Governors Refuse Possibility of Success

Governor Perry in TX is still claiming he may well refuse stimulus unemployment payments because it will mean adding part time workers to the unemployment benefits paid. He joins Gov. Sanford, Gov. Jindal, Gov. Barbour and a few others whose interests are not served by ending the economic meltdown. In two years, they claim, when the funds are finished from this particular legislation, that would add to their states' expenses.

Do I hear rational readers asking about why refuse added income now because something might possibly happen in two years? That seems pretty farfetched to anyone who looks back over the past two years and sees that the same right wing refuseniks were saying up until about four months ago that the 'fundamentals were sound', and praising the great job growth that the last eight years had brought about. What will happen two years from now is no more likely to look like what these poor prognosticators predicted than anything from two years back.

Of course, if you worked at the Wall Street Journal, you would be accepting that prediction of dire effects as gospel truth. That's what you get paid to do.

Debt-laden state governments were supposed to be the big winners from the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. But at least five Republican Governors are saying thanks but no thanks to some of the $150 billion of "free" money doled out to states, because it could make their budget headaches much worse down the line. And they're right. (Emphasis added.)

The possibility, two years from now, that the emergency will still exists presumes success of the wingers' efforts to stave off economic recovery. Just as they predicted success of McCain/Palin in the last election, this requires a reading of events that ignores facts, and demands irrational behavior by the rest of the country as well.

The writer goes sailing merrily on as if no reader might at this point be saying 'give us a break'. Perhaps the readership has been culled of anyone intelligent enough at this point to see that governors grandstanding against the elected president of all the people might just be making ridiculous and unlikely predictions so that they can excuse their own actions against their states' and the nation's interest.

The governor makes the point for the WSJ writer, however; Mr. Perry sent a letter to President Obama last week warning that Texas may refuse certain stimulus funds. "If this money expands entitlements, we will not accept it. This is exactly how addicts get hooked on drugs," he says.

That wicked entitlement getting kicked down the road will of course be picked up by the state legislature under a provision written in by a cagey Rep. Clyburn, who slipped a little-noticed provision into the stimulus bill giving state legislatures the power to overrule Governors and spend the money "by means of the adoption of a concurrent resolution." Most state legislatures are versions of Congress; they can't say no to new spending. Note that the WSJ writer assumes you are every bit as unwilling to see benefits going to those not in the top .01% of the wealthy as he and the recalcitrant governors are.

As Diane and I have both been pointing out, the 'entitlement' mantra has become the cry off class warriors fighting against the stimulus plan that proposes to bring some of the vanquished prosperity back into our economy by giving consumers the wherewithal to consume. The wicked effects of letting working people life is earnestly being opposed by the marshalled forces of the right wing.

If the stimulus plan fails, we have the recidivists who oppose living wages to thank. If it succeeds, they will be sure to scramble to the front of the line grappling for entitlements for themselves, and credit for success.