The basic premise behind the stimulus package remains erroneous in concept, for the economy is not stimulated by that which does not initiate a sustained growth.  Let's examine the food stamp example:  who pays the grocer for this substitue money?  A foreign bank who has loaned the U.S. money at an inflated rate.  The net benefit for the country is then negative.  That $100 will cost the country at least $20 - 40 in administrative costs and an additional $6 - 12 in interest to the foreign bank.  Compare to giving the rich man $100 which he invests in a business at, say 6% -  money stays in the US and stimulates a business. Business sees that money is flowing in by private investors and scales up, hires more workers, buys more infrastructure, etc.

Now, the best intervention is none.  But the least damaging of the $100 is one that need not be administered or borrowed by the U.S. government.  Sometimes the best solution to the chosing the worst of two evils is to choose neither.  If only we had followed that advice during the last election we wouldn't be considering financially enslaving our children so that we can avoid some short term pain.

WHERE do you think the $100 comes from, the $100 you propose to give to someone "on food stamps".

IT COMES FROM THE "VERY RICH MAN" (aka guy who works his booty off his whole life)

question: how many people will work hard if you take all their money to give to the poor? and the poor, they will never work, because they don't have to = idiots like Shays take the money from working class people to give to the crackheads, the Obama Plan! you see, he takes care of his crackhead buddies!! thats how the bruthas do it!

No ... most citizens (well over 3/4) agree that government needs to stimulate development.  I agree, construction jobs are short-lived, even if they last 2-3 years ... but investment in short-lived infrastructure projects provide LASTING and enduring products.  Though we have had to retrofit them because of increased understanding of tectonics and earth movements, and have made technological breakthroughs that make retrofitting a possibility, you can still drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles along the coast and see hundreds of lasting and enduring monuments to infrastructure investments that were made during the Great Depression.  Not only that, but the hundreds (or even thousands ... its simply a question of scale) of people employed for those 2-3 years are putting money into their pockets and purchasing the things they NEED.  Not the things they "want".  "Wants" are chimerical and, once we recover, may once again become generally attainable ... but we can build a self-sustaining economy just by producing the things necessary to meet our basic needs.  But people need to have the means to purchase the things they need.  Once they do, the demand becomes real ... not artificial.  One does not have to advertise "new and improved" corn flakes in order to create a demand for something superfluous and unnecessary (saving a whole lot of money in advertising) because people will actually demand simple corn flakes (or their equivalent).  Supply-side economics does not work.

Granted, what I have said is very similar to what you have said ... people will also save and eventually be able to start up their new businesses (preferably by borrowing from a local bank that actually has the assets to back up what it lends out), and this is what ... over the long haul, will SOLVE the problem we are in.  We are not in a "solving" mode, at the moment.  We are in a recovery mode, and a mode designed to keep off the dark days of total collapse.  Money going to support informational technology in the health care industry, to expand our electronic and electrical grid, to generate new forms of energy, to subsidize electrical providers so they can actually make money when people SAVE electricity (rather than simply because they consume MORE of it), to improve and expand broadband communications networks, and to develop alternative forms of energy are going to form the basis of the new production economy that will born from this dying one.  After the two or three years passes, there will be entirely new industries and businesses in which people will go to work (which is why hiring more teachers to provide training in these new fields is another long term solution).

The U.S. did not climb out of the Great Depression by sitting by and letting the invisible hand of the market-place (a New Age God if ever there was one) write a new page ... thousands of people got jobs and survived through the Depression before being swept up by war and war production manufacturing (not to mention hundreds of thousands of work-aged folks leaving the unemployed ranks to go and fight) ... but when they came back, the industrial and manufacturing infrastructure was in place because of government spending and ready to take off because conditions had changed.

And what type of parent would tell his kids (not adult children, but kids) that the troubles they are in ... no food, no shelter, no clothing, no heat, no transportation and no way to acquire them (or any other need ... forget "wants" for right now) ... are just tough luck; you have to learn a lesson from your imprudent behavior (even if you, yourself, did little to cause the actual mess you're in) and, though it may be painful right now, in the long run you will thank us for it later.

Let's see.  Financial markets have collapsed (I know, I know, the CEOs of the biggest banks the world has known are busy testifying right now about how they have their houses in order ... or are close to having them so ... and the crisis is a crisis of perception, only) to the tune of $700 billion GIVEN to them.  That was money borrowed by the Bush Treasury, was it not.  Then there were the financial wheeler-dealers and insurance companies who "guaranteed" the creative and unregulated lending practices that were given close to a trillion before the bailout ever came to the table.  Then there's the business of the unaccounted debt owed for the War in Iraq and its reconstruction, ranging anywhere from $1-$3 trillion more borrowed dollars depending on whether or not you want to count what we will owe all those soldiers to whom we are so supportive.  Then there's Afghanistan and other parts of the "war on terror" that are not kept on the books that we also have borrowed to pay.  Remember how important our president said this war was?  Or that he told us that not a single one of us needed worry about making any kind of personal sacrifice to help wage it (except to cower in fear and support whatever fiat he initiated whenever he deemed it necessary to elevate the color-coded danger signals).

