It IS Too A Game, Mr. President!

Posted by on . 3 comments.

President Obama on the stimulus bill debate yesterday:

This is not a game…

AP, January 31:

Most Republican governors have broken with their fellow party members in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama’s economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care.

Their state treasuries drained by the financial crisis, governors would welcome the money from Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers are more skeptical of Obama’s spending priorities.

The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, planned to meet in Washington this weekend with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other senators to press for her state’s share of the package.

For Sarah Palin, though, everything is a game. Politico reports that she’s now fighting against the stimulus bill:

Several of the GOP’s most prominent governors blasted the stimulus plan making its way through Congress Thursday, urging Senate Republicans to resist passing the bill and taking aim at what they called unnecessary spending in the package.

“The legislation currently being considered includes excess spending and impedes states’ abilities to manage their own programs,” said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. “I will oppose any stimulus package that increases states’ costs and taxes, or results in federal control over state-administered programs.
[...]
In a statement coordinated by South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who chairs the Republican Governors Association, Sanford, Barbour, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took a hard line against what they termed debt-increasing measures in the proposed economic recovery bill.
[...]
Palin said in the statement she worried some of the bill’s spending wouldn’t effectively address the economic crisis.

“My fear is that, as written, we are only pouring more dollars into federal programs that will become unfunded mandates for states to continue funding for generations,” Palin said. “None of us can afford that.”

For the record, none of the other Republican governors identified by Politico as opposing the bill had previously embraced it.

Comments

  1. daveg says:
    February 6, 2009 at 5:14 pm

    This is not the worst economy since the Great Depression… it’s the worst since the end of the Carter administration.

    And the solution of course was to remove the shackles of a high tax burden from businesses and citizens, so they can use their money to create wealth – whether through innovation or entertainment.

    But somehow our new President seems to ‘ignore’ the massive recessions and higher unemployment rates of more recent history and assert that we will “never recover” if we don’t spend nearly a trillion dollars.

    I find his rhetoric and selective use (abuse) of historical facts, and his attitude while doing so, insulting to Americans.

  2. kiel says:
    February 6, 2009 at 6:59 pm

    And the deregulations of the Reagan administration are the root cause of the worst economy today. Just as the Reagan administration’s support of the Taliban put them in power to threaten us, and the reagan administration’s unquestioned support of Saddam Hussein led to the morass in Iraq. Yeah, gee. Thanks, Ronnie.

  3. Reality says:
    February 12, 2009 at 3:59 am

    daveg doesn’t know what he is talking about, but spouting the same Republican lie that they’ve been spouting for years. He’s been brainwashed. If he hadn’t he’d be able to see very clearly that after the Republicans took over the Congress in 1994, they started giving huge tax breaks to businesses and wiping away years of regulatory progress. This policy was furthered with Bush’s 2002 huge tax break to the wealthy and corporations and directing his administration not to enforce what regulations were left. The wealthy and business already pay less tax than any other industrialized nation.

    And the recession of the 970′s was deeper in some areas, but then, it had been going on longer; we’re only at the start of this one. And it is the most severe, sharpest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression. That’s not rhetoric, but fact. daveg’s ridiculous revisionist history won’t change that fact.

    Let’s correct another of his lies. The recession of the 1970s was inherited by Jimmy Carter. daveg would have us believe that Carter was the cause of it. In actuality, the recession was the result of Richard Nixon taking the Dollar off the gold standard, which he was strongly advised not to do, because it would open the opportunity for foreign nations to manipulate the value of our currency. That’s exactly what happened in 1973, when OPEC embargoed is.