Economic Stimulus Debacle

I'm worried about this economy stimulus bill that appears ready to pass - too much spending on "this might help" projects (schools, health care, alternative fuels), and not enough on more certain items. I felt pretty comfortable with the first financial industry bailout but seems that those steps didn't help. And those banks that got the money basically told us taxpayers that they didn't have to account for how they spent the money! At least President Obama put a reasonable cap on executive pay.

I would've thought that we learned our lesson on investing huge sums of money on alternative fuels with the corn to ethanol fiasco. Scientists kept saying it wasn't economical, but the politicians wouldn't listen, and we saw food prices rise dramatically, since corn was being diverted from the food supply to ethanol production. It got so bad that some hog farmers had to start including stale twinkies and other snack food in the hog food as corn was too expensive. So why risk more billions poured down the drain? Alternative energy research is important, but not at such a huge amount.

Runaway government spending is just as responsible for the current meltdown as the financial sector's shenanigans. I keep hearing about all the different companies and lobbyists heading to Washington D.C. to get their "fair share" of the handouts.