Econwatch
July 9, 2009 10:45 AM

Warren Buffett Calls for Second Stimulus

(AP)
As folks in Washington and the rest of the country grumble about the depressed job market and underwhelming consumer spending reports, the calls for a second stimulus continue.

"I think that a second one may well be called for," Warren Buffett , the widely respected investor, said Thursday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"Our first stimulus bill... was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in," he said, "as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents."

Indeed, new reports show the money from President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package is potentially being doled out unevenly. An analysis from the New York Times shows rural areas are receiving a disproportionate amount of funds for transportation projects.

"Two-thirds of the country lives in large metropolitan areas, home to the nation’s worst traffic jams and some of its oldest roads and bridges," the Times reports. "But cities and their surrounding regions are getting far less than two-thirds of federal transportation stimulus money."

Additionally, USA Today reports that counties that supported Mr. Obama in the presidential election have so far received twice as much money per person from the stimulus package as those that supported Republican John McCain -- though that likely has more to do with bureaucracy than politics.

"That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally," the newspaper says. "Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation."

Still, only a little more than 10 percent of the money has been distributed. Vice President Joe Biden will be in Cincinnati, Ohio today to highlight the progress of the stimulus. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has criticized the slow pace at which the stimulus money is being distributed. Meanwhile, the Ohio Department of Transportation has already approved 52 stimulus-funded road and bridge projects at a cost of nearly $84 million, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

Other Republicans are taking Boehner's lead in criticizing the stimulus effort. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) will go so far as to introduce a bill today called "Reducing Barack Obama’s Unsustainable Deficit Act," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The bill would repeal the remaining unspent money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and recall any unobligated money authorized by the Troubled Asset Relief Program. With Democrats in charge, the bill has virtually no chance of moving forward.
Tags:
stimulus ,
Warren Buffett
Topics:
Economic Stimulus
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by TheMasses0009 July 13, 2009 6:09 PM EDT
swin5 July 11, 2009 10:37 PM EDT
Agree to a point but you have one thing backwards. Buffet is not the rubber stamp for Obama - it's the other way around. Buffet's the billionaire, not Obama.
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Yes, but they ARE both criminals.
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by ibsteve2u July 12, 2009 12:14 PM EDT
"House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has criticized the slow pace at which the stimulus money is being distributed."

That makes me reluctant to criticize the system that is in place to distribute the funds, because a pretty darn reliable rule of thumb is that any position that a prominent Republican takes is going to make his friends a lot of money by doing something horrible to America.
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by swin5 July 11, 2009 10:34 PM EDT
You better believe that Warren Buffet knows that if more government money is spent then a good share will end up in the back pocket of guess who? - Warren Buffet. This man is not looking out for the United States and he is not looking out for the common man - he is looking out for Warren Buffet. I wonder how many American workers were laid off, how many American factories were closed, and how many American jobs were outsourced to sweat shops in foreign countries in Warren Buffet's path to being a billionaire. Don't forget that Buffet supported BO for the presidency, so it looks like now he's cashing in his chips.
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by sjc_1 July 11, 2009 7:11 PM EDT
No second stimulus is needed. The $140 billion in checks that just went to Walmart was a waste of money. People will have to ride this one through with their family, friends and neighbors. The government will have to watch the private sector more closely so all the people are protected from the recklessness of a few.
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by smoknmirrors July 11, 2009 10:57 PM EDT
The government will have to watch WHICH sector more closely so all the people are protected from the recklessness of a few WHAT? The government constitutes the reckless few we need protection from! The government put us in this hole in the first place, using double entry bookkeeping, moving encumbered funds from where they existed to where they wanted them to be, encouraging even to the point of requiring banks to give money to people who couldn't afford to pay it back, incentivizing oil companies to raises their prices and withhold their production, move their wealth to foreign countries, driving American companies out of America with the government's Cloud Nine regulations, and sending wave after wave of American lives to an untrue war in Iraq so America could be the "foreign power defeated by the great Iraqi people." Don't be depending on the government to pull us out until they get hungry. And I don't have to tell you what's for dinner.
by jangelo490811 July 10, 2009 4:56 PM EDT
CBS:

Unfortunately Buffett is an icon that folks relate to! But he is NOTHING more than a rubber stamp for OBAMA. Buffet actually admits that the first stimulus was poorly conceived, badly planned, and even worse with the implementation. In his own words he suggested that it became a 'tool for satisying the constituentecy of politicians"..Buffets day has gone...he is now being recognized as an OBAMABAT and I wouldn't listen to anything he says...he just wants approval from the socialistic democratic party to have his place in the new WORLD order...even to support Obamna as he does makes him ANTI-GOD!

