Like many Pennsylvanians, I have been less than thrilled by the representation of Senator Arlen Specter. This dissatisfaction reached a Zenith today as Sen. Specter was one of the 61 Senators that voted for the pork-filled economic ‘stimulus’ package. I’d like to take Senator Specter’s op-ed piece from the Washington Post and provide some in-line reactions (bolded)

“I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action.

Agreed 100%, Senator. Unfortunately, taking an opportunity to create lasting, sensible solutions is much different than going in with a half-baked, half-compromised plan and hoping it will keep things glued together a few months. I might remind you of the $168 Billion cure-all stimulus from early 2008. At the time the Congress was convinced that action would fix everything. Now the same Congress is convinced that nearly a trillion will be enough. Not to mention nearly another $10 Trillion in pledges, guarantees, and bailouts that have been thrown at this collapse between Stimulus I and Stimulus II. At the very least, the Congress should be willing to admit that it has no idea of the ultimate final cost of this problem. I will guarantee you this much though – it is a lot more than $10 Trillion.

The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater — or it may be too late.

This will be the case no matter if this bill becomes law or not. That is because this bill is not addressing the real problem. It doesn’t address the fact that our economy is based on debt, and needs that debt to grow. Without continued debt accumulation, we have no economic growth. Simple as that. That is why it will be necessary for Congress to continue bailing out failed firms and passing stimulus packages. This package will stimulate consumption for a time, but that is it. It will not, nor does it have any prospects for stimulating the economy. If you want this measure to be effective, dedicate 100% of it to rebuilding our lost manufacturing base. Create products here. I know this violates the tenets of globalism and free trade, but it is the only solution. Unless you want to be writing the same arguments for stimulus III in 6 months or so.

Wave after wave of bad economic news has created its own psychology of fear and lowered expectations. As in the old Movietone News, the eyes and ears of the world are upon the United States. Failure to act would be devastating not just for Wall Street and Main Street but for much of the rest of the world, which is looking to our country for leadership in this crisis.

Our country has been the ‘leader’ in the world economy because both our people and our government have expressed a willingness to borrow money to consume. We have done so even to the point of our own detriment, and now decades of borrowing constitute a boat anchor on future growth. Yesterday evening, the President stated that the government was the only institution remaining with the resources to combat this problem. What resources? The government has no resources; other than the ability to borrow (at the expense of the People), create money from nothing (at the expense of the People), and pledge future economic growth to paper over current problems (at the expense of the People). The government doesn’t have $780let alone $780 Billion.

The legislation known as the “moderates” bill, hammered out over two days by Sens. Susan Collins, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and myself, preserves the job-creating and tax relief goals of President Obama’s stimulus plan while cutting less-essential provisions — many of them worthy in themselves — that are better left to the regular appropriations process.

Our $780 billion bill would save or create up to 4 million jobs, helping to offset the loss of 3.6 million jobs since December 2007. The bill cuts some $110 billion from the $890 billion Senate version, which would actually be $940 billion if floor amendments for tax credits on home and car purchases and money for the National Institutes of Health are retained.

Nowhere has anyone actually demonstrated where these 4 million jobs would be created other than the desire to hire nearly 600,000 more government workers. It is very likely that the business community is aware that this will not work and will therefore seek to conduct whatever business the stimulus allows without actually expanding staff to the extent expected. This is not a ‘business as usual’ environment. If the private sector really had faith in this package, it wouldn’t continue to cut jobs as it has been. It would hang on and wait, understanding that retention is far more cost-effective in the short run than going through the hiring cycle. The private sector’s actions alone are a vote of no confidence with regard to government stimulus.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the proposed cuts “do violence to what we are trying to do for the future,” especially on education. Her objections are a warning to conservatives that more cuts would be unlikely to win House approval. They are also an admission of the high price that moderates have been able to extract for their support of stimulus legislation.

If a stimulus bill doesn’t pass, there won’t be any money for Title I education programs. The moderates’ bill provides marginally less money for Title I than the House and Senate bills. But while it’s less than supporters want, this proverbial half a loaf beats no loaf by a mile.

Title I existed long before the stimulus. Education is one of the few areas that have actually seen growth over the past year in terms of employment ex-stimulus! How will Title I spending stimulate the economy?

In health funding, both the House and Senate bills contain billions of dollars for wellness and prevention programs, including for smoking cessation, prenatal screening and counseling, education, and immunization. The moderates’ bill, regrettably but necessarily, cancels this funding on the grounds that such programs are better left to the regular appropriations process.

Same point as above – how is any of this going to stimulate the economy? This is one of the portions of the bill which has been totally dedicated to the political pandering necessary to get the votes needed for passage. While on the surface, all of these initiatives sound warm and fuzzy, they will not stimulate anything other than perhaps the national debt.

“In politics,” John Kennedy used to say, “nobody gets everything, nobody gets nothing and everybody gets something.” My colleagues and I have tried to balance the concerns of both left and right with the need to act quickly for the sake of our country. The moderates’ compromise, which faces a cloture vote today, is the only bill with a reasonable chance of passage in the Senate.”

As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently put it, “A government big enough to give you anything you want is also strong enough to take everything you have”. This bill seems to be little more than a government stimulus package. It will do very little for the economy or the real root causes of the problem: debt and a broken monetary system.