True Cost: $3.7 TRILLION

UPDATES below. Tax relief cut in final version, spending up.The true cost of this supposed stimulus bill is $3.7 TRILLION--and how many jobs do you think it will create? Not to mention what folks are getting back now for burdening our children--a paltry $13 a week. Heritage:

All of the major news outlets are reporting that the stimulus bill voted out of conference committee last night has a meager $789 billion price tag. This number is pure fantasy. No one believes that the increased funding for programs the left loves like Head Start, Medicaid, COBRA, and the Earned Income Tax Credit is in anyway temporary. No Congress under control of the left will ever cut funding for these programs. So what is the true cost of the stimulus if these spending increases are made permanent?

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of permanently extending the 20 most popular provisions of the stimulus bill. What did the CBO find? As you can see from the table below, the true 10 year cost of the stimulus bill $2.527 trillion in in spending with another $744 billion cost in debt servicing. Total bill for the Generational Theft Act: $3.27 Trillion.

Cartoon via Conservative Rocker. Rasmussen reports voters' confidence in the Dems' economic wisdom is slipping.

P.S. Once again, via Heritage:

That is why the CBO has predicted that this so-called stimulus bill will actually harm economic growth. Democrat appointed CBO director Doug Elmendorf explains why:

The principal channel for this effect is that the legislation would result in an increase in government debt. To the extent that people hold their wealth in the form of government bonds rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased government debt would tend to 'crowd out' private investment—thus reducing the stock of private capital and the long-term potential output of the economy.

WSJ:

The latest version of the economic-stimulus package is expected to provide less near-term support for the economy and make it less likely that the economy will pull itself out of recession before late this year.

And this from the GOP, via Michelle Malkin:

· Tax relief to help middle class families and small businesses was sharply pared back in order to increase government spending. Public opinion over the last 4 weeks has shown that Americans overwhelming believe tax cuts, and not government spending, are a better way to stimulate the economy.
· Approximately $75 billion in true tax relief was CUT from the Nelson-Collins package. So, while the overall size of the package may have gotten slightly smaller, the spending actually increased.