PA GOP Chairman Expresses Disappointment with Stimulus Package Vote
Contact: Michael Barley
Press Release
HARRISBURG – Republican Party of Pennsylvania Chairman Rob Gleason, Jr. released the following statement today regarding the U.S. Senate’s passage of the President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan:
"The economic stimulus plan that passed today in the U.S. Senate was a spending bill masquerading as a stimulus package. It was filled with pork barrel projects that will waste billions in taxpayer dollars on massive expansions of government programs, including $4.1 billion dollars for the Association for Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN), a group that filed numerous fraudulent voter registration forms last year. I am concerned our children and grandchildren will be stuck paying off this awful piece of legislation for many years to come. I am disappointed that both of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senators voted in favor of this bill."
Below, we have highlighted just a handful of the hundreds of unnecessary spending initiatives included in the "stimulus" bill:
$2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient
$1.1 billion to create a Comparative Effectiveness Council, so that the Federal government can decide on whether medical treatments are worth the money
$650 million for digital TV coupons
$600 million for new cars for the Federal government
$448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters
$400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD’s
$248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters
$246 million in tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film
$88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship)
$44 million to repair the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters