GOP cuts pandemic flu preparedness from stimulus

[Bak]

"they consistently, and loudly, objected to spending money to address the potentially devastating economic impact of a major public health emergency."

 

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/430261?rel=hp_picks

[NBVegita]

I have to say I agree, at least partially with Karl Rove. This should not have been in the stimulus bill. Things like that are why people are acting out against the bill. If we justified spending money to prevent all possible future disasters from happening in the United States, under a "stimulus" package, it would be endless.

 

Not saying that pandemic prevention shouldn't be invested in, by all means it should. I just don't like the concept of it being passed off as part of a stimulus package.

 

Just add it to the budget, which is where it belongs, not in a stimulus package.

[Bak]

Because the economy is unrelated to pandemic disease? You don't think preparedness spending would create jobs? The health sector does create jobs of the future, and is one of the few places that has continued to grow throughout the recession. What sort of spending is the stimulus supposed to be for?

[NBVegita]

You can use that same argument to justify spending on absolutely anything!!!

 

Anything you want to spend money on can be twisted into helping the economy because it creates jobs. That doesn't mean that it is a good idea. Hell spending 1 billion dollars to promote building tree houses would add jobs in construction and lumber fields. Pumping 1 billion dollars into replacing every stop sign in the country with a blue one would create jobs. Building ballistic missile defense systems along the entire US boarder would create jobs. Audit twice the Americans taxes each year. Get the idea?

 

In this example, spending $900 million will help generate jobs for a very small, very specialized outlet of work force. A majority of the money would be spent on research and vaccinations. Also, there is no guarantee that it would actually create jobs, or just how many, because most agencies currently working to prepare for pandemics are under funded as it is. Not to mention any jobs created for this increased preparation would be short term jobs, unless you plan to fund them every single year.

 

Again there are obvious reasons why pandemic research should be funded, but it shouldn't be funded under the reuse of being an economic stimulus.

 

The stimulus, although poorly written is supposed to help boost our economy. Say I take this statement as fact:

 

"The health sector does ... and is one of the few places that has continued to grow throughout the recession."

 

That alone would be a reason to invest less money into that sector. If the point of your stimulus package is to create jobs to stimulate the economy, you need to create jobs for the people who are losing their jobs. Spending money to more jobs in a field that A) is usually a specialized field, and has been hit lighter than most in the recession is a plain dumb way to spend your money. You pump $1,000,000,000 into that industry to create a small amount of jobs that normally require a higher degree of specialization, even if you say you can train those who don't have the specialization, now you're spending more of the $1,000,000,000 on training and have less money for jobs. Now you take that same sum and create jobs in the sectors hit the hardest, finance, manufacturing, ect., and you will for one, create more jobs as the fields don't pay as high as medical fields do, plus you can forgo the need to train the currently unemployed (as a whole, not everyone) because you're giving them jobs in their area of expertise. That is also more fundamental to long term growth because if you take an accountant and make him an X-Ray technician, I would bet money that 95% of the time he was a much better accountant than X-Ray technician.

 

That again is one problem I have with the public works spending. Spend a majority of stimulus money creating public works jobs. You're going to spend a large amount of money just training those people who are hard up for work how to perform their jobs. Then once they're done, they no longer have jobs as there is no way you can maintain that sort of employment in the public works sector on our current budget.

 

I'm no economic expert, I only have a minor in it, but some of the things in the stimulus bill are unrealistic. I truly believe the reason why this bill was passed as it is, and so fast, is so the current administration can take credit for when the economy rebounds. Not that I blame them, but spending a trillion dollars is a hell of an impulse. The only way the economy will rebound, as it has from EVERY OTHER recession is for people to gain faith in investing again. This stimulus bill doesn't give anyone faith to invest. Once enough people think the stock market has bottomed out, there will be the people who want to get in on the action. Once people start investing, the market rises. The news will start posting tentative reports that we're coming out of the recession. Thus more people will invest because they will try to get in on the "low buys" before the market rebounds. Companies will start posting profits instead of losses because people will begin to lose fear as consumers as they gain faith in the market again. Banks in turn will start lending. You will have the next Capital One, that will eat up all of the consumers who had decent credit before the recession, yet fell into hard times during, offering great interest for people with poor to mediocre credit. Consumers will then begin to spend more, buy bigger items like cars and houses. That will in turn increase market value more. The chain will continue until we have pulled ourselves out of the recession.

