While the Senate continues to nit-pick the stimulus package, the average American struggles to pay bills, find jobs, get insurance, find someone to watch their kids on the barter system…. all while they fight over “pork” and how much or little tax cuts they might give us. It’s disgusting.

Most of the “pork” the Republicans want thrown out is the same old stuff they always want out. They ask themselves this question “does this money benefit, in any way, the poor, minorities, women’s health or gay people”? If the answer is “yes” then slash away!!

I swear, these bastards are cold-hearted.

Food stamp-programs which continue to be large on the Republican’s slashing target, and sadly, are not even offered in this package, are considered to be well worth the money. An independent provider of research, Moody’s Economy, a division of Moody’s Analytics (I respect anyone that can put the word ass next to economy) recently said that one of the fastest ways to infuse money into the economy would be to expand the food stamp program. Predicting that for every dollar spent on the food-stamp program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy.

Let me explain it in simple terms so our friends on the R side of the blog reading public can understand this:
You see, poor people, single working mothers and fathers and the elderly spend money on things like, um, food. They often pay a lower tax rate on the food. Thereby, they can afford even more food for their family.

The study showed that families that live on unemployment and food-stamps spend that money right away, thus benefiting the economy faster, and even create that “trickle down” that Raygun was always yapping on about. Groceries purchased with that dollar quickly go back to pay grocery employees, to the trucks that deliver, to the distributors and all the way back to the farmers that grew the food.

As opposed to say, offering business incentives such as tax breaks, (the rebuplicans favorite word) for buying new equipment - so-called accelerated depreciation – would provide the slowest infusion of money. According to Moody’s ass economy theory every dollar spent there would generate only 33 cents in the economy. Buying equipment to speed up production of products that people cannot afford to buy, only makes sense in the brain of a republican.

But on to the gays; as in “the arts”. Who, in there right mind would think that it’s smart to fund a bunch of people that throw paint on cloth; or wear lewd crotch-hugging tights and touch each other on stage; or large women that sing in a foreign language about death and sorrow and despair and incest and cheating and then commit suicide; or people that get up on stage and recite words that are fiction, about some fictitious persons fictitious life, while smoking. How would that help the economy?

Well, I can only give one living example of how that can happen, and it does happen all over America in small and medium sized cities and towns (the ones that are mostly hit the hardest in this economy). In a city I lived in there was a section of town that was desolate. Pimps and addicts roamed the streets and the few stores shuttered their doors by sundown.

Then, someone opened up a Theatre. Rent was super cheap. People came to see shows like Beriut and American Buffalo and Balm in Gilead – seedy shows for a seedy setting made it work. Painters, sculptures and craft artists found perfect studios that they could afford and opened shop. Soon a bar added a restaurant and then another restaurant opened. Another small Theatre joined the first one, followed by several small dance troupes that found the cheap rent and perfect studios. A large ballet company set up their headquarters after fixing up one of the derelict buildings

Not so long thereafter, long after the pimps and addicts left to go across the water, companies like The Gap, Banana Republic, Victoria’s Secret and Starbucks vied to join the street that had once been home to homeless and con artist but now had a thriving scene. Hotel’s repaired their fading façade’s and hired more staff. Film producers fought to shoot there and models and movie stars became the people that sat in the café’s on a daily basis doling out large tips to the many workers. All because a bunch of artsy types moved in.

What a concept! Stimulating the economy while stimulating your brain!