CSPAN = Crazy Scary People Asking Nonsense
We watched Seaves' boss on C-SPAN tonight talking about the Michigan Recovery Office and how it's working to distribute the funds made available in the Recovery Act and all of the reporting and transparency issues that come along with that (the website is at http://michigan.gov/recovery). I was really impressed by how much she knew about everything related to the Act and how much she knew about everything that was going on in Michigan. Big ups to Seaves' boss.
Big downs to the people who call into C-SPAN. WOW. There are some crazy people out there. One caller wanted to give a shout out to Barack Obama for, you know, like, bringing about some change that's good to see and stuff. Another caller commented that it was nice to see some "common people" involved in government (the reaction shot from Seaves' boss was priceless). Some other callers were *so thankful* that they finally got through because they've been calling and calling for months and then the question they had wasn't for the current guest, but for a guest that had been on about 20 minutes earlier. D'oh! Anyway, the callers were the most cringe-inducing part of watching because WOW. People are scary.
The contrast between Seaves' boss and the next guest (some inspector general from South Carolina) could not have been more stark. He was old and stodgy and totally down on anybody who was trying to pick the country up and get it going again. Leslie made some very cogent points about the stimulus money not being able to solve Michigan's economic problems...it's estimated that only 109,000 jobs will be created over the life of the stimulus and MI has lost close to 800,000 jobs over the last decade as the auto industry started to shift. But the point is that the stimulus funds are here to get things going again so that private industry can be positioned to be the economic engine that it's supposed to be. I think of the stimulus as very expensive training wheels for the economy.
The other issue that I had with the South Carolina dude (note to self: stop watching C-SPAN while you still can!) was that he didn't seem to have any problem with spending our way into ridiculous debt for the Iraq War but suddenly any money from the government is a big I.O.U. to China. Duuude, come on! I have issues with that.
Anyway, we went through more pictures tonight and got rid of doubles while we were watching C-SPAN and the walk down memory lane was quite enjoyable, more on that later. I'm off to bed. Watching C-SPAN is totally draining.
EDIT: Here's a link! http://www.c-span.org/Stimulus/Watch/2009/05/28/Stimulus/R/19155/CSPANs+Economic+Stimulus+Special.aspx
Big downs to the people who call into C-SPAN. WOW. There are some crazy people out there. One caller wanted to give a shout out to Barack Obama for, you know, like, bringing about some change that's good to see and stuff. Another caller commented that it was nice to see some "common people" involved in government (the reaction shot from Seaves' boss was priceless). Some other callers were *so thankful* that they finally got through because they've been calling and calling for months and then the question they had wasn't for the current guest, but for a guest that had been on about 20 minutes earlier. D'oh! Anyway, the callers were the most cringe-inducing part of watching because WOW. People are scary.
The contrast between Seaves' boss and the next guest (some inspector general from South Carolina) could not have been more stark. He was old and stodgy and totally down on anybody who was trying to pick the country up and get it going again. Leslie made some very cogent points about the stimulus money not being able to solve Michigan's economic problems...it's estimated that only 109,000 jobs will be created over the life of the stimulus and MI has lost close to 800,000 jobs over the last decade as the auto industry started to shift. But the point is that the stimulus funds are here to get things going again so that private industry can be positioned to be the economic engine that it's supposed to be. I think of the stimulus as very expensive training wheels for the economy.
The other issue that I had with the South Carolina dude (note to self: stop watching C-SPAN while you still can!) was that he didn't seem to have any problem with spending our way into ridiculous debt for the Iraq War but suddenly any money from the government is a big I.O.U. to China. Duuude, come on! I have issues with that.
Anyway, we went through more pictures tonight and got rid of doubles while we were watching C-SPAN and the walk down memory lane was quite enjoyable, more on that later. I'm off to bed. Watching C-SPAN is totally draining.
EDIT: Here's a link! http://www.c-span.org/Stimulus/Watch/2009/05/28/Stimulus/R/19155/CSPANs+Economic+Stimulus+Special.aspx