Ed Morrissey’s post at HotAir exposes the Porkulus bill for what it really is:

A bill that should’ve gone through the regular committee process and a pork-soaked bill. Here’s Ed’s list of pork in the bill:

• $550 million for a federal fleet of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles
• $300 million for even more plug-in or “efficient” vehicles
• $300 million for “smart appliances”
• $13.9 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Authority (a lending mechanism for green energy projects)
• $8 billion for “high-speed rail grants” to states, which apparently includes Reid’s Vegas project
• $21.44 billion for “environmental” issues, none of which appears to have job creation in mind, including:

  Lead Paint Abatement ($100 million)
  EPA State revolving funds ($6 billion)
  USDA water loans and grants ($1.38 billion)
  DOE environmental management ($6 billion)

• $15 billion to “increase and protect affordable housing“
• $7.2 billion for expanding broadband coverage
• $15 billion for new Pell Grant funding
  $44 billion for education block grants
• $4.6 billion for “early childhood” programs
• $1.1 billion for “comparative effectiveness research”

My trusty calculator tells me that that’s more than $131 billion of spending. This pork-soaked bill should be rejected for this reason alone. That’s before we talk about the provision in this bill that gives the federal government sole discretion which medical procedures and/or tests will get done and which won’t.

I’m not usually alarmist but that’s giving too much authority to the government. I don’t want a distant bureaucrat deciding that bypass surgery can’t be cost-justified because it’s being performed on an 80 year old man. In fact, I want that decision to be between the patient and his doctor.

This porker of a bill is being passed because they’ve got the votes. It isn’t winning because it’s the right economic prescription.

Technorati: Stimulus, Pork, Health Care, Pell Grants, President Obama, Environment, Economy

Cross-posted at California Conservative