Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2009 > February > 09
Monday, February 9, 2009
Stimulus road rocky, reckless
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With good reason, Gov. Sonny Perdue and Georgia legislators are wary of the money dump coming from Washington.
Other Georgians should be wary, too.
It’s an invitation to bloated budgets, to expanded social spending, to funding for projects that are marginally useful and, ultimately, to fiscal recklessness.
When the Senate whittled lightly at the so-called State Fiscal Stabilization Fund — a bailout to the irresponsible — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, warned that local communities would be hurt. “To get any Republicans at all,” he said, “you had to adopt a cut that’s going to mean policemen and firemen are going to be laid off.”
When, pray tell, did policemen and firemen in Atlanta or Cobb County become an obligation of taxpayers in Sioux Falls? And when did it become an obligation of taxpayers in Cobb County, who demand and get responsible stewardship from Commission Chairman Sam Olens and other elected officials, to subsidize the spend-thrift actions of those in Atlanta who give excessively generous pensions to public safety officers because they choose to spend the raise money elsewhere?
But that money, dangled through the Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, program, isn’t even limited to high-crime areas. Half of the $8 billion will go to communities of fewer than 150,000, meaning two things: One is that smaller communities are tempted to either staff up beyond what local officials would ordinarily think appropriate. The other is that the money goes to areas with no real crime problem.
In either case, it’s Washington dumping money that federalizes a local concern, money that ramps up the public payroll without creating any private-sector jobs, all in the name of stimulus.
Worse, it puts temptation money and reality avoidance money on the table for politicians who, by virtue of their job description, have no spending discipline.
To states like Georgia that have been reasonably and for the most part responsibly managed, this is a nightmare in the making. To get the money to send south, Congress has to print it or borrow it from the unborn. It’s paid off either with devalued currency or with the future quality of life of the unborn.
Georgia has a temporary revenue problem caused by the downturn. But it also has a rainy-day fund established for emergencies and a triple-A credit rating. At worst, it’ll determine that some programs are less worthy than others and whack their funding.
Or, it’ll look and decide that everything’s essential and furthermore new social spending is warranted for a statewide trauma care network, and legislators will raise taxes.
In either case, a periodically necessary and healthy debate is launched about priorities. What’s important, what’s not.
The alleged stimulus would have been less undesirable if the money had simply been divided up and handed over to state governments. Georgia then could have poured it into transportation or trauma or indigent defense or something else deemed to be a state and local priority. No, it’s program targeted. The $87 billion in proposed new spending on Medicaid, for example, gives states a two-year waiver on the 20 percent match. There’s no promise the feds will provide the money beyond that, nor is the argument here that they should. What will happen, though, is that the Medicaid match will be diverted to other spending, pushing off the need to face the budget problems.
Every dollar that comes into this state via the phony economic stimulus plan should be returned to state and local taxpayers, dollar for dollar.
Otherwise, it’s debt the locals will be repaying on their federal returns to buy more government to be financed with their state and local taxes.
Permalink | Comments (98) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Dems have filibuster-proof Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the first major bill sweeping through the new Congress, the playbook for the next two years — or longer — is now evident. Call in U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and, if needed, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, plead bipartisanship, whack a few inflated numbers, and, bingo!, Harry Reid has his filibuster-proof majority.
This will be the pattern too for keeping the liberal majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and on filling vacancies elsewhere.
This is no surprise. Once Democrats reached 57 seats in the Senate, Reid was assured of success on most every significant issue. Sure, Republicans will win a few procedural skirmishes, but none that matter in the long-term.
When House and Senate conferees sit down to align their two bills, the procedural victories of Republicans will vanish in the fine print.
“This agreement is not bipartisan,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “I’ve been in bipartisan agreements, many. This is three Republican senators. Every Republican congressman voted against it in the House, plus Democrats. And all but three Republicans stayed together on this. That’s not bipartisanship. That’s just picking off a couple of senators.”
One aspect of the Obama Administration’s push on the huge spending bill that’s a little creepy is the house parties being organized to mobilize support. Over the weekend, 38 get-togethers were to be held in Metro Atlanta. The actual purpose of the parties is not clear. Attendees were to watch streaming video from Organizing for America and then talk about it, reports the AJC’s Marcus K. Garner. This is a little bit cult-like for me — either that, or an election campaign that never ends.
Calls from hard-core Democrats to Republicans are unlikely to be persuasive, in any event. Regardless of how they vote on the $827 billion proposal, they’ll not gain or lose a Democratic-base vote.
But no matter. The Dems have Collins, Specter and Snowe. They don’t need any more Republicans, except for show.
