ARRA and the media: The gap is widening

...between what I am seeing in the cable/national news media and what I have read in the bill.

To save myself a bit of insanity, I want to share words from our leader from yesterday, February 5, 2009:

Part One:



Part Two:


He's rational, funny, and firm. But this is serious people. Make no mistake. We cannot afford to let our country fail.

These are the things the GOP calls pork.

Hungry American children.

Fewer teachers in an already strained education system.

The possibility of creating a ripple effect with public works projects that will help manufacturing.

A new Federal fleet of eco-friendly and energy efficient cars that will come from American auto makers.

This bill is chock full of public works projects.

I read yesterday that the national corps of engineers (you know, the people who worked on that bridge collapse in Minnesota a couple years back?) said there's at least 2 trillion dollars worth of infrastructure that has been neglected in the last eight years and is in desperate need of attention. Literally, our roads, and sewers, and bridges, and water pipes are corroding beneath us.

Our schools will have at least 25% fewer teachers next fall if we don't get this thing passed.

Children of low-income families will not get fed at school, either, unless their parents can pay for the meals (that have been covered by federal assistance programs for years now). And WIC programs will lose funding, too.

This bill is designed to kill two birds with one stone. The American people need jobs and job security. The government has lots of things to work on and needs our help to do it.

It's this simple: create lots and lots of jobs, and hire people to do those jobs.

Win, win every time.

What the GOP is doing in DC is despicable.

The poorest of the poor might never be able to recover. And the longer we wait the chances of any of us keeping our heads above water decrease.

Please, if you care about your life as you know it, and care about the lives of every American: contact your representatives.

We need to know that those who represent us CARE about us.

For your Senators

For your House Representative

It takes, literally, five minutes, the time it takes to write three short emails with these short lines:

Dear So-and_so
Please show your support for the American people by voting for ARRA 2009.

Your country is counting on you to do what we asked you to do in November 2008.

We need to know that you are on our side and can let go of petty politics for something greater than all of us.

Sincerely,
Me

Feel free to copy and paste this even.

We can make this happen. Yes We Can.