Day: March 21, 2009

Palin Joins Other GOP Governors

Gov. Sarah Palin said Thursday that she would accept only 69 percent of the estimated $930 million dollars that could flow to the state, including $514 million for capital projects and $128 million for a hike in Medicaid reimbursement.

Palin said she would accept money that is “timely, targeted and temporary” and does not create strings that will bind the state in the future.

“I can’t attest to every fund that’s being offered the state in the stimulus package will be used to create jobs and stimulate the economy, so I’m requesting only those things that I know will,” Palin said at a news conference at the Capitol. “Public discussion will have to ensue on all those other dollars that some will say ‘you left on the table.'”

Is it just me or is there something fishy about Repub governors that are refusing stim money theat would help the unemployed in their states?  I realize that the GOP really does not give two shits in hell about the working majority in this country, but is this not a little blatant?

Some other Republican governors have also announced reservations about accepting the federal money, particularly when it comes to expanding jobless benefits.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week announced that he turned down $555 million of federal stimulus funding that would expand the state’s unemployment benefits. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he would not accept nearly $100 million to expand unemployment benefits. And South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has said he only wants to use the federal money to pay down debt.  Let us not leave out the biggest idiot of all….Gov. Barbour of Mississippi.

Another amazing part about this is that the people, the voters, in these states return these types of people to power time and time again, knowing that their best interests are NOT in the agenda.  I guess if we check the educational stats of these states, they would be at the lower end of the spectrum, huh?  That could explain it, in a way.

Cover Your Ass!

As reported in the Politico:

Moderate and conservative Democrats in the Senate are starting to choke over the massive spending and tax increases in President Barack Obama’s budget plans and have begun plotting to increase their influence over the agenda of a president who is turning out to be much more liberal than they are.

A group of 14 Senate Democrats and one independent huddled behind closed doors on Tuesday, discussing how centrists in that chamber can assert more leverage on the major policy debates that will dominate this Congress.

Sen. Evan Bayh, the Indiana Democrat who assembled Tuesday’s skull session, added that he was “very concerned” about Washington’s level of spending, especially in a $410 billion “omnibus” spending bill to fund the government until the start of a new fiscal year in October.

As for the tax increases on high-income earners called for in Obama’s plan, Bayh said, “I do think that before we raise revenue, we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut back on spending.”

The anxiety that moderate and conservative Democrats in the Senate are feeling about Obama’s agenda is potentially significant. In the House, moderate Democrats have much less leverage to slow action on a majority that under Speaker Nancy Pelosi is eager to embrace the boldest and most expensive parts in the agenda.

Still sounds like CYA to me…….some of the 15 are up for re-election in 2010 and they are trying to help themselves to more popularity as the president’s is sliding.  Still sounds like cowards to me….this group is just trying to distant themselves from Obama…..because they will be in opposition on some issues like the card check thing among others.

The media is calling them “centrists”…….sorry, Obama is a “centrist”, this group is further right than that.   These cowards are nothing but the Senate copy of the House of Representative “Blue Dogs”.  Another group of cowards that are more intersted in covering their collective asses than working for the people that elected them.

How Did The Bonuses Happen?

In passing the Obama stimulus plan in February, the Senate voted for language revoking bonuses for companies that had benefited or would benefit from the first $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

In the closed-door House-Senate conference where the final draft of the stimulus bill was written, a provision was substituted, allegedly written by Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, that any restrictions on bonuses “shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009.”

This language was crafted to exempt AIG and other financial giants that had taken money from the first $350 billion doled out under the Bush administration. Dodd, who repeatedly denied authoring the provision, is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and the largest recipient of campaign contributions from AIG and its employees over the past 20 years.

It is in this context—of brazen corporate looting of public funds and slavish acquiescence by federal officials, both Democratic and Republican—in which Obama’s efforts Wednesday to manage the public relations crisis should be understood.

The initial position of the White House was to flatly reject any effort to revoke the bonuses, on the grounds that they were contractual obligations of AIG that the company was legally bound to honor, a claim reiterated by chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers in several appearances on last Sunday’s television talk shows.