Culver, Schwarzenegger on the same ‘stimulus’ page

February 3, 2009 by 6 Comments

Leave it to the nations Governors to have their hands out and expect to get their fair share of the “stimulus” package. I find it ironic that the letter below states “As stewards of the economies of our respective states and regions, we urge the Congress to reach prompt resolution of all outstanding differences and you to sign the bill when it reaches your desk”.
If Culver and Schwarzenegger want the same thing it must be something IDA readers need to know about. Yep, these Governors are quite the “stewards.”

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/019201.html

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and 18 other governors (if you count the Virgin Islands) sent a letter to President Barack Obama supporting the stimulus plan working its way through Congress.
The $800 billion-plus spending package could help California close its roughly $40 billion budget deficit as well as pump money into infrastructure projects in the state.
“We urge the Congress to reach prompt resolution of all outstanding differences and you to sign the bill when it reaches your desk,” the bipartisan group of governors write.
The full letter from Schwarzenegger and the other governors follows:
The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
We are writing to express our support for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which passed last week in the House and is under consideration currently in the Senate. As stewards of the economies of our respective states and regions, we urge the Congress to reach prompt resolution of all outstanding differences and you to sign the bill when it reaches your desk.
Families and businesses across the nation are hurting. Credit markets have seized up, which is affecting both business activity and consumer spending. Unemployment is rising sharply. While we all believe in the importance of free markets, we believe that the markets today need stimulating.
We support the objectives of ARRA and welcome the partnership it offers us as governors. The support for a temporary increase in the federal commitment for public education, health care (including cost control through initiatives such as health records IT), and for rebuilding our public infrastructure will create and preserve jobs today, and represents a sound investment in our long-term economic interests as well. We look forward to working with Congress and your Administration to advance an economic recovery package that puts federal dollars to work in our states in the quickest and most efficient manner as possible.
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully yours,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
California
Governor M. Jodi Rell
Connecticut
Governor Deval Patrick
Massachusetts
Governor Charlie Crist
Florida
Governor Bill Ritter Jr.
Colorado
Governor Chester J. Culver
Iowa
Governor Jack Markell
Delaware
Governor Jon S. Corzine
New Jersey
Governor Pat Quinn
Illinois
Governor Ted Strickland
Ohio
Governor Jennifer M. Granholm
Michigan
Governor Theodore R. Kulongoski
Oregon
Governor David A. Paterson
New York
Governor James H. Douglas
Vermont
Governor Brad Henry
Oklahoma
Governor John deJongh Jr.
Virgin Islands
Governor Edward G. Rendell
Pennsylvania
Governor Timothy M. Kaine
Virginia
Governor Jim Doyle

And then this article about governors Iowans have heard a lot about: Palin, Crist, and Jindal… always nice to be in “the majority”!

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=76688

The majority of GOP governors have broken ranks with their Congressional colleagues and urge passage of President Obama’s economic stimulus package, which would send billions in aid to states for education, infrastructure and health care.
Governors urging passage include Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, who plans to meet Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others to push for Alaska’s portion of the stimulus.
Other governors supporting the stimulus include Florida’s Charlie Crist and Vermont’s Jim Douglas. But some criticized the plan; Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal says he’ll take the money but would have voted against it as a Congressman.

Filed under Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Issues: GOP’s Strength

February 3, 2009 by 5 Comments

Sioux City is the first city council in the nation to defend traditional marriage and put pressure on the state legislature to allow a constitutional amendment to be voted on.

Voting 3-2, the council Monday adopted a resolution supporting the legal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, opposing efforts to redefine the institution as anything else and urging the Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

While some may not view this as a pro-family victory outside of Sioux City, Iowa, one has to remember that what happens on the smaller scale influences what happens in the big arena.  Sioux City has taken a page out of the gay activists playbook; small victories equal one big movement.  For example, when the lesbian couple won their case against a church that would not rent out property to them for their civil union, it was like a shot heard around the pro-family world.  I am certain that Sioux City’s decision will not go unnoticed by those across the nation who want to tear apart traditional marriage.

Social issues on the national front have also appeared.  It seems as though one of Obama’s first move as president, lifting the ban on the Mexico City Policy,  has proven to be his most unpopular.

