Recovery Act Funds Are Not For Us

I find it appropriate that funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will not be coming to Fort Bend County as County Commissioner Richard Morrison had hoped.

The county again found it self flatfooted when Lamar Consolidated ISD built a brand new high school and middle school way out in the country, and the only roads to them are two lane country roads to accommodate the thousands of commuting students, teachers, support staff and administrators.

Roads that will be used by many cars and busses. One of them even crosses railroad tracks that are often used by trains as anyone who has ever driven out there knows.

According to this article in the Chron, Richard Morrison worked diligently to lobby for some stimulus money to pay for the widening of Crabb River Road, and that he had the support of Congressman Pete Olson, whose district includes that area.

But with the hue and cry coming from Republican governors, including Texas’ Rick Perry, about not accepting these federal dollars for projects in their state way back when the stimulus bill was passed early last year, as seen here. Perry has since reversed himself and is now enjoying the benefits of handing out millions of federal dollars to state law enforcement agencies, but I think the die was cast back in February, and I think that Republican districts here in Texas will continue to be caught behind the door as stimulus funds are doled out.

Case in point, as the Chron article spells it out, Fort Bend County, with its past and present dominance by Republican politicians and politics will not be seeing a single red cent of any Department of Transportation money to help Morrison widen the roads. In fact, statewide, only two transportation projects will be funded by the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery Discretionary Grants, a $1.5 billion part of the stimulus bill.

And who got the grants? Both of them went to Dallas. One to fund a light rail expansion in downtown Dallas, and the other to help build a toll road.

Well I can understand one of the grants. Building light rail is future-thinking and the federal government needs to encourage expansion of public transportation systems. But funding a toll road?

Actually, I think that what is going on here is the Department of Transportation’s TIGER program demonstrating to Republican-dominated areas of the state that once again, all politics is local.

Dallas County went blue in 2006 and has stayed that way.

Governor Rick Perry: Egg Meet Face

How is it, I must ask, that Rick Perry is going to come out of this whole unemployment stimulus rejection thing, coupled, obviously with his recent assault on voters’ rights, smelling like anything else but a stink bug?

In his statement last March when he refused to accept $550 million in federal stimulus money, funds specifically set aside to enable Texas to help its growing list of unemployed workers, Perry was his typical Texas chauvinist self. From KTVT in a story posted last March 13th:

“If Texas were to accept these funds from Obama, my view is that it would make Texas less competitive than the other states, and it would hurt the prosperity and employment prospects for the citizens of the state of Texas”

Well the State Senate voted to accept the funds, but the bill was stalled in the House because, you know, the Republican love affair with the Voter ID bill that sought to disenfranchise the poor and the elderly.

So any hopes that Perry had that he ultimately would gain these funds anyway, without looking like he was giving in to a proffered Democratic handout were dashed.

And now, because Texas’ “prosperity and employment prospects” failed to materialize in the ensuing months, with Texas jobless ranks swelling from 139,592 to 353,881 within a single year – that’s nearly 600 jobless claims filed per day – Perry now finds that the state’s unemployment coffers are nearly empty.

So yesterday Perry announced that Texas was going to borrow $160 million in a federal - that is, Yankee -interest free loan so the state could continue to provide unemployment checks. And the word is that this borrow and spend behavior is likely to persist for awhile, and Perry could end up asking for as much as $493 million between now and October.

Nice job, Perry.

And how, pray tell, are we to pay the feds back? Well, according to The Chron They are going to issue $2 billion in state bonds. From the Chron:

“The state ultimately is expected to have to take out up to $2 billion in bonds to repay the federal loans and spread the burden of higher taxes on businesses out for four or five years.”

And how much will these bonds cost Texas in interest payments it will make on these bonds? State Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin claims it is going to cost Texas an additional $100 million in interest.

That’s $100 million tacked on to $493 million. $593 million total cost to Texas. In short, it is going to cost Texas nearly $600 million to take care of its unemployed this year.

So instead of getting $550 million in a federal bailout, the state will instead spend $600 million in money it doesn’t have.

In short, Rick Perry and his Texas chauvinism cost Texas over a billion dollars.

I wonder what his teabagging base will have to say about that?

Susan Collins: I Was For It Before I Was Against It

In a press release issued yesterday, and is posted on Senator Collins’ senate website, Senator Susan Collins adamantly denies that she opposed getting funding for pandemic flu research.

