The Real Dangers of the Porkulus Bill

Thursday, February 12th, 2009 1:56 pm by Neal

Writing over at NRO’s the Corner, Michael G. Franc (from the Heritage Foundation) details the lesser-known provisions of the Porkulus bill that constitute the real dangers to our liberty and freedom. Read Keeping Our Eyes on the Real Ball:

The broad outlines, and few details, of a stimulus have been announced. The headlines focus on how much we will borrow to “stimulate” the economy—$789.5 billion. Remarkably, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D., NY) groused over the “cuts” that brought the total down below $800 billion. “Hardly anybody’s happy,” he said, “with having to go backward.”

Go backward? Huh?

Over the last three weeks the policy experts at my institution, the Heritage Foundation, have published dozens of biting critiques of literally every aspect of the House and Senate versions of this legislative monstrosity. They agree on one thing: Under the guise of stimulating the economy, this one bill contains a generation’s worth of liberal policymaking, an entire Great Society-scale agenda, one that advances the liberals’ view of man and his relationship to government enough to cause LBJ himself to turn red with envy.

The pork and the overall spending are every bit as bad as the critics say, but in the long run, they are mere distractions. The real damage comes from other, less noticed provisions in the bills.

The House and/or Senate stimulus bills would undo the 1996 welfare reforms, explode entitlement spending by a cool quarter trillion dollars, lay the groundwork for the federal government’s takeover of our health care system, double Uncle Sam’s already overbearing role in education, require taxpayers to pick up the bail tab for potentially dangerous felons, allow unemployed Wall Street executives to qualify for Medicaid, and reignite the fires of trade protectionism, thereby risking a global trade war.

Not bad for the first month of unified liberal rule in Washington, eh?

What follows is my attempt to cull together the most salient of these critiques as published on our web site. And these are just the serious concerns that have been uncovered thus far. The Lord only knows what other travesties remain to be found.

Here goes:

Keep reading for the details. It ain’t pretty.

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