Then there's the still threatened collapse of the US auto industry ... "lent" $14 billion (not by any of the banks that were bailed out earlier, though ... even though they are in "recovery") ... which will add another 1.5 to 3 million workers to the list of unemployed, depending on which "linked industries" you believe will actually be impacted.  Which leads us to the employment statistics.  Add to the amount that might become unemployed to those 600,000 who were laid off in the month of January alone.  The currently listed seven percent unemployment figure (about to near double digits in the next couple of months) could easily reach between 15-18% if the auto industry goes down.  This, of course, only counts people who are actively seeking unemployment insurance, and does not count the millions who gave up looking for work BEFORE September or October of 2008 -- you know, when the "fundamentals of the economy" were still strong (source:  President George W Bush, presidential candidate John McCain) -- and have been out of work since 2005 or so.  Economists who (probably correctly) disregard official government unemployment figures and try to estimate the actual number of people not working have estimated the current figure is somewhere more accurately between 12-15%.  Assuming these estimates are even close to being correct (keeping in mind that those making them do not, after all, trust the government and have an interest in possibly inflating the numbers to make their point), this means that the total unemployment rate might end up being closer to 20-22%.

This is no "ordinary" recession, and in no way resembles recessions we have had in the past 60 years. Toughing it out might have worked in the past (though we'll never know, since every president since Truman has sought to soften the blow of recession and taken steps -- even if small and prudent -- to intervene where possible).  Toughing it out might work in some Ayn Rand novel (just as torturing prisoners works in "24") ... but it isn't going to work here.  Through gross financial  mismanagement -- private and governmental sectors, alike -- we are in the mess we are in.  At some point, we will have to pay the piper and at least reduce the principle of our indebtedness ... but to jumpstart the economy and begin to make that possible, the consumer of last resort must start buying stuff and hiring people to make things.  If a good part of that goes to roads, bridges, water treatment plants, sewage systems, electrical grids and other bits of infrastructure that have gone unnoticed for 40 years (but will last at least another 40), then so be it.  If another good hunk goes to investing in start-up businesses that will form the basis of a new, post-industrial economy (alternative energy sources and delivery systems, research into them, broadband and informational technology enhancement, and the like), then the manufacturing and service base that you seek will have a new, and strong, component.  If we need people skilled and knowledgeable about these new technologies, then support for expanded higher education (PELL grants, etc.) and true reform of K-12 education is an investment in the future following the recovery.

And finally, we have been supporting business over people for the longest time (I'd say that was the cornerstone of the Reagan Revolution).  It has brought us to where we are today.  It is time that we at least put people, and their welfare, on an equal footing with business. Government of the people, by the people and for the people needs to reign in on its focus of supporting business.  RECOVERY (It is, after all, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) needs a prominent position.  Unemployment insurance, welfare protection, child healthcare, better health care for all, and jobs -- even temporary jobs -- must be an important part of the effort.

And when we all have our feet back on the ground, then we can do what should have been done as soon as Ronald Reagan began deficit spending to fund his covert (and illegal) wars and to blow up the defense budget -- we need to raise taxes to pay for the expenditures.  The ONLY president in the last 30 years to balance the budget (i.e., that did not expand the size of some part of government to the point that we spent more than we took in) was Bill Clinton.  We need to move beyond the DoubleSpeak and DoubleTalk that fogs our vision and allows us to see only that which we want to see and make sure what we spend is equal to (or, since small deficits have been proven to be effective, only slightly above) what we take in.  But we aren't there yet.  We're going to have to borrow some more, first.  Probably a lot more. 

Most of the specific programs you mention have been debunked as either misrepresented and/or purely fraudulent.  We ARE in a mess, that's for sure.  But you need to rethink whom it is you blame.  The very first think I would NEVER do is repeat any of the policies, programs, or agendas that have been in place since at least 1980, since combined, they are the ones who have brought us to where we are.

We may, indeed, be facing a decade of anguish and economic malaise.

So let's do exactly the OPPOSITE of the things that got us here.  Return to tight government regulation of businesses.  If we reverse the trend towards merger, centralization and consolidation of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, then perhaps there will be a real market-place where true competition takes place and only simple rules of oversight will be necessary to enforce.  Eliminate the voodoo of supply-side economics, replete with its emphasis on "if you build it, they will come" (which in turn requires planned obsolescence in product design and manufacture, an entire layer of propaganda makers and distributors of packaged lies designed to create artificial needs and wants, and unregulated and unrestricted credit markets because no one can afford to buy a new car every year), give workers MORE money and MORE security so they can use cash to purchase goods and services (or short-term credit), and focus governmental policy on how it can help and support PEOPLE, not businesses.

(2) Speaking of "corporate keepers" ... how about a post Carter refresher course?

A friend of mine recently attempted to defend Bernie Madoff's "right" to continue living in his exclusive penthouse (and mail off million dollar baubles to his children), saying that he is being tried in the media and until he is actually accused and tried in a court of law for his actions, he is free to do what he wants.  "Guilt by association" is not the American way, he said.  Well, I agreed with that assertion, but disagreed with his conclusion.  I told him that because, unlike those we like to find guilty by association (gor example, Barack Obama ... at least according to the media and to many self-important judges amongst right-wing talking heads ... was "guilty" of all sorts of associations), Bernie Madoff actually did something illegal.

