The "Other" Agenda

I asked the rhetorical question in my last post whether the folks in DC had another agenda. It's not fair to leave you hanging, so let's have Michael Grunwald from Time answer the question:
"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — President Obama's $787 billion stimulus — has been marketed as a jobs bill, and that's how it's been judged... But the battle over the Recovery Act's short-term rescue has obscured its more enduring mission: a long-term push to change the country. It was about jobs, sure, but also about fighting oil addiction and global warming, transforming health care and education, and building a competitive 21st century economy. Some Republicans have called it an under-the-radar scramble to advance Obama's agenda — and they've got a point"

"Yes, the stimulus has cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, bailed out every state, hustled record amounts of unemployment benefits and other aid to struggling families and funded more than 100,000 projects to upgrade roads, subways, schools, airports, military bases and much more. But in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, Obama's effusive Recovery Act point man, "Now the fun stuff starts!" The "fun stuff," about one-sixth of the total cost, is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis to make green energy, green building and green transportation real; launch green manufacturing industries; computerize a pen-and-paper health system; promote data-driven school reforms; and ramp up the research of the future. "This is a chance to do something big, man!" Biden said during a 90-minute interview with TIME." 

www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013683,00.html

There you have it - the Recovery Act wasn't really about jobs, it was about a massive social agenda, as Joe Biden gleefully points out, so it shouldn't come a a great surprise that unemployment is still tanking. While average American families are struggling under very difficult conditions, the Democrats don't care because they get to play with all their new toys paid for by ... well by China, you, your children, your grandchildren, etc. You get the picture. Fooled once, shame on you. Fooled twice, shame on me. These people should never, ever have power again.