How Do You Cherry Pick a Law?

I don’t get it. How can Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford, or Haley Barbour, Republican governors all, cherry pick the newly passed economic recovery package?

It’s the law of the land now.

How can a governor say ‘thank you very much’ when he accepts federal money to rebuild his state’s infrastructure on one hand, but then sneer at a proffered federal hand held out to help his state deal with ever-lengthening unemployment lines?

When you pass a law, it’s take it or leave it, not take the best parts and tear up the parts you don’t like. Actually, like NCLB a federal law that mandated that states change the way they educate their children, it’s “take it.” There was no “leave it”

Governor Ed Rendell pretty much sums it up when he told Fixed Noise this, as reported at CNN:

“"I'm not sure that we can, over the long run, cope with the high unemployment compensation standard that this mandates for states,’ Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, the head of the National Governor's Association, told Fox News Sunday. ‘But I don't care. My people are suffering,’ he added. ‘They need that extra money. And right now that's paramount in my mind.’”

Or as The Governator told George Stephanapoulos this morning, also from CNN:

“‘I am more than happy to take his money or [that of] any other governor in this country that doesn't want to take this money. I take it because I think California needs it.’ Schwarzenegger called it ‘a terrific package,’ and said he does not foresee a need for a tax hike in the future to sustain the unemployment provisions.”

But more importantly, it’s the law. Take the money.

Besides, it is irresponsible to slap away a bucket full of money that would help citizens, and voters, get through bad times, all to make a petty political point.

So I have a modest proposal. Let’s make this a “take it or leave it law.” No cherry picking allowed. Either accept federal money or don’t. None of this whiney ‘I like this part but I just hate that part.’

So governor whiners of the United States, knock it off. You lose any high moral ground you think you are gaining, and you ensure a successful Democratic argument that the stimulus bill is doomed to failure because Republicans refused the money.