Fun Facts About the Economic "Stimulus" Bill

Some fun facts about the Obama/Pelosi economic "stimulus" package, titled American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (HR 1 2009/01/29).

After some ruthlessly thorough research (using the Search feature in Adobe Acrobat), I have come up with the following non-financial facts about this package.

(Oddly enough, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the word "reinvestment" appears only twice, both in reference to the title of the bill; "recovery" appears 1 time in relation to this package.)

Experts agree that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy. In this 680 page behemoth, there is not a single reference to:

• tax cut
• capital gains
• income tax
• business tax
• alternative minimum tax
• increased revenue

We are all told that this is a bill to stimulate job growth. Yet, the term "job growth" never appears in the bill.

• "job" appears only 17 times
• "job creation" appears only 4 times
• "jobs" appears only 8 times
• "job stimulus" appears 0 times

And how about the economic recovery?

• "economic recovery" appears 1 time (in a definition of what this bill would do)
• "economic stimulation" 0
• "economic stimulus" appears 3 times (2 referring to the Econimic Stumulus Act of 2008)

Yet "funds provided" appears 58 times.

• "funds appropriated" appears 26 times
• "funds received" by 9 times (not once where the feds are on the receiving end)

"Program" appears 327 times.

My Search feature must have malfunctioned after searching for all the ways that the bill hands out dough; my search for "pork" came up empty. Yet, I know that pork appears on just about all of the 680 pages.

So once again, I have to ask the question, where's the stimulus? Where's the recovery?

There's nothing in here but piggies!