Just as have America's Captains of Finance, all of whom need to repay every "bonus" they were given ... the culture of corruption goes much deeper than Wall Street and Banks.  With the exception of a very few corporate leaders who seem to take a little personal pride and stake in the corporation they head and the goods or services it produces (i.e., Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Phil Knight, Steve Jobs ... and note that each of these has also earned a vast fortune through their corporations), since at least the 1980s the corporation has become a feeding trough for upper-level management and predatory stock investors.

Oh sure, the corpos do provide goods and services, and they do provide jobs (if not necessarily on U.S. soil) ... but primarily they exist to generate profit that goes to executives and to share holders.  In 2007, the average length that a shareholder held a share of stock was less than a year.  In 1960 it was five years.  No longer do investors really give a flying pineapple about what it is that a company produces or how that product or service meets the needs of a community ... it is an investment (temporary) or a fancy-schmancy ATM machine.  In 1960, the ratio of CEO pay at large companies to that of the president of the USA was about 2:1.  Today, it is 20:1.  In 1980, executives in major corporations earned about 40 times what the average worker in the corporation made.  Last year, CEOs made 360 times more than the average worker.

We know what has happened to jobs ... even that aspect of corporate leadership is a myth.  We know the median income for American workers has declined steadily.  We know that union membership has also declined ... a direct outcome of the war waged against unions begun by Ronald Reagan (stopped enforcement of Sherman Antitrust Act, allowing mergers and consolidation; eliminated huge hunks of the Wagner Act, making it harder to organize unions or protect union members from retaliation). 

Think about the convergence of all these policies ... begun under Reagan and brought to almost complete fruition under the grown up College Republicans under Bush I & II ... and how they have changed the social, economic, and political landscape of America.   Tax reduction on the upper brackets leads to accumulated wealth and a reason to pile riches on wealth; modified and relaxed rules on investment creates whacky and speculative tools and mechanisms for putting all that surplus booty in get-richer schemes that no longer have backing in actual equity; tearing down the regulatory agencies built during the Great Depression to prevent a repeat of the actions that contributed to its cause; a merging of corporate interests and Congressional action through the strengthening of lobbyists who wined and dined and then traded places in an elegant dance of plutocratic control; tougher work-place restrictions makes it harder for unions to ask for (let alone demand) a share of the pie; investment in industrial hardware and/or technology is done off-shore (labor is even cheaper there, the incentives to do so impossible to ignore, and there are no environmental concerns to worry about or pay for); and those who sold us a bill of goods and wrapped themselves in the myth of being "fiscally conservative" borrowed like drunken sailors to pay for their pet projects (allowing the rest of us to fight amongst ourselves over peripheral hot-button issues which they had no serious intention of ever resolving, but which they quickly introduced into the discussion whenever anyone ... or any event ... drew attention too close to what was going on behind the curtain).

And what were those pet projects?  Well, we armed both the Iraqis and the Ayatollah so they could fight each other for about a decade or so, distracting attention from the courting of Saudi Arabia and turning IT into the center piece of our mideast oil cartel; the covert funding of the Taliban (and one of their most proficient trainers ... a Saudi noble named Osama bin Laden) to act as surrogates in our ongoing war with the Soviets, who also served to over-extend Soviet forces (and its treasury) in Afghanistan; "anti-Communist" efforts throughout Latin America, which essentially amounted to taking a stand against all popular movements in the hemisphere and supporting dictators, friendly military commanders, and the death squads they employed in a reign of terror on the native populations of a half dozen countries (at least); and a double-edged sword that euphemistically was called the "war on drugs" and which allowed a heavily militarized DEA to support the previously mentioned dictators and military commanders in suppressing popular movements in those countries accepting "anti-drug" programs (some of which are alleged to include covert support for the drug trade through Panama to southern and west coast port cities ... think about when cocaine suddenly became plentiful AND cheap).  Blackwater in Iraq is not much different than Ollie North's private armies that were funded by arms and drug sales (yeah, right ... he and Poindexter did it on their own) -- all outside the control and/or jurisdiction of Congress.

So ... Ken Lay may not have invented the model, he just happened to be one of those guys who always seems to come along and spoils a "good thing".  Every group, every party, every movement has them (we always haze freshmen ... until someone gets killed from the things we make them do; spring break was always a time of wild women and booze ... until hordes of semi-naked kids riot in the streets after the police turn off the lights; etc.) ... John Thain and all the other notorious leeches who head America's financial and corporate enterprises are part of a larger community and culture of corruption that dates back to the first efforts to privatize governmental services and to shrink government.

The site (http://www.recovery.gov) is evolving.  The bill was signed only yesterday, for gosh sakes!  It took the Republican Party 28 years to get us in this mess, so give Barack Obama at least a few months to try to sort it out.  Sheeesh ... maybe one of the biggest problems facing America is the fact that no one is patient about anything, anymore!

But even a brand new site that most likely still has bugs in it to be worked out is fairly transparent and user-friendly.  In fact, it is SO user-friendly that I have to really really wonder about your reading skills, Mr/Ms Real America.  Or maybe it is your computing skills ... you are quite good at cutting and pasting what your ThoughtMasters post for you to cut and paste, but obviously when you visit a new site, you aren't too good at navigating it.  On the right side of the home page, just under the photo of President Obama, are two grayed boxes.  The first one is subtitled "Accountability and Transparency", and links you to some pages explaining how the site works and how you can use it to track where the money is going, how it is being spent, how much of it is being spent, and so on.  Just below that box is another grayed box entitled "Share Your Recovery Story".  This button links to a page where you can (GASP!) report what you see:  "Success" stories, failures, complaints, comments, and any information you want to report about the hiring of illegal immigrants.