Here is part of her statement, the part that gets a bit testy:

“Claims that she is opposed to increased funding for pandemic flu research are blatantly false and politically motivated. In fact, in December 2008, Senator Collins joined in a letter to Senate leaders requesting a $905 million increase for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund at the Department of Health and Human Services.”

So why did Collins move to slice the same $900 million from the Stimulus Bill?

“…pandemic flu research funding should go through the regular appropriations process since it did not meet the test of stimulus spending.”

A technicality?

Susan Collins opposed pandemic flu research funds, and by default, supported a possible swine flu epidemic, because of a technicality?

You know it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that $900 million spends just as well whether it is put in a “stimulus bill” or an appropriations bill (which, really, when you come right down to it, is what the stimulus bill actually was).

But more to the point is the fact that pandemic flu research is actually part and parcel of economic recovery. The point is not that flu research brings in more jobs, that is patently absurd. The reason Democrats put this funding in the stimulus bill was because of the massive “What If.”

What if in the middle of a slow climb out of the cellar America, or worse, the entire world is hit with a pandemic killer flu on the order of the one that killed millions after World War 1? Not only do people lose their lives and treasure, but in proactively preventing spread of the flu, schools, businesses, banks, stock exchanges, retail outlets all close. Society and the economy all grind to a halt.

Nope, sorry Senator, that was just a bad call on your part. One that sounded good to you at the time, but one that now has all of the hallmarks of being for it before being against it. No press release is going to undo your blunder.

Especially with an explanation like that.

Texas Legislature Defunds Texas Governor

When one person turns up his nose at $555 million proffered to the unemployed and underemployed in his state, you know things are going to go bad for him.

First, Governor Perry says “No” to over half a billion dollars meant to alleviate the pain of thousands of Texans who are caught without jobs in a dried-up job market, then the Legislature vows to step up and accept the funding. And yesterday, in a preliminary vote, it looks like the Texas Senate is going to do just that.The twelve Senate Democrats were joined by 10 of their Republican colleagues in passing the measure that would change Texas law to enable the state to accept the federal dollars.

Because when it is a choice between making thousands of lives more comfortable in these uncomfortable times, and making a petty political point, the Legislature opts for the former, and the Governor is usually a chump for the latter.

And in a fit of pique, the Governor again made a laughing stock of himself and 18% of all Texans in his veiled threat to exercise Texas’ unique ability to secede from the Union rather than knuckle under to the pressures from Washington. A unique ability that exists only in the minds of the clueless.

Earlier the governor announced that he will veto any legislation that they pass to enable Texas to claim these funds from the federal government.

This was followed close on with a House vote for a constitutional amendment that would allow legislators to return to a legislative session after it had ended for the purpose of overriding any vetoes a governor makes after the legislative session ends.

Back and forth, back and forth.

And now it appears that the legislature is upping the ante. They are voting to defund the governor’s office. From the Austin American-Statesman:

“The House voted this afternoon to strip almost all of the money out of the budget Gov. Rick Perry uses to pay his staff and operate his office.”

“During debate over the proposed state budget for the next two years, the House voted for an amendment by Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, to move about $4 million from the governor’s office to veterans’ programs.”

“Then the House approved an amendment sponsored by Rep. John Davis, R-Houston, to more than $18 million out of the governor’s office and into mental health crisis services.“

And in one more move, after whittling more and more from the governor’s office in order to fund some really much-needed projects (implying, I guess, that the governor’s office is anything but much-needed), the legislature informed the governor that he could keep his $136 million Enterprise Fund if Texas could get that $555 million from the feds.

See what you can accomplish when bipartisanship rules the day?

Tax Day Tea Parties Across the Nation

Just what you want to see. The Sore Losers Club out in the sunshine on April 15th. Here is a sampler of what is occurring today across the nation.

Yep. This is what I call a unified silent majority shaking their fists at both parties over their moral outrage at the corporate bailouts.

The Grand Old Tea Party

April 15^th is not my favorite day of the year. It’s usually a day that I find myself in line at the post office making sure that my mail has an April 15^th postmark.

And usually I have lots of company. People who, for one reason or another, wait to file their federal returns at the last minute. But this year, who knows, maybe it’ll be different. Because if you are to believe what you hear over the airwaves and what you read in the news, everyone will be at a tea party.

Or should I say TEA party.

The TEA party in question is being organized by a group of people who call themselves Taxed Enough Already or TEA.

A group that I like to call The Sore Losers Club.

Because nearly everywhere this event is being promoted as a mass gripe session for people who don’t like Barack Obama and his tax and spend Democratic ways.

