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Open Source Study Included In US Stimulus Package
gclef writes "Buried deep in the details of the US stimulus package is an interesting provision that might go a long way toward helping Open Source software break into the medical area. It says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services should study the availability of open source health technology systems (PDF, page 488), compare their TCO against proprietary systems and report on what they find no later than Oct 1, 2010. Slashdotters may also be interested in the language that starts on page 553 of that PDF to see just what the final package says about broadband."
The stimulus plan was approved by the Senate on Friday and is expected to be signed by President Obama by Monday.
Arlen Specter said as much to the press, you can hear the audio here. A lot of Republicans wanted the stimulus to pass, but were afraid to have their "fingerprints" on the legislation. The Republicans are simply to cowardly to face down the Club for Growth and Dear Leader Comrade Rush.
The bill is the biggest single tax cut in history and the Republicans still wouldn't vote for it. This is a party run by people who mail tire gauges and silly putty and bricks to their enemies and getting good soundbites on the news when they should be writing good laws. A party completely obsessed with appearances and run by media celebrities.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I think your a little confused. The republicans had no part in shaping this bill until after it failed. Pelosi and the democrats whipped it together and thier "republican input" were nothing more then their interpretations of concerns expressed by republicans with sound bytes taken from the congressional record and/or TV shows. They talked to a few "republicans" who were economists but not legislatures. Pelosi said, they won the election, this is what the election was about, and it didn't matter. Obama has even claimed that they "invited" the republicans to come but none of them showed up when making the bill. That's because they didn't make the bill in the house or senate where the legislature is supposed to be.
Now a problem with this is the pork. There isn't a small amount of pork, there is a large amount of pork. You see, items not traditionally called pork is pork in this context because it doesn't follow the intentions of the bill. Money for streamlining the medical system is a good objective but it's pork in this case because the bill is supposed to create jobs tomorrow not cause long term spending or enact new spending, all of which needs the proper debate and consideration that they are attempting to completely avoid with this bill.
The house democrats have basically just voted for a bill that most of them have no idea what it says, not because they were lazy or complacent but because the leadership didn't give enough time for it to be read before the bill would have been voted on. From the introduction to the vote, you would have had to read, comprehend, and understand 2.5 pages per minute just to account for the time between the introduction and the vote. If that doesn't scare you, the premise that legislators cannot even read what they are voting on because someone is afraid it wouldn't pass if they could, then you deserve what is coming.