Further, Obama’s decision to reverse the prohibition on funding for overseas family-planning providers may be the least popular thing he has done so far. This was an executive order that forbade federal government money from going to overseas family-planning groups that provide abortions or offer abortion counseling. Fifty-eight percent of Americans disapprove of Obama’s decision to lift this ban, while only 35% approve of it.

With these examples along with traditional marriage proponents that have never failed in any state that put them on the ballot, it seems as if a majority of Americans still believe in the importance of pro-family and pro-life issues even though we elected lefty Barack Obama as our next president.  It demonstrates that these issues are not only for those on the right, but they are American issues.  The Republican party should take notice that these two issues in their platform are winning issues and they are not the reason people are not supporting our party.

 

Filed under Politics Tagged with , , , , , , ,

“…a bad day for the Obama administration”

February 3, 2009 by Leave a Comment

FOX News just said it best: “it’s a bad day for the Obama administration.”

I agree. Americans must be finding their “outside” voices and letting their D.C. Representatives know that we are not all high on hope and change. We are tired of the good ole boy back scratching to get a high profile job. We want accountability. We are watching.

And the Stimulus, Porkulus Bill? I hope it continues to make for an Obama administration bad day. Perhaps Americans are coming down from their Obama-mania high. Perhaps the word “trillion” is starting to register.

We still have work to do. Twitter and e-mail make it much easier to be in contact with Iowa’s Senators and Representatives. We must continue to make our voices heard. If we don’t it will be American taxpayers “bad day” for years to come!

Filed under Politics Tagged with , , , ,

More words of wisdom from Mike Huckabee

February 3, 2009 by 2 Comments

Words of wisdom and experience from Mike Huckabee. I do agree that Congress thinks we are stupid. The President thinks we are stupid- his staff thinks we are stupid. Why else would they keep pushing to spend us into destruction, keep nominating people who are not ethical, keep coming out to spin us dizzy?

Huckabee has a plan and I share it here.

I learned a few tricks and tactics while I was a lieutenant governor and governor for over 13 1/2 years. And one thing is that when someone is in a hurry to pass legislation, you’d better slow it down because the reason to hurry a law is rarely urgency to help the citizens, but urgency to get it passed before people find out what the heck it really is.

A lot of legislation is like garbage and it’s garbage the first day in the can, but if it sits there long enough, it really starts smelling.

Congress knows that the so-called stimulus bill is garbage, but hope it gets voted on before it sits there long enough to start smelling.

If you sent your kid to college and in less than a month he spent all the money you sent with him for the semester and then, on top of that, maxed out the credit card you loaned him for extreme emergencies, what would you do?

Would you say, hey, let me give you even more money than before and another credit card, but don’t tell me how you spent that first bunch of money and it’s not even necessary to tell me how you’ll spend the new money I’m sending?

Not hardly. You’d want a full accounting of what he did with all your money since you now have to work even harder to replace it.

And, before you gave him any more, you’d put very strict controls on how he spends it.

Congress must think we’re stupid. And maybe we are: We did send these guys back.

But they’ve spent all the money we sent them in taxes. They’ve run up a debt that our children and even grandchildren will have to pay and they don’t really even know what they’ve done with the money.

Somehow, they think that if we’re in this horrible mess because they spent, borrowed and squandered billions, they can fix it if we just let them spend, borrow and squander trillions.

And we even have a new treasury secretary to oversee it all – who didn’t know how to use TurboTax and didn’t pay his own taxes for four years and had an illegal immigrant working in his house.

Here’s the Huckabee plan:

Term limits for members of Congress – 12 years and go home.

Instead of automatic pay raises, you lose 2 percent of your congressional salary every year you don’t balance the budget.

We end the congressional pension and you have to go into the same Social Security system we’re in.

You get a fixed amount for health insurance and you pay for half of yours and all your family’s and you go into the marketplace and buy it like we do.

You pass the “fair tax” and eliminate the burden on businesses and individuals trying to create jobs and you close the IRS – especially since the guy you just confirmed to run it doesn’t even know he’s supposed to pay taxes.

Filed under Politics Tagged with , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 694 other followers