The U.S. House of Representatives passed an $888 billion stimulus package yesterday. Yes, that is $888,000,000,000. Great idea since the last stimulus package just 5 months ago has done such a "fabulous" job of getting the economy going and lenders loaning money again. Let's railroad another giant spending package through Congress.
Yes Obama voted for the previous $750 billion bank bailout when he was a Senator and a lot of good that has done. (And out of fairness so did John McCain.) Republicans in the house unanimously voted against this bill yesterday. I do have to wonder how many of the Democrats who did vote for it actually read the bill. After all the bill is 647 pages long.
The bill appears to be more of a government pork barrel spending bill than any sort of stimulus. Those that have analyzed it haven't indicated much excitement in the way of decreasing the unemployment rate except maybe in the government sector. $90 billion of infrastructure projects - things that will take years to even get started, be run by government bureaucrats, and probably come in billions of dollars over budget. $10 billion for the National Endowment for the Arts - yeah, that will help get people back to work. $650 million for digital TV coupons - and that helps the economy how? I could go on and on.
An interesting thing is that only $13 billion of this is being allocated to the housing sector. So in other words 1.5% of the stiumulus money goes to fix the root problem of the whole economic mess. Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Then again, the American people voted and made their choices back in November. I do want to be positive about all this, so I sure hope all this spending actually works to get the economy going instead of bankrupting the American people altogether. I guess time will tell.
Some related stories on this topic. USA Today, CNN, Washington Post.
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Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.
ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public
407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com We Buy Houses Florida
We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.
I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more.
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Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.
407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com www.WeBuyHousesFlorida.com
We sell foreclosure, short sale, and bank owned REO house home throughout Central Florida, metro Orlando, and the Space Coast. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available. Our firm also provides flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Florida including Orlando, Altamonte Springs, Apopka, Kissimmee, Sanford, Lake Mary, and Deltona.

I've never done business with State Farm, so I can't give an opinion on them. I used to do business with Allstate until they canceled my homeonwer's policy about 2 years ago (even though I had them for 7 years and never filed a claim). I now only do business with local Florida insurance companies for my personal residence and my rentals. It is probably best anyway because the bigger the company is, the more bureaucratic it gets.
