GOP governors: Stimulus money may hurt in long run

[47of74]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Though they support some federal action to help their states recover from the recession, several Republican governors said Sunday they plan to turn down a portion of what's offered in the stimulus bill that President Obama signed last week.
Gov. Haley Barbour said the stimulus bill would force Mississippi to raise taxes.

"If we were to take the unemployment reform package that they have, it would cause us to raise taxes on employment when the money runs out -- and the money will run out in a couple of years," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/22/stimulus.governors/index.html

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Once again, break out the tiny violins. I'm past the point of giving a hoot in hell of what these Republicans think when it was largely the actions of REPUBLICANS that got us into this mess!

[no_hypocrisy]

1. And that's why these governors are prepared to allow their states to go bankrupt?

[Why Syzygy]

2. I have a hard time believing

that it is just the way they are portraying this issue. I want to see numbers. If it works, and the economy rebounds, would they still need to raise taxes? Or, might there be additional programs coming along that would resolve it? I'm not satisfied with naval staring.

[Jeep789]

3. We'll Go Broke Sooner So We Don't Go Broke Later?? nt

[ben_thayer]

4. Better to let the Unemployment

money run out now, than possibly having to (GASP!) raise taxes in an ELECTION YEAR!!

:grr:

[bluesmail]

5. If they have anything to do with it, it will. eom

[blue_onyx]

6. Even if the stimulus improves the economy...

the GOP will say it didn't help. Just like how they're re-writing history about how the New Deal was supposedly a failure.

[jpak]

7. Fucking Haley Barbour didn't gripe about accepting FEMA money after Katrina

but then again ,most of that went to his family and friends.

Barbour can suck it.

[47of74]

17. That's a real pleasant mental image

[FreakinDJ]

8. Earth to GOP - You have hurt the entire country in the long run

"Insanity is doing the same thing twice expecting different results"

Glad to see the majority of americans are waking up

[Downwinder]

9. Are they waking up or just noticing they are getting hurt?

If they were awake they would be doing something.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

10. But it WILL hurt in the long run...

In the long run, people will realize that conservative dogma is as out-of-touch with reality today as it was in 1928. In the long run, the Republican Party will be banished to the fringe of American politics. So this stimulus package is basically poison to them.

[jaxx]

11. It seems like the unemployment is a big no-no to them.

One of the things that would directly and immediately benefit the people, no wonder the pubs don't want anything to do with it. I think it should be take all the money or get none. This nonsense about picking and choosing is wrong.

[DallasNE]

12. High Risk Gambit For Republicans

They seem to be betting that they were successful in keeping the stimulus bill too small, causing the recovery to be too weak and extending unemployment benefits well beyond the 2-year term of this bill. Well, Mississippi is the poorest State in the country and it sure looks like the Governor wants to retain that standing. I hope voters keep that in mind when they next go to the polls.

[2Design]

13. the unemployed can move to a new state and collect there - which may be their strategy n/t

[Demeter]

14. There Is No Logic Like GOP Illogic

These people are crazy and evil at the same time.

[WoodyM]

15. One of the governors

that are talking about not accepting the stimulus money is Mark Sanford of my state of South Carolina.
In May 2003, just as the S. C. legislative session was ending, Bush signed a tax-cut bill that included, courtesy of the free-spending republican Congress, a $20 billion appropriation to the states. South Carolina’s share of the goodies was $265 million. The S. C. Republican authorities promptly devoted $220 million of that money to shoring up the fiscal 2004 S.C. Medicaid health care plan. Then, Sanford and legislative leadership “found” another $44 million for state aid to schools, allowing them to beef up base state aid per pupil spending for the following fiscal year from $1,701 to $1,777.
Sanford took credit for this last minute boost to public school spending. Though they didn’t mention where the money had come from. The S. C. Education Association, with some shrewd forensic accounting, deduced that the money had come from the leftover financed federal largesse.
True, the federal red ink that made possible this timely boost to Medicaid and state school aid pales in comparison to the payment South Carolina would receive from the federal stimulus package. But it’s a difference only of degree.
If it was OK in 2003 for the state to glom onto a deficit-financed rescue for Medicaid and state school aid, why is it now not OK for the state to glom onto the S. C. portion of the federal stimulus package?
The answer, I suspect is that the Democrats now control the machinery of the federal government.
On Bush’s watch, they cheerfully incurred huge deficits while expanding the domestic side of the federal budget more than any Congress in decades.
It would be a hard lesson but if Sanford refuses the money perhaps it would teach the people of this state that the republicans have absolutely no concern for ordinary, everyday working people.

[jzodda]

16. what's with SC anyway?

Why do the people there put up with such crap? Are they all far right wingers?

[NewEnglandKnowledge]

18. True

Speak it brother! Speak it!  They will keep digging and
digging, let them do it.

Can anyone tell me if this stimulus package is sending $400
rebate checks, or lowering tax liability overall annually for
$400, and producing $13 in each pay check?  I get conflicting
info.

[kirby]

19. Let me break it down...

Why are some Republicans bitching? They claim that in order to accept the unemployment money, they need to change their state laws to provide unemployment insurance for part-time employees.
The could care less about the workers in their state and only care about the businesses who have to pay the unemployment insurance.

[radfringe]

20. Then don't take it. Give it to the states who care about their people. n/t