I feel like now is the time that we should be encouraging government to start scraping some pennies and reduce the debt before we go into another huge venture

Elections don't change wasteful spending. They only change the group of people who say it's wrong to do it. The funny thing is how accepting each side is of their own party doing what they demonized the other party for when they were in control.

They aren't scraping pennies, but it sounds like they might be scrapping them. Apparently we spent 180 million a year to make 150 million dollars worth of pennies. I don't know about you, but a lot of the pennies I get through the year end up in either the trash or the nearest homeless person's cup.

I also think there is a difference in demonizing over war vs. demonizing over something that in theory could help the American people. In fact, HCR could have helped the people of the country a bit more if a few Republicans had been willing to cross party lines. Unfortunately everything is just a party line vote at this point. I think even the rape bill was.

The Obama administration has taken some heat and mockery for using the nebulous and non-economic term of jobs being “saved or created” by the $787 billion stimulus program.

So it’s gotten rid of it.

In a little-noticed December 18, 2009 memo from Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag the Obama administration is changing the way stimulus jobs are counted.

The memo, first noted by ProPublica, says that those receiving stimulus funds no longer have to say whether a job has been saved or created.

“Instead, recipients will more easily and objectively report on jobs funded with Recovery Act dollars,” Orszag wrote.

In other words, if the project is being funded with stimulus dollars – even if the person worked at that company or organization before and will work the same place afterwards – that’s a stimulus job.