So what's your complaint?

How many times in the past has any branch of government or any agencies posted its expense account online, electronically, so anyone in the entire world that is interested can follow along?  And comment!  Sounds and looks pretty transparent to me.

As to e-Verify ... what a crock of propaganda.  The day that an employer gets arrested then jailed and socked with a hefty fine for hiring an illegal immigrant is the day I sit up and notice that any politician actually is trying to do something to address the problem of illegal immigration and undocumented workers.  You guys are all so good about the talk of "personal responsibility" and "taking the consequences of your choices" ... but employers seem to be exempted from those expected character traits, don't they?  Lots of excuses about how easy it is for them to be "fooled" because of something that someone else does, or to be "taken advantage of" ... but then the same apologists turn around and in the very next breath go after schools and hospitals and even fire companies for not first verifying that the kid in the classroom or the guy with the broken leg being patched up is actually a citizen and not receiving public service not paid for (though it IS paid for, unless the worker is paid under-the-table ... and any employer of any repute that pays cash under-the-table is running a somewhat shady operation, to begin with).

Setting the record straight, here is what you said in the post to which I responded:

shays wrote '... if you suspect illegal immigrants are working a federally approved contract (or a state contract using ARRA money) then you should report it ...' after referring to www.recovery.gov. What's interesting is that there is no place to report the offenses on recovery.gov. Surprised? Hardly.

shays previously stated '... I will join you in opposing this administration if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) ends up benefiting the bottom line of corporations before it puts people to work ...'. So I am asking him to go to the recovery.gov site and tell his 'story' - that he is concened that e-Verify was dropped from the bill and there is no place on the site to report illegal aliens taking American citizens' jobs and then report the results back here. After all, if e-Verify had remained in the bill, we wouldn't be put in the position of having to report the offenses in the first place.

I point specifically to the last part of the first paragraph ... "What's interesting is that there is no place to report the offenses on recovery.gov.  Surprised?  Hardly."

But there IS a way ... a very clearly marked and easy to use way ... to "report offenses on recovery.gov".  I can see or think of no other way to interpret your clear criticism of the site.  The fact that it also projects a mocking tone regarding transparency and responsibility did not escape me, either ... but that (I admit) is a subjective interpretation on my part.  However, the sentence structure and word choice makes it hard to hide the dripping sarcasm.  Perhaps I overreacted, but it was to that sarcasm that I responded.

In that light, when you "ask" me to visit the site and tell my story, I continued to read sarcasm.  Why else would you tell me to do something that you do not believe is possible for me to do?  My "debasement" of E-Verify, as you call it, partly explains why I wouldn't do such a thing, even if I wanted to ... I have no "complaint" (or no "story") to tell ... abut E-Verify or about anything else, so far.  On the other hand, it is YOU who is having the problem with the way things haven't been worked out overnight (30 years INTO the mess, why hasn't the "messiah" gotten us out of it in 30 days), so I have provided you multiple answers to your self-induced traumas ... the way to access the recovery site so you can share your piddling grievances.

I would also point out that I did, indeed, promise to join you in protesting measures that benefit corporations before people.  I have yet to see evidence of that occurring.  I am not sure that the obscure fact that three restaurant owners have been convicted of "harboring illegal aliens" has much to do with either corporate greed (and everything related to that and the hiring of undocumented workers) OR violations of ARRA in favor of corporations.

And finally, I would think that deleting E-Verify from the stimulus bill ... clearly a social issue having nothing to do with tax cuts ... would be EXACTLY the type of proposal that should have been dropped from ARRA.  I can see John Boehner, now, demanding that ALL such legislation be stripped from the bill and saved for future consideration in subsequent legislation, where it belonged.  I am guessing that you would agree, but might make an exception for this particular provision because it is legislation with which you agree.  Unfortunately, John Boehner's party is over and he doesn't get what he wants.  Nor does he get to make the rules anymore.  That's what happen when you suddenly find yourself in the minority.

And your circular argument - well we shouldn't provide tools that make it easy for businesses to identify illegal workers because then they would have no excuse for hiring them because we haven't enforced laws against them in the past reminds me of the flow of water in a toilet when flushed. And when the stimulus porkage was sold to us taxpayers, We the People naturally assumed we were going to be the recipients of those jobs. So how does a tool for enforcing labor laws to protect American citizens turn into a 'social issue'?

I have come to the conclusion that you have a severe reading comprehension problem.  I have not yet expressed any objection to E-Verify, as a program (though I have plenty of objections to it, as currently constructed) ... I have limited my comments to the fact that corporations have not ever been held accountable for hiring undocumented workers, and my suspicion that nothing much is going to change in that regards until we start punishing those corporations that do.  You provided examples of a couple of small business owners who were prosecuted ... and that is a step in the right direction; but it in no way addresses the issue of larger concern.  You do realize that the US Chamber of Commerce opposes mandatory use of E-Verify by federal contractors, and its opposition led former President Bush to delay implementation of the federal contractor provisions until May of this year?  I am sure you know that the ACLU also opposes it.