 

There is nothing, not one thing, in that stimulus package that will propagate any of the above. I just think that $1,000,000,000,000 is wayyy too expensive for a bait and switch.

[Bak]

we shouldn't be spending the money trying to recreate the jobs that were lost, instead we should be creating the jobs for the future. If we spend millions to save newspaper jobs, for example, when the stimulus money runs out the jobs will go away. However, it is unlikely that we won't need medical experts in a few years time. additionally, some short-term jobs such as infrastructure production will generate more jobs in the medium-term, as businesses propagate around infrastructure intersections.

 

ww2 ultimately helped us out of the great depression because we spent money making tanks and bombs which were essentially a waste of money (since they get destroyed when used) which only created temporary jobs. The government paid people to essentially dig holes and fill them in, and occasionally people got killed in the process. Why can't we spend money to create jobs for something that WILL add long-term value? Pandemic flu preparations is one such investment.

 

Although, as you claim, spending anywhere will create jobs, smart spending will create more jobs then dumb spending. Additionally, spending on proper investments will drive growth in the future in addition to short-term job creation. In my view the stimulus was optimized on these two criteria.

[Sass]

A problem we have with our government today is that they don't know where the rubber meets the road. Their idea of fixing a problem is by robbing peter to pay paul. Stupid. Costly. Terminal.

 

Unfortunately, anyone with half a brain will not make it into an office big enough to effect quantum changes. Remember how stupid the 'popular' crowd was back in school - well, they're still stupid, they just get their cut of the ox's ass, since people with an average IQ of 85 elected them.

 

Why not cut the hours for a full time person to 6 per day relieving us of ridiculus overburden, add 6 more to another equally qualified candidate (if enough are available in this dumbass country) who could work a worthy second shift. Sure, it would mean a slightly lower pay but we would still be doing just fine, more people would have jobs, more work would get done since were not trying to tax our brain 10 hours a day in a schedule designed for someone counting recycled bottles. (blame the union for that thanks.)

 

Will that happen - no. Too many ignorant humans lead this country.

 

I end up working 10 hours, another man stays unemployed, a company stagnates, and life generally sucks. Someone wake up the imbeciles.

[FMBI]

Er, not to sound offensive, but were you in your right mind when you made that post? :x

[Sass]

Yeah, pretty sure. Why do you ask? Were you in the right mind when you posted your avatar?

 

Were talking about jobs for Americans where people are largely losing their jobs. It's the same old game where a few people are rich (and employed) and the rest are suffering. Did I say I would give my job away? No - I'm simply willing to share some workload and reduce my burden. I'm sure all of us would rather work less hours, have more time to spend with friends and family, and not be enslaved to these mega corporations.

 

I'm not talking about jobs for gas station attendants, fast food service, or general labor.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Sass

[NBVegita]

Bak you can only saturate the medical field with so many jobs before it will become like any other sector. Most of the medical field is already severely saturated and under funded. Also, as I've stated previously, it doesn't do an accountant any good to open up a highly trained job in a field he has no expertise in. Same thing with the factory workers and . Note to be a medical expert takes years of schooling. How many people can afford to put themselves through more school at this time?

 

As for your account of the economy in WWII, that is false. First, the great depression ended, in America in 1933. WWII started, in Europe in ~1939. Second I do believe that we recovered from the great depression because we had a severely undervalued dollar, then we acquired massive amounts of gold that effectively increased the dollar to one of the strongest global currencies.

 

It's a simple concept. You need to employ the unemployed. The medical field is no more the "field of the future" as is the utility, financial, construction, or technological fields are. These are all fields we cannot live without for the foreseeable future.

 

I state again, the only way government spending can bring recovery to the stock market is by increasing faith in investors, which this plan in no way does.

[»Lynx]

I know this is only hitting a very small point here - but generally, if you can't get a job for whatever reason (recession, whatever) - then education is the way to go, be it going back to University to get the Masters, or just partaking on further training.

 

-Lynx

[SeVeR]

some people have families to support, mortgages to pay, or just can't afford that anyway. Edited April 29, 2009 by SeVeR