Johnny
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by swin5 July 11, 2009 10:37 PM EDT
Agree to a point but you have one thing backwards. Buffet is not the rubber stamp for Obama - it's the other way around. Buffet's the billionaire, not Obama.
by element51 July 10, 2009 12:03 PM EDT
It is simply amazing to me how so many people are screaming that Obama is a failure. He has only been in office for 6 months. It took years for us to reach the point where we are now....how can anyone expect him to solve every problem in 6 months? We have republicans standing up in the house and senate saying that Obama has failed and some demanding that the stimulus package be withdrawn before it has had a chance to work. They say these things and their answer to everything is to give the wealthy more tax cuts. Their claim is that if the wealthy get more money they will invest it in things that will create jobs. What a joke! It is true that more jobs is the answer buy it doesn't mean more jobs in China and Mexico. We absolutely MUST restore our manufacturing base and provide living wage jobs or else this will just continue to grow until there is nothing left of the middle class. The wealthy want to see things return to pre great depression times when there wasn't much of a middle class and the wealthy ruled like medieval lords. And if you argue that a middle class is necessary the republicans label you a socialist. I love this country and I love my neighbors and I am certainly not a socialist but I believe we must stand up for ourselves and let the wealthy know that we are not going to roll over and play dead. I say Power to the People.
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by tautomer July 10, 2009 8:55 PM EDT
It is simply amazing to me how so many people are screaming that Obama is a failure. He has only been in office for 6 months. It took years for us to reach the point where we are now....
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It took us from January 2007, when Obama and his Dems took over our government to get into "this mess". It's been nothing but downhill since then.



What is truly incredible about this article is the fact that "counties that supported Mr. Obama in the presidential election have so far received twice as much money per person from the stimulus package as those that supported Republican John McCain". LMAO...the great unifier!!!
by swin5 July 11, 2009 10:48 PM EDT
If I see a man whose house is on fire and then he takes out the vacuum cleaner and starts cleaning the rug, then I would judge his actions a failure. I don't need years to prove it to me.
by ma2_ciws July 9, 2009 11:14 PM EDT
ARE ALL OF YOU PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES MAD. THIS WOULD BE OUR THIRD STIMILUS. Did you all forget the free money sent out last year and the whopping eight bucks Obama gave you to give to the oil companies. Use your brains and stop listening to the media and people who are old enough to know Fred Fintstone personally! You are about to see our country so bankrupt it's not even something to laugh about.
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by gramto8 July 9, 2009 9:53 PM EDT
I thought it was a blast how the Repubs are raising Cain about how slowly the monies are being dispersed, and then turning around and proposing that the durned bill be repealed!
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by skyk-2009 July 10, 2009 7:08 AM EDT
LOL This President has a plan and a process in place. He's going to follow his plan and the distribution of those monies is part of that. We all saw what happened to the Bush Stimulus when it was just handed out like it was. The LAST people on this planet we should be listening to right now is the Repubs. They can't govern and have PROVEN it beyond any doubt.
by rerunz July 9, 2009 7:26 PM EDT
he didn't call for one. he merely stated that a second one might be necessary. bad headlines lead to poor understanding.
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by dennisall77 July 9, 2009 3:47 PM EDT
BUFFET KNOWS NOTHING! He needs to stick to singing songs about margaritas!

Oh, wait... he is the RICH ONE! Jeeeeeez, maybe he knows what the H is going on. More so than ANYONE HERE, wouldn't you say?
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by skyk-2009 July 10, 2009 7:06 AM EDT
LOL I'd suppose you were just raising heck when the Party of De-Regulation was spending those BILLIONS on a needless war and tax breaks for the rich that got us INTO this fix! LOL It's a little late for you clowns to be pretending to care about the middle class don't you think?
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