The point here is that opposition to E-Verify cuts across party lines, and is not just a position of liberal Democrats.  It was stripped from the ARRA, as far as I can tell, because of questions regarding its accuracy and efficiency (even the Dept. of Homeland Security admits it is accurate only 96% of the time), and because many states and local governments have not yet signed on, meaning that to impose E-Verify now would mean lots of uncertainty until new systems were created to permit entry of more data.  Because of these issues, it was one of those provisions that gained more support for passage than it lost by elimination.

When government does the hard work of verifying its verification database and E-Verify is applied evenly across the board (instead of voluntarily, instead of only to federal contractors, and instead of mostly to small business), then I will see it as a possible solution.

As to guaranteeing that only citizens or legally documented immigrants receive jobs from the ARRA, that is the responsibility of employers.  If you do not trust employers in their hiring practices (and who can blame you if you don't), then you have the right to monitor them and to report any irregularities that you see (or think you see).  Whether or not anyone will monitor the Recovery.gov site is another issue, altogether.

... anyone who suggests activating e-Verify as the best way to guarantee that We the People get the jobs 'created' from the stimulus will make Santa's 'bad' list and will be looking at a tax audit in the near future. So rather than take my time for a futile exercise, I offered shays the opportunity to prove me wrong.

And, as I have nothing to report, I have no reason to write to Recovery.gov.  I also love how people project their own dark thoughts on others.  Just because YOU would use the tax audit as a way to "get even" (or those whom you have supported for office might use it), so you assume those with whom you now disagree will use it on you.  Here we see how paranoia is born.

Now, to get back to our lighter pockets, it's interesting to note your emphasis on the porkabus' stated tax cuts. To a man or woman out of work, tax cuts don't mean squat. But hey! How 'bout those plans of GM to take $1B of their bailout funds to open a plant in Brazil? I know $1B is 'obscure' in the '... billions and billions ...' of the porkabus indentured servitude plan (ARRA) but that seems to me to be benefitting corporations more than We the People.

The GM "loan" with which they propose opening a plant in Brazil came from the Bush administration, in a package provided exclusively by the Executive branch and the Department of the Treasury after the Congress refused to authorize the loan.  This has nothing to do with ARRA.  The only thing it has to do with the Obama administration is that this proposal comes as part of the restructuring plan GM and Chrysler were required to submit (by the Bush Administration) by February 17.  It now sits with the oversight committee appointed to review the restructuring plan, who will work with both GM & Chrysler to flesh out the final plan.  If you oppose this plan to open a plant in Brazil (which I, too, oppose), then join me in writing letters to Congress and to members of this committee (whom I do not even know who they are, so it will take some work) to express your disapproval.  If you just write letters to me, it may make you feel better, but it doesn't do a darned thing to get what you want.  

A cynic, of course, would say it doesn't do any darned good to write letters, either ... but part of the Barack Obama "miracle" has to do with empowering people to take direct action.  His election is proof that when lots of people actually DO something about what they believe in, they can influence decisions!

The "Department of Labor" since Reagan (and Clinton did it too) has consisted of largely anti-union, corporate representatives whose experience working with labor was as the opposition.  Reagan gutted the Wagner Act and stopped enforcement of the Sherman Anti Trust Act and has waged a war on organized labor.  One element of this war is cheap, immigration labor.  If it is also illegal, so much the better, because you don't get unions of undocumented workers.  The US Chamber of Commerce is, as you portray, a founder member of the NWO that REPUBLICANS have brought to us (again, with Clinton being the obliging "opposition" and bringing us NAFTA et. al.).  So of course they oppose E-Verify.  The ACLU does not represent undocumented workers who have lost jobs because of E-Verify, they are representing citizens who were wrongly identified as being undocumented (the 4% that is NOT "old news").  The ACLU, from a philosophical bases, has more logs in the fire ... this is because it also supports the rights of undocumented workers because it believes that all people have rights, even criminals, law-breakers, alleged terrorists, and even undocumented workers.

The bottom line is this ... and I find it hard to believe that you find it "absurd".  Employers hire workers.  It is both within their interests to hire the cheapest labor possible (in an old, now discredited model of employment) and to make sure that those whom they are American citizens or properly documented immigrant workers.  These interests conflict ... and you would have to be awful naive to think that all employers scrub their employment rolls regularly because of thorough, accurate, honest, and extensive investigation into the citizenship of those they employ.  A simple law (I always believe "simple" is best) should be on the books and enforced -- when you hire someone, it is your responsibility to verify they are a citizen or an appropriately documented immigrant.  Period.  If you hire undocumented workers, you will pay a major fine and/or serve time in jail.  E-Verify is one way to do this, but it is not a perfected system.  It is scheduled to stop in March, unless it is reauthorized by the Congress.  I recommend reauthorizing it, requiring all states and local governments to add the data that they have to the national database (but only after first updating the records to make sure they are as accurate as possible), for the national database to similarly be verified and cleaned up, and THEN make it a tool for ALL employers to voluntarily use.  As in most things, I prefer choice ... they can choose to use the tool to help them comply with my simple law, or they can comply with the law by using some other system of verification.

