Obama's Approval Rating: 75%

The "stimulus" bill has passed the House (kudos to the House Republicans there!) and the Senate (a plague of eternal woe on the three traitors!) and now sits on our President's desk. He has praised the bill and says he will sign it into law tomorrow (being 2/17). I now feel reasonably comfortable rating him based on the bill everyone calls his. Of course, if he wakes up tomorrow and the Capitalism fairy visited him in the middle of the night, I will happily withdraw this rating.



Final amount: $787 Billion



Critique number 1: Thanks for the cash China! With all the extra spending going on, forecasters predict that our budget deficit could reach $1.6 trillion, or roughly three times what it was last year. That means that every red cent of this spending is on loan from someone else. Many of these generous lenders have interests directly conflicting with our own.



Critique number 2: Tax cuts are great, but...Only if applied in the right way, and coupled with spending decreases. You can't simply tax cut your way to success if you at the same time increase spending. This is something that the Republicans recently seem to have completely lost touch with, and the Democrats have never understood. Giving money to the poor doesn't stimulate anything. No poor person has EVER gotten a job from another poor person. You want to stimulate something? Eliminate the capital gains tax, and pay for it by slashing welfare, social security, and every pork barrel project that exists. Eliminate unnecessary federal programs and turn more responsibility over to the states. But I digress.



Critique number 3: Smoke and mirrors. Sure the thing is loaded with more pork than a Cracker Barrel breakfast. If you look past that, though, you see hints of things more insiduous. The creation of so-called "green jobs" in the government, provisions to further government intrusion into healthcare, and a horde of other things all point to this not so much being about stimulus, but about a long-term course change for our nation.



Final verdict: I don't believe any one decision or bill should be worth more than a 10% knock off on the approval rating scale (barring Armegeddon like decisions, such as nuking Israel or banning Dr. Pepper). Therefore, this massive socialist spending bill earns the max penalty, a full 10% off his approval rating from me. This leaves him at 75%.



I looked around for something positive I could use to offset his nose-dive. I couldn't find anything. If you do have anything, though, up or down just leave it in the comments.



You have the right to free speech. You also have the right to remain silent. Guess which one the government wants you to use?