There is some disagreement whether this is a tea party or a TEA party. If you look here you see it spelled out all lower case and the organizers claim that it’s not a Republican event. Or an anti-Obama gripe session.

Really.

The organizers of the Fort Bend County tea party claim that their event is a bipartisan one. They’re mad at both parties for the bailouts and the stimuli. She says it this way:

“People think this is about President Obama, but it’s not. It is about making a change in government. They’re making bad decisions. These stimulus bills are out of control. I’ve worked hard all my life and no one has given me a handout.”

But when you look here, at the national official TEA party site, you see that TEA is an acronym.

And at that website you see a litany of complaints, none of them directed at the administration that arranged a $750 billion bailout for their friends last fall. A bailout that was paid out apparently with no one watching the door.

Or the windows.

Or the cash register.

Not to mention the fact that it was a Republican congress and a Republican administration that made the whole financial crisis possible.

No if you are to believe the vitriol at that site, all of this is Obama’s fault. And the Democrats.

That and, by the way, we are Taxed Enough Already.

The acronym, you know, makes this event the most poorly timed event of the new millennium.

And why do I say this? Because tomorrow my bi-monthly check arrives from my employer. A check whose net to me will be $13 LARGER because the Obama Administration and the Democratic congress passed a law, a law that the TEA party website apparently resents, that decreased American employees’ federal withholding.

And better yet, the budget, when passed, will contain a sizeable tax cut for me because I, like 95% of all Americans, don’t pull down at least a quarter million a year.

Beautiful. A tax protest on a day when there is uniform enrichment of Americans.

From taxes.

But getting back to the Fort Bend tea party, this is a gathering that has all of the hallmarks of being one for the books. Republicans in Fort Bend County are fanatical by reputation and are given to say and do some really awful things. So despite the soft-peddling of the event being done by its organizers, this event will be as polarized as it can be: an anti-Obama, anti-Democratic Party (aka “The Winners”) rally.

“No taxation without representation.”

Hoo, boy.

Texas Democratic Congressmen Cry Foul: Texas Misusing Stimulus Funds

The Texas Democratic delegation to the United States Congress, upon learning that the Texas legislature intends to use the billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds that were allocated toward the state’s education to prop up its “Rainy Day Fund,” currently pegged at $9 billion, have sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan arguing that these funds were intended to go directly to school districts – not the state. And surely, not to go toward the state’s “slush fund.”

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“‘We believe that the (stabilization funding) was not intended to allow Texas to maintain its Rainy Day Fund, but rather to immediately invest in our schools to strengthen education and improve student achievement,’ wrote the Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin.”

To which State Rep Florence Shapiro responded (as this is her little hobby shop that she mismanages on a term-by-term basis):

“Easy for them to say. The last thing we want to do is take money out of the rainy day fund. The fear is we haven't seen the bottom yet.”

The idea is that the Rainy Day Fund will provide this funding for education anyway.

But from past experience, seeing how these people rob Peter to pay Paul, making funds jump from one place to another, these Democratic Congressmen know whereof they speak.

Sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors prevail when the Republicans get their hands on new found money. The Democratic congressmen are correct, and no education stimulus funds should be released to Texas until they are properly assigned directly to the school districts.

“Shovel-Ready” is Not “Shovel-Right”

Part and parcel, and some would say “central to” the president’s economic stimulus plan is the funding of “shovel ready” public works projects. Projects involving the rebuilding of our country’s crumbling infrastructure. Projects that bring jobs to people and bacon to the breakfast table.

But now, we are starting to see how and where the federal stimulus funds are being spent. We are starting to see public works projects being queued for commencement. And in seeing these projects unfold one after the other, one has to ask “is shovel-ready, shovel-right?”

In part, one must ask this question because of near term vs. long term goals of the Obama Administration. In the near term, we need to repair or replace the things that have served us in the past. No one needs to be reminded of the lives and property lost when the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota failed and took rush hour commuters to their deaths a year and a half ago. That bridge became a poster child for the aging of America’s infrastructure even though it was later revealed that the failure ultimately stemmed from an undetected design flaw in the bridge.