With strict enforcement of this law, even border "security" becomes less important.

Meanwhile, you have the power to E-Verify yourself ... all you have to do is go down to the Del Monte plant (or its equivalent, accepting ARRA money) and talk to the employees when they come out to the lunch trucks during break; if you think there is reason to suspect there are undocumented workers, you can log on to Recovery.gov and write up your report.  If you want to be listened to, though, it might be a good idea to submit some convincing evidence along with your accusation(s).

In an argument, a person can use limited sources ... or sources that support their line of reasoning ... and "prove" that they are correct.  This is the general approach used by advertisers (recall your "propaganda techniques" from Civics class), by those hired by Big Tobacco to discredit the science linking nicotine to cancer, by those hired by Big Oil to discredit the science linking climate change to human activity, and by just about any sophomoric persuasive essay writer in the country.  I looked at your sources, I read what an advocate for E-Verify had to say (CIS) and I read what the Department of Homeland Security had to say.  I then looked for the conflicting reports.  Here is what I found:

The "94%" figure comes from a DHS memo published on May 16, 2008.  In that "study", an unidentified reviewer hired by DHS randomly selected 1000 folks who had voluntarily enrolled in E-Verify.  Of those thousand, 942 were instantly confirmed as matching the Social Security databases.  That's 94.2%.  Five more went to SSA and cleared up the clerical errors in their records and became verified within the eight days allowed by law.  Now, 94.7% have been matched.  DHS concludes that the remaining 53 who walked away and didn't come back must have been illegal workers ... which it says is a good thing.

There is, of course, no way for anyone to tell whether those 53 were illegal or not.  The SSA, itself, reports a 4.1% error rate in its databases.  This means, for those interested in math, that for every 25 perfectly legitimate and legal American citizens who are checked through E-Verify, at least one will be rejected.  The ease with which they can clarify the clerical errors at SSA depends on a number of factors, including (but not limited to) the nature of the error(s), where they occurred, and how long they have been on file.  

The Christian Monitor (a liberal and corporate hotbed of immigration protectors) reports (July 7, 2008) that the Social Security System is fraught with errors, which is the source for most of the errors for E-Verify (http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0707/p02s01-usgn.html ).  It furthermore reports that at least half the contractors using E-Verify are not abiding by its rules designed to protect those who do not receive an instant verification match.

I also said, in my previous comments, that another problem with E-Verify is that many state and local governments do not participate in E-Verify ... many more similar errors to those already in the SSA database will be added to a system when all levels of government are involved.  Well, here's some additional information for you.  As of today, only 12 states require employers to use E-Verify, in some form, and 4 more have pending legislation requiring at least partial use.  Of the 12 requiring some use, three require ALL employers to use E-Verify (Arizona, Mississippi and South Carolina).  This means that 38 states have no E-Verify requirements, at all, and are not considering enforcing them, and 46 states do not require all employers to use the system.

Do you trust the GAO?  A GAO Report issued on June 10, 2008 entitled “E-Verification: Challenges Exist in the Implementing the Mandatory Electronic Employment Verification System” (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-895T) evaluates the accuracy of E-Verify as follows:

According to USCIS, under the current voluntary program the majority of E-Verify queries entered by employers--about 92 percent--confirm within seconds that the employee is authorized to work. About 7 percent of the queries cannot be immediately confirmed as work authorized by SSA, and about 1 percent cannot be immediately confirmed as work authorized by USCIS because the employee information queried through the program does not match information in SSA or DHS databases. With regard to SSA tentative nonconfirmations, USCIS and SSA officials told us that the majority of erroneous tentative nonconfirmations occur because employees' citizenship or other information, such as name changes, is not up to date in the SSA database, generally because individuals have not contacted SSA to update their information when changes occurred.

The report also concluded:

A mandatory E-Verify program would necessitate an increased capacity at both U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and SSA to accommodate the estimated 7.4 million employers in the United States. According to USCIS, as of April 2008, more than 61,000 employers have registered for E-Verify, and about half are active users. Although DHS has not prepared official cost figures, USCIS officials estimated that a mandatory E-Verify program could cost a total of about $765 million for fiscal years 2009 through 2012 if only newly hired employees are queried through the program and about $838 million over the same 4-year period if both newly hired and current employees are queried. USCIS has estimated that it would need additional staff for a mandatory E-Verify program, but was not yet able to provide estimates for its staffing needs. SSA has estimated that implementation of a mandatory E-Verify program would cost a total of about $281 million and require hiring 700 new employees for a total of 2,325 additional workyears for fiscal years 2009 through 2013.

[Sounds like stimulus to me … if you agree that creating government jobs (a bigger bureaucracy, that is) is a good form of stimulus]

Now, I am not opposed to electronic systems to help facilitate record keeping, and I have no true reservations about large databases that are maintained on every American citizen, although how such systems are used starts to make me a little nervous.  I would like to make sure that if such databases exist, that there are safeguards designed to protect against abuse.  I also am very skeptical about such systems being connected to the police.  That said, I have no real concern for the limited use of matching a work applicant to a verifiable Social Security Number.  But before such a system is put into place, someone has to do the unavoidable job of scrubbing and cleaning all the records. 

This is why I am happy that E-Verify, as a condition for accepting stimulus money under ARRA, was put on hold.

