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Jack Cafferty says the House violated a pledge to make stimulus bill public 48 hours before vote.

NEW YORK (CNN) — What a joke. Your Congress has voted to spend almost $790 billion of your money on a stimulus package that not a single member of either chamber has read.

The 1,073-page document wasn’t posted on the government’s Web site until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote to pass it was taken.

I don’t care if you’re Evelyn Wood, you can’t read almost 1,100 pages of the lawyer talk that makes up all legislation in eight or 10 hours.  The criminal part of this boondoggle is divided into two parts. The first is the Democrats promised to post the bill a full 48 hours before the vote was taken to allow members of the public to see what they were getting for their money. Both parties voted unanimously to do this … and they lied.

It didn’t happen. Why am I not surprised? Congress lying to the American people has become part of their job description. They can’t be trusted on anything anymore.

I’m sure part of the reason there was no time for the public to read the bill was the 11th-hour internecine warfare between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

When Reid first announced the compromise had been reached, Nancy Pelosi was nowhere to be seen. And it would take an act of God for this egotistical, arrogant woman to miss a photo op where she could take credit for anything. But she wasn’t there.

She summoned Reid to her office, where unnamed sources said she blew her top over some provision for schools that she wasn’t happy with. Pelosi’s snit delayed everything.

It’s really too bad President Obama couldn’t figure out a way to jettison these two who are poster children for everything that is wrong in Washington. The Associated Press called the birth of the stimulus bill “sausage making” in the best tradition of Washington politics as usual.

The second part of the crime is the contents of the bill itself. Far from being only about jobs, infrastructure and tax cuts as promised, the stimulus bill stimulates a bunch of other stuff as well. Eight billion dollars for high-speed rail lines, including a proposed line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. This little bit of second story work wasn’t even in the House version of the bill.

It started in the Senate as a $2 billion project, and came out of the conference committee costing a whopping $8 billion. Gee, now who would that benefit? Oh yeah, the Senate majority leader is from Nevada.

Filipino veterans, most of whom don’t live in the U.S., will get $200 million in compensation for World War II injuries. And: $2 billion in grants and loans for battery companies, $100 million for small shipyards and a rollback of the alternative minimum tax at a cost of some $70 billion.

The AMT provision is much-needed legislation, but it doesn’t belong in the stimulus bill. It forced other things out so Congress could keep to its self-imposed $800 billion cap.

And when it comes to the tax cuts contained in the stimulus bill, experts have determined they will amount to about $13 per week after taxes for the average American. I’m not sure how much stimulation $13 a week buys. It depends on the neighborhood.

The biggest problem of all is the stimulus bill may not be nearly enough. And if the president has to come back asking for more, the next time might not be so easy.

So far, we have an anemic stimulus bill and some sort of vague proposal from the secretary of the Treasury to deal with the banking crisis — a proposal that landed with a thud last week — as the two first steps toward solving a financial crisis that is threatening to take down the country.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) — When a debate as important — both in terms of policy and politics — as the one currently rolling around our nation regarding the president’s “stimulus” plan takes place, emotion often takes precedence over fact.

Words are ripped out of context, motives ascribed where none may exist, political strategies implemented with limited regard for actuality. This, then, is the playing field we step onto — as it has long been.  But, as those in South Carolina have often heard me say, it is important to disagree without being disagreeable. So let’s take a clear-eyed look at Paul Begala’s recent defense of the president, which happened to refer to me by name — because what I and others have suggested is far from “doing nothing.”

First, dispense with the notion that there are simply two options here: Support the stimulus package or do nothing. The Washington Post debunked that idea quite convincingly earlier this week.

In truth, there are a variety of options outside a spending bill of unprecedented scope available in this time of considerable economic distress, including, but not limited to, cutting the payroll tax, opening foreign markets through an expansion of our trade agreements, and reducing our corporate tax, which is among the highest worldwide.

Second, we should all be skeptical of any argument centered on the idea of doing something for doing something’s sake. We can’t focus on the why and simply ignore the what. And what does this particular rendition of “doing something” actually do?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the effects of the bill on job growth as early as 2011 would be miniscule. More distressingly, CBO’s long-term projections estimate that due to “crowding out of private investment,” the package will result in a reduction of our GDP as early as 2019.

As for the jobs created in the short-term, what’s the cost? The Heritage Foundation crunched the president’s own numbers and came up with this startling figure: for every single job the bill creates, American taxpayers will spend $223,000.

Examining the bill’s contents makes clear just how foolhardy that is. What stimulant effect will we get from the $180 million of spending on “diplomatic and consular services?” Should taxpayers really be doling out $300 million for what one newspaper described as “streamlined golf carts?”

