Castle’s Office has no excuse.
I received the following in an email from a friend who doesn’t want to be identified publicly. I will repost it in its entirety.
Called Castle’s office today, told his staffer that I wanted to complain about Castle’s vote against the stimulus, and that “I’d like to receive his standard explanation letter”. I gave my name and address, and then the guy started to defend Castle’s vote – at which point I grinned, because he was basically inviting the smackdown that was to follow. Let me just state that I did not call with the intention of unloading abuse on Castle’s staff, but if they wanna argue, oh hell yeah, I’m game. And I didn’t call him any names, either – I just stuck it to his rhetoric.
The guy started by saying the bill cost too much. I pointed out that it didn’t cost nearly as much as Iraq, which Castle voted for continually. He began to say that Iraq was a separate matter, not relevant to the point, but I said, “What, it’s OK to build stuff in Iraq but not in America?” He said no, Castle supports the Infrastructure parts of the bill. So I asked him if the problem was all the education spending. Of course not, said the staffer, Castle’s big on education. “What then? The alternative energy tax credits?” Noooo, Castle’s been endorsed by blah blah blah he starts to say, I cut him off; “I know who’s endorsed him, but they might reconsider that now that they see what he just voted against.” The staffer then pulls out his talking points: “He voted against the pork…” “What pork?” I stopped him. “What program? Saying there’s pork doesn’t make it so. Come on!”
And that’s when he brings up “350 million for STD research”. I’ve got him. “Does Mike Castle oppose STD research?” “Well, no, but it shouldn’t be part of this package.” “So he’d support all these things individually, but he’s against putting them together? Are you saying he’s not opposed to the parts, but the way that they’re arranged together?” Faltering, the guy goes back to the overall costs, and how it’s not efficient enough. I told him I agreed – there were way too many tax cuts in there, but that was stuff the Republlicans made them put in there. I knew the guy wasn’t going to tell me on the phone that tax cuts were a bad idea. Instead, he pulls out some unsourced statistic about how we were spending like $230,000 per job created. I know better than to give him a platform by asking him where his numbers were coming from, since most GOP statistics are skewed BS anyway – so instead I told him, “Yeah, well, it’d be more efficient if they didn’t stick so many tax cuts on there.” I broke out my own unsourced statistic, the one Obama quoted about how every dollar invested in spending returns $1.50 in stimulus, but every dollar of tax cuts only nets $0.75. He knew there was no sense in arguing about who’s statistics were right, so he simply told me he’d inform Castle of my concerns and confirmed my address. I told him I looked forward to receiving Castle’s usual bland form letters.
And we look forward to your usual uninformed rant about the so called stimulus bill.
The bill has billions of spending which is wasteful and ill advised and will add huge amounts of debt and will lead to higher taxes and inflation.
The bill is hundreds of pages and has pork and earmarks all over it. So much for transparency in Government.
The big question. Who is more efficient at spending money, the government or businesses and individuals?
Protack is an expert in uninformed rants.
OMG, that was awesome! Your friend put the smackdown on Castle’s person. I love the part where your friends points out that Castle is for all the spending individually but not together. Classic!
BTW, my understanding is that the $235K/job is taking the costs and dividing by one year, instead of multi-year (like most jobs are), but your friend was right not to get into a statistics match with Castle’s staffer.
Fifteen minutes of research before calling your Congressman can make all the difference.
Your friend Rocks, DD! So Mike Castle would support stimulus packages, but not a stimulus package. Umm… okay
I guess the deal on the stimulus comes to $789,000,000,000. Looks a lot bigger than saying “billion.” Divided by the about 300 million inhabitants of the USA, That comes to 2,630 per capita. Divided by Obama’s old number- (giving him the benefit of the doubt, because he’s dropped his estimate by 500,000 jobs) 4 million jobs created or *saved* by the bill, it comes to $197,250 per job. The staffer was probably working with the $850 billion dollar bill the House had passed.
Since the government doesn’t pay tax on their income(our money), it seems to me each job would have to pay around $300,000 to make this bill all about jobs.
An economist was on Michael Smerconish’s show a couple days ago and had a great analogy about how the government handles money. They take an old bucket with holes in it to the deep end of the pool, then they fill it all the way up and run to the shallow end and dump it in.
Administration of all this money bleeds its value and then its put back into the economy. Tax cuts, on the other hand, let people keep the money they earn and spend/save it as they see fit, aka Freedom.
Do you want a post about the pork? There are plenty of articles out there about $30 million for the salt marsh harvest mouse, and the unending list of boondoggles.
RtheGOP wrote The bill has billions of spending which is wasteful and ill advised and will add huge amounts of debt and will lead to higher taxes and inflation.
Well the Republicans would know about that.
There are plenty of articles out there about $30 million for the salt marsh harvest mouse
Another desparate lie from Republican thieves.
“Protack is an expert in uninformed rants.” comment 2. Correction Protack is more informed than any two of the commentators here.
did he just admit he listens to Smerconhisface?
oh dear
“Protack is more informed than any two of the commentators here.”
No he’s not. He just repeated the same script the Castle staffer did.
“The bill has billions of spending which is wasteful”
Just like the defense budget every year
“and ill advised”
So says you. The GOP ought to know everything about ill-advised spending, having squandered a surplus and dug a hole as big as any we’ve ever been in. The Bush tax cuts, BTW, still haven’t paid for themselves.
“and will add huge amounts of debt”
In a time of crisis — unlike the Reagan and Bush spending binges, which added huge amounts of debt at times when we could have afforded to pay down the deficit.
“and will lead to higher taxes and inflation.”
Why is this suddenly a problem? Why wasn’t waging a war without raising taxes challenged by Republicans because it would raise taxes and inflation? From the broad economic standpoint, spending is spending — and you guys are now on record as caring more about Iraqis than Americans.
“The big question. Who is more efficient at spending money, the government or businesses and individuals?”
Who cares who’s “more efficient”? There is no private-sector spending happening, which is why government is going to spend. Just because you disagree with Keynes doesn’t make you right.
A point of Clarification. Al Mascitti just said on his radio show on WDEL that I, Delaware Dem, called Castle’s office. No, as I said in this post, a friend called the office and emailed me the result.
Now I might get riled if you go after Smernicoff. Is it ’cause he’s from PA?
It’s Smerconish.
Yes, $30 million worth of national parks jobs created with that measure, too. And Mike Castle wants to put National Parks on quarters (I’m not kidding), so I presume he’d support THAT measure too, even if wingnuts don’t like it.