But in the long term, we need to address energy and environmental issues that have only now begun to plague our society. Our infrastructure has been built without taking into account the energy that will be consumed as those projects start serving society. Without taking into account whether that project will increase or decrease greenhouse gas output. President Obama said it best earlier during his town hall meeting in Florida:

“‘The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over,’ he said, urging officials to employ ‘innovative thinking’ when deciding how to spend their transportation money”

This is the vision as expounded by White House spokesman Nick Shapiro in speaking to the New York Times:

“A White House spokesman, Nick Shapiro, said that the stimulus bill would promote ‘long-term sustainable development’ by spending billions of dollars on renewable energy, mass transit, rail service and urban development, and he added that the choice of most transportation projects was left to states.”

And therein lies the rub. While there is nothing wrong with the vision, a view from the White House “bubble” (as our president calls it), there is something wrong with letting the states decide which project will benefit from this federal stimulus.

State have shovel-ready projects. Projects that have been formulated, plans that have surveys and schedules. Plans for projects that are ready to go, but just don’t have any funds to launch them.

The trouble is, the states have plans that are all ready to go, but these plans are from a vision that looks backward to a time when energy was something you just bought, and greenhouse gases were things that made your tomatoes grow.

Projects that are ready to go are yesterday’s projects, for yesterday’s needs.

Witness the plans to use these stimulus funds in New Hampshire where they will widen I-93, a corridor that delivers New Hampshire residents to Boston, where they work.

Witness the plans to use these stimulus funds in North Carolina to extend I-295 to Fayetteville, a move to benefit its big cash cow, Fort Bragg, but will be built at the expense of projects in already established cities.

Or far more closer to home, witness what Texas Department of Transportation wants to do with $181 million of the funds sent to them from the stimulus plan: extend an established roadway, The Grand Parkway, through an undeveloped area west of Houston, and build it as a toll road (that’s right, tax dollars to build a toll road) so that developers can build on land even further away from the Houston metropolitan area.

A plan that would warm the hearts of the Saud family.

The point is, “shovel-ready” is not “shovel-right.” The long-term vision is correct, but the reality is that shovel-ready projects are projects developed in the past. Projects envisioned by the myopic.

And for those who are ready to consider what kinds of infrastructure transportation projects in and around cities fit the bill here, I have just two words:

Light rail.

80% Approval. What About It Now, Grand Obstructionist Party?

It’s here at the CBS News poll taken before (63% Approval of President Obama’s plans for dealing with the economic crisis), and after (80% Approval) President Barack Obama addressed the joint session of Congress and millions of Americans who sat there last night glued to their television sets.

80% Approval.

So what about it now, Grand Obstructionist Party? Party of “No!”? Is it time to knock off all of the political grandstanding? Is it time to stop chasing after red herrings that constitute less than 10% of the entire economic recovery package?

By my count that leaves the obstructionists with 20% (or maybe even less) who side with GOP hardliners. By my count, that means that only the extreme right wing of the GOP now go along with the Republican minority who jink and swerve at every turn to try and prevent a 3 pointer from Obama.

But I hear that Obama is a good hand at sinking 3 pointers.

Is that where Republicans want to align themselves for the next election? With the fanatic fringe?

So, obstructionist congress, partisan governors, Bobby Jindal (hey, nice work, by the way, with your rebuttal speech. I couldn’t have done a better job discrediting your party if I tried). What about it? How about it now that there are 80% of us behind Obama’s brand of economic recovery?

Wanna play ball now?

Bipartisanship is DOA in Congress

Well it’s official. The only politician acting in a bipartisan way in Washington, D.C. is Barack Obama.

And sometimes 3 Republican senators.

Obama continues to reach his open hand across the aisle, only to have it slapped time and time again. Today, the House voted 244 to 188 to pass the $787 billion stimulus package that was agreed to in House/Senate meetings held to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the stimulus bill.

244 to 188.

Guess who made up that 188 minority?

11 Democrats who chose to vote against their party and their President, and every single Republican in the House except for Ginny Brown-Waite, who didn’t vote.

The bipartisanship that the Obama Administration was trying to foster, and going to tremendous lengths to do that at the angst of his own party’s base is DOA in the House. There is no life to breath into the corpse.

And yesterday, Obama’s bipartisan act in choosing a conservative Republican to be his Secretary of Commerce was rewarded by Senator Gregg flip-flopping without warning with an announcement that he was going to pass on Obama’s offer, return to the Senate, and vote against his bill.

And it is becoming very clear why there is very little bipartisanship in Congress. We’ve had two elections now where Democrats have swept Republicans out of office in huge numbers. Congressman in swing districts and Senators in swing states, or in states and districts that have outright flipped from Red to Blue are now largely Democrats. Moderate Republicans are practically nonexistent in Congress.

