ABOUT THAT STIMULOUS PLAN

From the Patriot Post:

"From January to March, GDP plunged 5.7 percent, business spending fell 36.9 percent, and forecasters predict a 12-percent nosedive in 2009 manufacturing output. Foreclosure and mortgage delinquencies now stand at the highest levels on record, and unemployment has reached 9.4 percent -- far beyond President Obama's prediction of a high of 8.1 percent -- and 345,000 nonfarm jobs were lost in May. Since the "stimulus," 16,000 jobs have been lost every day, though surely Obama has "saved" millions of jobs. Here, it's worth noting that Wal-Mart plans to create 22,000 new jobs this year without a dime of stimulus money.

Meanwhile, this year's deficit has ballooned to $1.8 trillion, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke predicts that by 2011 the deficit will be 70 percent of GDP, an enormous leap from the 40 percent level extant before the financial crisis. Bernanke warns, "[W]e will not be able to continue borrowing indefinitely." But as yet, no end is in sight, in part thanks to Bernanke himself. And while Obama scrambles to claim victory for the stimulus, assuring us that we have "stepped back from the brink," it appears this assertion is backed only by his teleprompter.

In fact, Vice President Joe Biden displayed his usual keen sense of the obvious, saying of the stimulus, "We know some of this money is going to be wasted, there are going to be mistakes made. Some people are being scammed already." So at least taxpayers can take comfort knowing the VP is aware that the stimulus is a scam."