Interesting list:  From where does it come?

I reserve the right to add more when you tell me what these items are attached to.  But, until then, let's agree that each of these proposed appropriations should be presented and voted on separately and independently!  Some seem reasonable; some might be either reasonable or unreasonble, depending upon how they are enacted or detailed out; while others appear relatively frivolous.  Unfortunately, it looks like "business as usual", rather than change we can believe in.

I am not going to rationalize or justify this spending bill. I agree with you ... it is wrong and the earmarks should be eliminated.  If it is a sign of what happens with the next budget bill, then I will be disallusioned.  But it IS an emergency spending adjustment and is proposed as an effort to cover shortfalls created in the last budget by the wholesale failure of Bushonomics.  Maybe holding our collective noses is the best we can hope for until the next go around.  We'll just have to wait and see.

Ah, Fox News ... the self-admitted "fair and balanced" network of the opposition.

No, this is not good news ... and yet another unsuspected (at least unsuspected from the majority of Americans) outcome of letting the Republican Party dismantle the regulatory elements of government.  Again, I question your source, as the story was first reported by the Congressional Budget Office and picked up by several news outlets ... many providing much more background and balance that newsmax provided -- quoting, as it did, one conservative lawmaker and a spokesperson from the American Enterprise Institute (an organization up to its neck in complicity with the new world order).  The Social Security Trust Fund, and the tremendous profit it generated through interest, was first discovered by Ronald Reagan, who began borrowing heavily from it to mask just how much he was borrowing from everyone else to finance his illegal activities all around the world.  Every president since then has done the same ... all assuming that someone, at some time, would start paying back what was being borrowed.  HAH!

As the evidence accumulates and it becomes patently obvious from where every single problem currently  confronting this country originated (either through acts of commission or acts of omission), we are going to have to reevaluate the legacy of the Great Communicator.  Assuming we make it through this blip, he will take a place near the top of the all-time most disastrous Presidents we have been foolish enough to elect.

I fail to see the "whining" in the post to which you respond.  I point out that ALL Presidents, since Reagan, have made a habit of raiding the SS Trust Fund in order to make their budgets look healthier than they really were.  I questioned your source, but that's not whining ... what you were doing was using the pot who called the kettle black as your primary painter.

Democrats opposed the Bush Treasury plan because it contained not-so concealed provisions to privatize social security in its pre-funding proposals, and actually was an end-around by Republicans to achieve one of Bush's primary domestic initiatives -- end Social Security.  Good for them, and good for Independent Bernie Sanders; good also for Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich!  

Bad, however, for persistent and sneaky depletion and non-repayment of all that money borrowed from the SS Trust Fund by Reagan (seven years), George HW Bush (four), Bill Clinton (eight), and George W Bush (eight).  That's a heap o' money that might still be there to keep SS from the self-fulfilling insolvency long predicted (and probably hoped for) by anti-New Dealers, beginning with Reagan.

I would argue that one of the primary causes for economic meltdown (besides unregulated lending practices) was the fact that by 2007, the ratio of personal debt to personal savings in this country stood at about 133%.  Higher debt and declining savings creates an unsustainable economic system, because there is an upper limit to how much debt households can afford to pay off.  The increasing rate of foreclosures and bankruptcies is but one example of this paradigm.

When carried out at a systemic level (as opposed to averages of individual incomes), and applied across almost all sectors of the economy, the long-term outcome is one where the entire system collapses on itself.  We saw this beginning to happen as early as 2003 and 2004, when unconscionable tax breaks were given to the wealthiest Americans who then were attracted to the lucrative market of speculative financing, rather than investing in domestic manufacturing and production.  Full-time employment began its nosedive in this period, and only accelerated as the economic situation grew more dim.  To make matters worse, income stagnated and even fell for middle- and lower-middle class working families.  And yet, at the same time, inflation continued its steady, if low rate, of increase.  Families had no alternative in the dismal economic environment but to extend credit limits even further, just to tread water.

Administration officials and savvy Congressional leaders, of course, knew this was happening.  Certainly executive officers of the major financial corporations and industrial conglomerates could see the writing on the wall (unless they are really, really stupid … that's there area of expertise, is it not?).  But gloomy economic forecasts never make for good air-time.  Additionally, politicians are always concerned that when people are told the truth, the truth will cause them to "panic", or to act "irrationally" (i.e., throw incumbents out of office).  So we were bombarded with "official" statistics and constant chatter about the "fundamental health" of the economy, the "growing" employment statistics (manipulated to disguise the growing unemployment rate, or more insidiously, the even faster growing under-employment rate), and astoundingly large (and obscene) profit margins from key industries.

The only way back on track is to put an end to the economic model of "sustained growth".  Infinite growth in a finite world is impossible.  People can only buy so many new cars, washing machines, computers, lawn chairs, and flat-screen televisions; tennis shoes, levis (clothing, in general), books and other commodities need to be replaced more frequently, but even they have upper limits to what can be consumed by individual households without further extending that debt/savings ratio.  We need to return to a cash-only basis, and a system in which credit is extended for short-terms, only (like one month).  We should have learned that an entire system based on the creation of artificial need through application of relentless and omnipresent advertising and marketing strategies, supported by "easy" credit availability and "affordable terms" is socially self-destructive … even if it brings lucrative riches to small groups within the society.