And, even though it didn’t make it into the final version of the bill, why would anyone even consider letting the very investment bankers whose companies just pulled down a few hundred million dollars in TARP funds to be in line to receive a $15,000 government credit for buying a new Hamptons beach house?

Finally, history shows us quite clearly that a government cannot spend its way out of an economic downturn. It didn’t work in Japan in the 1990s, when the 10 stimulus packages implemented over an eight year period failed to prevent the “lost decade.” And the New Deal, which the president’s supporters are so quick to point to?

Here are the thoughts of Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. … I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot!”

The president’s stimulus represents the largest and most invasive economic action in our government’s history. For a relatively small number of short-term jobs, this administration and this Congress are poised to mortgage the economic future of my four boys and the millions of young Americans just like them. To me, that’s simply not a morally acceptable outcome.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mark Sanford.

By Rich Lowry
Published: February 9, 2009
Buzz up!

Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill: I won.

That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy.

As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power — provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in October to double federal domestic discretionary spending in a matter of weeks — including increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by a third, spending hundreds of millions more on federal buildings and throwing tens of billions on every traditional liberal priority from job training to Pell Grants — he’d have been hard-pressed to win at all.

The president should read the transcript of the third presidential debate. He claimed his program represented “a net spending cut.” He called himself “a strong proponent of pay-as-you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” He added, “We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don’t work.”

Now, circumstances change, and no president can adhere to every jot and tittle from his campaign, but the “I won” argument only works if the campaign program matches the governing program. Obama himself seems confused on what exactly “I won” means.

In a meeting with congressional Republicans, he brandished “I won” as a defense of his version of tax relief. But he later used “I won” to push back against an excessive reliance on tax cuts, claiming that it had been repudiated during the campaign even though he talked every day on the trail of cutting taxes for “95 percent of working people” and never once mentioned a commitment to extreme deficit spending.

Make case for bill on its merits

Obama has to make a case for the stimulus bill on the merits, a surpassingly difficult forensic task.

The bill came out of the House with a price tag of $819 billion. It would spend more in 2011 alone than in this year, and more in 2012 and beyond than in this year. Why far-off spending priorities have to be set in a rush in the first two weeks of February 2009 is something no one can explain — except that, with all restraints off, congressional Democrats want to toss bulging sacks of cash out the door.

Obama writes in a Washington Post op-ed that the bill “is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity.” Fine. A long-term strategy deserves long-term deliberation, the committee hearings and other processes meant to exercise a check on the heedlessness of hasty legislating in a panic.

Negative effect in long term

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will have a stimulative effect in the short term but a negative one in the long term, although it stipulates “large fiscal stimulus is rarely attempted” and its effects “are very uncertain.” The stimulus bill is basically a $1 trillion bet on an utterly unproven theory — that scattershot government spending is a magic elixir for an economy in the grips of a financial crisis.

When Obama ran last year, he didn’t say he’d engage in faith-based economy policy on a grand scale. He didn’t say he’d toss aside the normal processes of governing. He didn’t say he’d quickly act to add waste to the federal budget. And he didn’t say he’d try to brush away criticism with the mere assertion of his victory. On the stimulus, when Obama says “I won,” he’s out of better arguments.

Guru games aim to improve our math skills, culinary competence and more

By Winda Benedetti

I don’t want to sound paranoid or anything, but I’m starting to suspect that Nintendo has secretly hidden some sort of spy camera in my home.

I say this because there are two things in life that I’m especially awful at: math and cooking. And rather suspiciously, Nintendo recently launched two games that seem aimed specifically at me: “Personal Trainer: Math” and “Personal Trainer: Cooking.”

I’m telling you, it’s like they know.

They know that I use my fingers and sometimes my toes when faced with solving particularly taxing math problems (problems like: what is 15 plus 7?)

They know that when I say that I’m going to go “cook dinner,” what I really mean is that I’m going to go nuke some macaroni and cheese in the microwave.

I suppose I must not be the only person with these kinds of deficiencies in my cognitive powers and basic survival skills, because in recent months video game publishers have taken to offering humankind all kinds of ways to improve our deeply-flawed lives … primarily by offering us throngs of personal trainers, life coaches and gurus dedicated to fixing our many flaws.

Ubisoft wants to help us shed a few pounds with “My Weight Loss Coach.” It wants to help us improve our vocabulary with “My Word Coach.” And it wants to help us kick that cancerous habit with “My Stop Smoking Coach.” Meanwhile, its “Dog Whisperer Game” promises to help us tame our problematic pooches … no kicking involved.

