue I have is that there is always too many pet projects put into these bills. I just think the federal govt needs to but a ban on individual projects and instead focus that money as large grants to the state departments instead of individual projects.

Personally I would have just asked each transportation dept to provide a list projects that are on the back burner but are ready to go and fund those. As for the tax cuts personally I think they could have just did a permenant rates of 10 to 30 percent for all 5 brackets. I also think the AMT could have been fixed for its life. As for helping the technology section of the economy, the computerized health records would be a good way to do it along with getting the new air control system up and running faster. Another item in the bill should have been the taking over of foreclosed properties and turned into rentals to get them off the roles of the banks. A simple move like that should help the banks to lend money to the top 1% to create the projects and jobs that they can do very fast. The last item should be a simple tax rebate that they did. Although I would not do it for the 30 or 25 percent income brackets as that amount of money would not help that much.

[AlexPKeaton]

If the government stopped adding to the debt it would be insignificant in 30 years from inflation. I'm less worried about the debt so much as government intervention actually prolonging the recession, but that's a whole other debate. Let's just say I'm not a Keynesian.

[hood]

Wikipedia has an excellent article on the national debt, a lot of detailed information. On thing I found quite interesting is that over 16% of the US' annual tax revenue goes to paying interest on our debt, thats about $318 billion in spending every year, with nothing new to show for it. Also, the biggest risk of carrying this debt is the risk of runaway inflation, a severely weakened dollar could completely destroy our economy, maybe permanently.

[gvsusean]

Wikipedia has an excellent article on the national debt, a lot of detailed information. On thing I found quite interesting is that over 16% of the US' annual tax revenue goes to paying interest on our debt, thats about $318 billion in spending every year, with nothing new to show for it. Also, the biggest risk of carrying this debt is the risk of runaway inflation, a severely weakened dollar could completely destroy our economy, maybe permanently.

[crinzema]

I see your point, punish the savers and reward the financial sinners.

Peter Schiff was the financial adviser to my main man Ron Paul. Do not let Obama fool you into thinking that this collapse would of been worse if he'd of done nothing.

[hood]

wouldn't a weakened dollar mean that the debt we have to repay is "lessened"? Its pretty well known that high inflation benefits people with excessive debt. Regardless of what happens we owe 11 trillion. If there is excessive inflation that means there is alot more money floating around. if there is alot more money floating around the value of 11 trillion is lessened. the lenders lose the borrowers win...

[gvsusean]

With inflation we would actually owe more, since the dollar would be worth less. I'm assuming the money we owe to other countries is in their currency, with repayment based on exchange rates, or perhaps the interest rate adjust with inflation. More importantly though, inflation hurts our economy, making it harder to repay any debt, and making it harder or more expensive to raise capital.

[jas49503]

wouldn't a weakened dollar mean that the debt we have to repay is "lessened"? Its pretty well known that high inflation benefits people with excessive debt. Regardless of what happens we owe 11 trillion. If there is excessive inflation that means there is alot more money floating around. if there is alot more money floating around the value of 11 trillion is lessened. the lenders lose the borrowers win...

[gvsusean]

our total commitment though in terms of debt combined with pensions and other future commitments is somewhere in the mid 50 trillion range. It is of course spread out over many years but we will need to find a way to pay for it all.