The "Stimulus Plan" has not had time to work.  Dick Morris is a dissembling jerk for pretending that it could.  He knows better.  American citizens understand that they cannot continue to buy today's superficial happiness and material satisfaction with tomorrow's income (which, as history shows us, is not coming).  So yes, the small increases in their paychecks … which didn't begin for many until MAY (not April, as Mr. Morris asserts) … are currently not being spent.  Nor will they be spent until people feel they have enough money to afford to purchase NECESSARY items.  Of course, if we can put more people to work than those who lose their jobs, that would also help.  The ARRA money designed to stimulate infrastructure work is just now being put to use.

In short, Dick Morris is a partisan zealot who is quick to proclaim "failure" before any of the evidence is actually in.  The LAST thing we need during a recession (which still may become a depression) is for people to start calling for a restoration of the crazed "supply-side" theories that brought us to the edge of economic collapse.  To not reign in debt (personal and institutional) and then vigorously regulate those who offer it would be to put our blinders back on and rekindle the cycle of boom and bust that the Reagan Revolution reestablished in this country.  Unfortunately, somehow the current debt must be addressed.  This means increasing income for low-income earners through stimulation, public works' projects, and governmental spending.  It also means, in the long-term, the stimulation and recreation of massive domestic production capabilities.  We must once again become the world's largest producer of goods and services (a rank we held before Reagan came to office, and one in which we have since descended to essentially third world status).  I know it sounds self-contradictory, but to end the over-reliance on debt and usury (which should immediately be made illegal), the government must borrow and spend.

The biggest danger facing us is that Barack Obama (or, more specifically, the men he seems to trust and who are providing his counseling ... Tim Geithner and Larry Summers) seems to have embraced the Hank Paulson/George W Bush model for "rescue".  They seem intent on pouring trillions of dollars into the coffers of corrupted financial institutions (and billions into long-corrupted industrial institutions) without applying significant regulations on their behavior.  It looks like simply a continuation of the "bailout" approach that the Bush administration initiated, but on a grander scale.  The net result of this approach will be to rekindle the boom/bust cycle, and we will just enter some new financial bubble (possibly focused around "green energy").  This could be ruinous ... and could lead to one of two (and maybe both) disastrous outcomes:  runaway (or even hyper) inflation, followed by an even more disastrous depression.

I guess the radical right wingnuts are still not aware that they are using the words put in their mouths by Rupert Murdoch. Funny how Rupert and stupor have similar sounds in them.

Actually, there is one common thing that underlies all four means of producing wealth that you have accurately described (manufacture, farm, mine, or intellectualize) ... that is labor.  There is NO wealth without the labor needed to produce it.  Unfortunately, when things are made (creating wealth), people who do very little to actually create that wealth other than shuffle pieces of paper around are invariably the ones who expropriate the majority of the created wealth for themselves.  The people whose physical effort actually created the wealth get the short shrift.

Government spending does not create wealth.  I do not think anyone has ever said that.  Government, in fact, acts to redistribute wealth.  ALL governments do this.  You would be hard pressed to find one that does not.  But government also exists to create the environment in which business can be done.  There can be no business without government (perhaps barter systems might exist with some referee other than governmental agents of some form, but not very well ... something or someone must exist to resolve disputes that arise in all exchanges of goods or services).  The secret is finding the right balance between creating an environment that rewards creativity, hard work, and (in our culture) independent activity with the need for honoring contracts, resolving disputes, and making sure that fraud & dishonesty are kept to a minimum.

When the pendulum swings too far in one direction (as it has for the past thirty years), there are course corrections.  When workers are robbed and cheated by owners ... and there are myriad ways for owners to do this ... because government consistently takes the side of owners (or, as is the case currently, business OWNS government and all legislation favors business interests), then there comes a time when the concentration of wealth and power that has been distributed to the owning class must be taken away.  That's the way it goes.

Owners have forgotten that they are a part of society.  Owners have forgotten that they are organic parts of the community and everything they do carries a social obligation.  If they make something that spews a poison into the water that members of the community drink, or the air that members of the community breathe, then they are responsible and accountable for fixing the problem they have created.  Business exists to meet the needs of the community it serves.  If it does a good, responsible, and efficient job of it, then it makes a profit.  It cannot make a profit by cutting corners that hurt the society or the environment in which the business operates.

Period.

So, cap-and-trade ... not the most direct method for reducing greenhouse emissions, but the least onerous of the various proposals out there ... is the Day of Reckoning for socially irresponsible owners.  It should have been a requirement all along ... or most certainly as soon as the connection between carbon emissions and pollution were first noted ... and the fact that owners chose to exploit citizens (and threaten their very existence) by cutting corners only makes their crime of omission worse.  And less forgivable.

Any company that chooses to relocate overseas is no longer an American company, and should be treated as a foreign entity.  Whatever tax breaks and tax incentives are given should be taken away.  In a true free-market economy, someone will come along who can follow the rules (part of the market-place, after all) and start up a new business that will do what has to be done and meet the needs that the old business said only could be met if we followed THEIR rules.

Sorry.  America is a country of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, and for the PEOPLE.  Corporations do not make the rules to make life better for themselves.