Nintendo, with its “Wii Fit” and “Brain Age” games knows a thing or two about self improvement and has, most recently, launched “Personal Trainer: Cooking” and “Personal Trainer: Math” (both for the Nintendo DS). And — I’m not making this up — they plan to launch “Personal Trainer: Walking” in the near future. Yes … walking.

It seems that video game publishers have discovered that human beings are imperfect creatures. More importantly, they know that we know that we’re imperfect and are desperate to fix the situation. So while I am fairly confident in my ability to put one foot in front of the other, I succumbed to my deep-seated arithmetic and culinary insecurities and decided to find out if Nintendo’s personal math and cooking trainers really could fix my most glaring personal flaws.

Math is fun again!

Or at least that’s what “Personal Trainer: Math” promises. I actually shuddered when this game arrived on my doorstep. For as long as I can remember, math has been the bane of my existence. When I was in school, math homework reduced me to tears on a nightly basis. Even as an adult, I get flustered when suddenly confronted with a numbers problem — calculating change at a store, or dividing the restaurant bill among friends. What did this aversion to numbers get me? A career as a journalist. Sigh.

But after I got over my initial revulsion to “Personal Trainer: Math,” I thought that perhaps Nintendo really might have found “a fun and rewarding way to improve your math abilities.” After all, I have enjoyed their “Brain Age” games — games that have turned tackling brain-challenging puzzles and problems into seriously addictive fun.

Like “Brain Age,” “Personal Trainer: Math” presents players with a daily trio of challenges designed to put basic math skills to the test. Here you’re presented with a variety of simple addition, subtraction and multiplication problems. You may be given flash cards with objects that you have to count. You may have to complete a sentence such as: (blank) is 7 plus 5. All of this you have to do as quickly as you can as the game rates your speed and accuracy, increasing the difficulty and tracking your improvement over time.

When you’re not being tested, you can try your hand at the “100-Cell” math method, a technique that has you add, subtract, or multiply numbers in a 10-by-10 grid.

But here’s what I want to know: Where’s the part where they make math, you know, “fun”? Day after day, this game had me doing nothing but tedious arithmetic problems over and over. Yes, I did get a bit faster at coming up with the correct answers. But the problem is, I don’t want to keep playing. With “Brain Age,” the activities were diverse and interesting enough to keep me coming back. But with “Personal Trainer: Math,” the prospect of running through a new set of multiplication tables day in and day out just isn’t compelling.

Perhaps they need to sell a peripheral that goes with “Personal Trainer: Math.” It’s called a “M.O.M.” — a device that makes you do your math homework every night under threat of being sent to your room without dinner.

Speaking of dinner…

The last time I tried to make dinner for my husband, I concocted a tofu dish that looked like something you’d find on the sidewalk outside a bar after a particularly drunken Friday night. He choked it down and tried to act appreciative. But later, he admitted that it tasted as good as it looked.

So you should have seen the look on his face when I told him I was going to cook dinner for him again … this time under the guidance of a video game. Panic. Horror. I believe he briefly considered divorce.

But “Personal Trainer: Cooking” is no “Cooking Mama.” That is, it’s not a game. Instead, it’s an interactive cook book that streamlines and simplifies the process of selecting and cooking a dish. And much to my surprise — and my husband’s — it works.

“Cooking” comes with 245 recipes from around the world. It also includes numerous tips on how to do things like julienne carrots (I had no idea what “julienning” was) and videos demonstrating things like preparing squid (yeeeuck). But most importantly, it gently holds your hand through the process of selecting a recipe, purchasing the ingredients and cooking them up.

Using the game’s fantastic recipe selection process, I was able to find a main dish to cook by asking it to give me “easy” recipes that took less than 30 minutes to cook and used meat as a main ingredient. Based on my requirements, it narrowed the recipes down to five, from which I chose the sautéed lamb chop recipe (based solely on the fact that it sounded the simplest to prepare). The game then compiled a shopping list for me.

With ingredients at the ready, “Personal Trainer: Cooking” then walked me through the cooking process, giving me easy-to-follow verbal and written instructions. Since it has a voice command function, I was able to tell it to repeat instructions as I needed without putting my greasy hands on my DS.

My husband took one bite of my chops and actually said, “Wow, I would eat this again.” And I’m almost positive he wasn’t just saying that to be nice.

I can’t say that “Personal Trainer: Cooking” has inspired me to take up a ladle and become a regular in our kitchen. But I can say that it’s proven to me (and my husband) that I can cook a meal that doesn’t look and taste like barf. And that’s saying something.