The Stimulus Package As Of March 16, 2009

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As you can see, this article was written on March 16, 2009. About Facts Net articles are usually written about 3 weeks ahead of publishing.

So what do you do when companies like AIG are telling you that they must use some of the funds that the government lent them to help make them solvent as bonuses? They claim that there are contracts that they must fulfill. The government says it is furious and that President Obama has talked to company executives, but they tell him that if they don't fulfill the contracts they will be sued. The money that the government gave out should have contained a stipulation that it was not to be used for bonuses, then it couldn't have been used that way and AIG would have had to look to its own resources. There would have had to be another regulation that the money could not be used to replace money used to pay bonuses either. Another thing that could have been done was not award the money until the time had passed for the bonuses. This whole situation is very distasteful and no matter what we do, it seems that the American taxpayer is going to have to bite his or her tongue and grit their teeth and change regulations so that in the future, government money can never be used this way again.

These institutions were regulating themselves for years. This must be changed. If banks and insurance companies want to take risks then there must be laws that state that they must have a certain ratio of assets that meet a federal criteria for every dollar that they risk. If they go beyond this, they should be charged with violating the law and whoever is responsible should go to jail. This should go for any company that accepts public investments or funds. If a company is privately owned and accepts no investments or funds and decides to take chances with its profits, who cares? These types of companies should never be bailed out ordinarily. I understand that we have a crisis and we don't want companies that employ lots of people to go belly up, but if we do things right, this situation should never happen again.

It seems that President Obama is trying to correct everything that is wrong with the government all at once. I am not sure that he can, but at least he is keeping his word and trying. Every inch of the way though he is being berated and attempted blocks are being thrown in his way. It is politics as usual and particularly dirty ones at that. When we need to pull both parties together there are statements being made that everything should be done to make him look bad for the next elections. What kind of Americans are these people? They try and block programs that insure children's health and build new schools. I know that both parties want to look good, but one only caring about themselves will just backfire on them and hurt our country. If a senator or representative from any party would help his country it would go a lot further for his party than mudslinging.

I see where the president has announced that he is going to do something about the FDA and food inspections. They have become a disgrace, with only a very tiny amount of factories being inspected each year. Greed and bribes are probably playing a bigger role than ever right now and the president is determined to clean up this mess. It certainly doesn't help us when we find contaminated food every month or more and the way we find it is that people get sick or die and then someone realizes that it must be from food poisoning. Look at what just happened with peanut butter. People actually died from eating contaminated peanut butter and it was said that the plant that was supplying the peanut butter paste was selling it to schools, nursing homes, hospitals and manufacturers of things like cookies, cakes and other foods. I heard it said that this plant had not been inspected for many years. We don't need food from foreign countries to poison us, we are quite capable of poisoning ourselves.

Many banks are running scared now. They are going to turn back the stimulus money. These are institutions that had said that they had no way of raising money and if not helped would go bankrupt. It turns out that when they heard the regulations that would come with the money and how responsible they would have to become, all of a sudden they didn't need it anymore. Some republican governors are now saying that they too will be returning either all or some of the stimulus money. This means that they will be denying the citizens of their states some relief in different areas just to play politics. One governor said that he was going to accept over a billion dollars but return a few million. If this isn't just a show, I don't know what is.

The stimulus plan is certainly not perfect, here is an example of what I am talking about. When they questioned AIG about what it did with the money that it already received, they said that they used some of it to pay off debts that they had with other companies that were receiving stimulus money. That means that some, if not all of the companies receiving stimulus money will also receive money that was owed them, but this money is also from the stimulus package. It is almost like double dipping. I guess this was never thought about when the bill was drawn. This money should be put back.

This administration is saying that it is important that a lot of money get into the hands of the public and companies. For example they want banks to ease up on credit and companies to invest in themselves so that they can get going again. They also want people to spend money as this will help the economy and create new jobs. The war in Iraq has cost us trillions and is one of the causes of our problems. The last administration along with the House and Senate had no problem paying corrupt contractors billions upon billions of dollars and buying trillions of dollars worth of arms, yet when this administration wants to end the war and spend money on America, they say that this is obscene. Give me a break, it is the same old song, if they do it its okay, if the other side spends the money it is obscene. It is time that both sides got together, or it is my belief that the republicans will find themselves no longer a viable party after another few elections. We need a second party and I don't want to see that happen. It is just not good to have a one party system.