Kudos to Kirk for vote on House bill

While readers of the Daily Herald were engrossed in the three-ring circus atmosphere of Rod Blagojevich's removal from the governorship - whose removal represents only the tip of an iceberg in excising the reek of corruption here in Illinois - attention was diverted from a coinciding event taking place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Jan. 28. It was then that the $1.17 trillion House stimulus bill was passed.

Rep. Mark Kirk is to be applauded, along with every other House Republican and 11 Democrats who stood up for their country and for the American people to oppose the House bill, which passed with a 244-186 vote. In the bill less than 5 percent of the $1.17 trillion was targeted to repair America's deteriorating infrastructure, with much of that spending not happening until 2010 or later. Additionally, the bill contained tens of billions of pork-laden items. As House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia, related to the media the day the bill passed: "This was not a stimulus bill. It was a spending bill."

With most Americans there is nary a blink of the eye when the figure $1 trillion is bandied about. I recently came upon these facts about how big $1 trillion really is: Spending at $1 a second, it would take 31,546 years to spend $1 trillion.

About the bill itself, if passed, the Washington-based Heritage Foundation estimates that the $ 1 trillion bill will dump $10,520 of new debt per household into the laps of our children and grandchildren. About the creation of the 3.7 million jobs promised by President Obama, Heritage cautions that each job would cost more than $200,000, which is roughly equivalent to 5 times what the average American worker earns!

Hopefully some sense will prevail when the Senate crafts its version of the bill. Voters should care. They should speak up and let legislators know how they feel about the use of their money as taxpayers.

Nancy J. Thorner

Lake Bluff