Apparently, the only other people acting in any kind of bipartisan manner are 3 Republican Senators, Specter, Snowe and Collins. But really, these are holdovers from former Republican states. Specter is from Pennsylvania and Collins and Snowe are from Maine. Both states went for Obama in a big way. If these three senators want to keep their jobs, they will have to be voting with the Democratic majority a great deal of the time. Either that or face the wrath of their voters.

Interestingly, this is exactly the same situation that my ex-congressman, Nick Lampson faced, and it worked out none too well for him, either.

Did it?

So do I think Barack Obama should abandon his attempts to appease the party of the Dark Side? Well, if he wants to stop wasting his time and if he wants to stop receiving the potshots that these uberpartisans want to deliver to him, maybe he should.

But I don’t think that’s his style. Besides, I ask myself, isn’t Barack Obama just acting out what every evangelical Christian Republican demands of their congregations? Isn’t Barack Obama obeying the Lord’s instruction?

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Luke 6: 27-31

Jesus was bipartisan. But apparently what’s good enough for their Savior isn’t good enough for Republicans in Congress.

House and Senate Agree on Stimulus Package: Now, Will It Work?

It has been pared down to a mere $789 billion, but the stimulus plan that has been approved by a bunch of Democrats and three Republicans appears to be on its way to President Obama’s desk for signing, since an agreement was thrashed out in the House/Senate committee.

But we still have to formalize it with a vote, and anything still goes.

Republicans have one last chance to get on board with a plan, rather than look like a bunch of obstructionist zombies.

Now the two questions I have to ask myself are these:

1. When will I know that the stimulus is working?
2. What will Republicans dream up to demonstrate that it isn’t?
   

Here is what I could find to answer the first question.

From Business Week:

“At his first prime-time press conference, President Obama was asked a central question about the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package: How will Americans know if it's working? ‘My initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs,’ Obama answered.”

I guess that’s a safe bet, but still . . . what are going to be the early indicators?

But the first thing we should see is that people are getting the support that they need to overcome the immediate effects of unemployment. Receiving extended unemployment benefits and food stamps.

“‘What you'll see [in benefit] and when you see it depends on who you are,’ says Steve Ellis, vice-president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a taxpayer advocacy group. ‘If you are living hand-to-mouth, you should have greater access to food stamps and other assistance right away.’”

What about interest rates?

“"If interest rates stay extremely low, the plan is definitely working," says [J. Bradford DeLong, an economics professor]. "If Treasury interest rates do start to rise by more than normal levels, then we worry that [the spending] is crowding out private economic activity and discouraging investment.”

But here is the big problem. We aren’t living in a science lab. We don’t have a “control group” or a group being given only a placebo. So whatever effect we see we won’t really know if it is because the stimulus plan is working, because we don’t know what the world would look like in a reality where no stimulus bill was ever passed.

And this, I think, answers my second question.

Hutchison: I’ll Vote Against the Stimulus But Won’t Turn Down the Money If It Passes

Did you see the news clip at KVUE where Texas Senator Kaye Bailey Hutchison first talked out of one of her two mouths in criticizing the stimulus bill and promises to vote against it “because of so many of the factors that are wrong,” then out of the other one when she admits that the $2.8 billion in transportation funds that would come to Texas as part of the plan is completely appropriate because “we have so many needs for transportation in Texas.”

Is there any consistency here? On the one hand the stimulus bill is wrong, but on the other hand the state needs the transportation funds that it would deliver to Texas?

Clearly Hutchison is trying to play to two audiences, and to neither of them is she very convincing.

Clearly Hutchison is joining her party’s faithful anti-stimulus movement choosing to oppose it not because it won’t bring funds needed here, but because Republicans, led by Rush Limbaugh, want to see the stimulus fail.

Because if it does, the Republicans look good. And like the “success of the surge” arguments, Republican will try to define what failure is, and then call the stimulus a failure. That’s their MO.

On the other hand, Rick Perry, Hutchison’s future gubernatorial opponent in the March 2010 Republican primary, promises to reject any and all funds that come to Texas from the stimulus bill, should it pass. So Hutchison plays to the anti-Perry crowd and criticizes that idea.

And ends up praising the bill because of what it could bring to Texas.

If it passes.

Which she opposes.

Now what is really bad about this whole thing is that Hutchison is a woman. And when I see or hear a woman make such bubble-headed remarks like that, I cringe, knowing that the advances women continue to make in our paternal society are not helped by these utterances.