We Paid For The Damn Cow
By Mitch Berg
I don’t believe in public subsidies of broadcasters – but I listen to MPR. I mean, my tax dollars go to them, whether I support the concept of socialized radio or not, so it doesn’t give me any moral qualms.
I didn’t support public money for the Midtown Greenway – but my taxes pay for it, so I ride it with pride. Dang skippy.
And Jason Lewis is wrong, wrong, wrong; I bike to work on roads for which I pay no gas taxes for my bike, and I do it without a single sleepless night . I pay plenty of gas taxes when I’m not biking, and my bike does no damage whatsoever to the road that – I haste to add – I already paid for.
I’m not going to join with my conservative friends who are bagging on Governor Pawlenty for not rejecting Minnesota’s share of Porkulus, because, well, we’re ponying up our share. While Pawlenty has not been the perfect fiscal conservative, he’s done the best anyone could do under the circumstances under which he’s operating, at least trying to veto the DFL’s worst excesses.
The money’s leaving Minnesota. Better that it had not left in the first place, of course; better still that we slash the size of Minnesota’s government. But this is the hand we’re dealt.
Imperfect? Sure. But he makes some sense – and makes Rachel Maddow look like the gabbling, overpromoted ninny fighting four intellectual classes above her mental weight she is in the process, to sweeten the deal:
Pawlenty recently appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, and fairly effectively rebutted the host’s charge that those who criticized the stimulus bill were hypocrites for accepting the funds now that it had passed.“I have a number of responses to that argument,” Pawlenty said. “Minnesota ranks forty-sixth in terms of getting federal spending in relation to the amount of taxes paid — for every dollar we sent in to Washington, we get about 72 cents back. We’re a major payer of the federal government’s tabs, unlike many other states that I won’t mention. I say, when you’re paying to buy the pizza, it’s okay to have a slice. Now, if you were a liberal Democratic governor and you opposed military spending, are you not going to take National Guard funding? If you were a liberal who opposed No Child Left Behind, are you going to take federal funding in education? So I’m wondering why that standard is only being applied now to conservatives.”
Snap!
“All the governors are going to take almost all of the money. I’m not aware of any governor turning down a substantial amount. There’s some talk about not taking unemployment insurance — about 2 percent of the stimulus — because it expands obligations in unemployment insurance, and might require a tax increase later on down the road. But the point is moot to Minnesota, because our benefit level is already beyond what the federal government would require.”
Of course it’s politics – on Jindal and Barbour’s part no less than Pawlenty’s. Pawlenty has a hideous, DFL-fathered deficit to close, while trying to buff up his rap sheet for a presidential run in the next 4-8 years; Jindal, Barbour and Sanford are aiming to be seen to Pawlenty’s right.
Does it make a fiscal budget hawk happy? Of course not; and Minnesota’s not a state of budget hawks. Yet.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
From the interview with Governor Pawlenty:
It’s absolutely fair to say many states have structural spending problems that stimulus money wallpapers over it. It just delays the day of reckoning when reform is really needed. To use an example, in Medicaid, states pay a part of the costs, the federal government pays a part of the costs, and everyone knows the program is mathematically and demographically unsustainable. We need dramatic reform. But the federal government is about to give us a mountain of cash — but if you take the money you can’t change eligibility requirements. That ties the hands of states from enacting the reforms that that program needs.
As bad as the Porkapalooza bill was in the short-term, this is probably the most frustrating aspect. It isn’t just that Obama-Reid-Pelosi decided to exploit this crisis to ram through their pet programs on the government credit card, it’s that they also delayed the essential structural reform that programs like Medicaid (not to mention Medicare and Social Security) need for another two years. A whole new pile of our money got spent on this and K-23 and higher education with no changes made in how it’s being spent or efforts to make the recipients accountable for results.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Pawlenty’s position on this tells me he’s far more interested in his 2010 reelection than possibly running for prez in 2012.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
So, perfect would be each state getting exactly what they paid in?
If so, NoDak and most of the Conservative states are el-screwedo.
In other words, it doesn’t have a damned thing to do with anything what you paid in or not, it’s just political cover, and Rachel M. was an idiot for not asking a tough follow-up question, such as, “So, does a bill have to be perfect?” and “You’re saying, while imperfect, it (the funding) is still acceptible, correct?” – and when he say’s “yes” – then you say, “So you’re agreeing that imperfect bills, including those passed by your party you didn’t necessarily wholly agree with, should be supported? If so, then how are you, and your party, standing behind doing something – which while imperfect, is still necessary?”
She’s a lightweight, but so is TPAW – his answers were circular and silly, and he could have been made to look it. What any state contributes has Bo Diddly Squat to do with anything. NoDak MUST get more money, it has a higher concentration of military personnel and basing than does MN, so bleeping what. And MN must get less, to pay for services it needs in NoDak, how much it pays, or doesn’t pay, doesn’t have a damned thing to do with the fiscal soundness or appropriateness of the stimulus, nothing, nada, zilch.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I refuse to rationalize and justify any support for the pork/welfare/bloated bureaucracy of this bill.
Mitch, you are free to rationalize away your ideals if you so choose, we still have some of our freedoms left, for now at least.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I refuse to rationalize and justify any support for the pork/welfare/bloated bureaucracy of this bill.
I don’t support the bill and I don’t blame Pawlenty (who AFAIK didn’t support it either) from saying “it’s already become law and Minnesota is paying for it regardless of whether we want it so we may as well accept some of our own money back.”
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I’m no fan of Pawlenty, but this one he got right. If there’s no obvious downside, yes, take the money. Most of our electorate is too economically ignorant to understand anything else, so no point taking a black eye for nothing. What I will be watching is his skill at using that money as true one time money, not to launch new programs we don’t need or expand programs we should end.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
And Jason Lewis is wrong, wrong, wrong
Yep.
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I am about as much as much of a fiscal conservative as you can be without worshiping at the feet of Ron Paul, but if a government truck showed up and dumped a load of hundred dollar bills in my driveway I’d take it.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 pm
I think Pawlenty had it right when he pointed out that by not taking the money our state effectively would be double taxed.
Once is bad enough.
I looked at the interview; Pawlenty was very poised. He has been doing the circuit lately, turning up on various cable shows. Might very well be a hint towards a future presidential run. Most recently though Palwenty indicated he was just interested in another governor run, and serving out that term.
After the way Pawlenty presented his views, the other govs making a fuss about not taking the stimulus package look rather stupid, I thought. I bet they take the majority of the money once the first buzz is off the news, as well.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Dog Gone said:
“I bet they take the majority of the money once the first buzz is off the news, as well”
You gambler, you! From the article, quoted above:
“All the governors are going to take almost all of the money. I’m not aware of any governor turning down a substantial amount”
You also said this:
“the other govs making a fuss about not taking the stimulus package look rather stupid, I thought”
Did you get the impression that they would be “not taking the stimulus package” from the post, the article, the “govs” themselves, or some media outlet?
February 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said he was going to refuse about $50 million that would go towards expanding unemployment benefits because it would force the state to raise unemployment tax rates.
I don’t think anything he said made him look stupid.
February 24th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
The most objections I’ve seen from governors have been to the unemployment benefits which are probably the most “simulative” aspect of the bill in terms of putting money in the hands of people most likely to spend it NOW. Given how important this is and the number of problems that the strings which have come with it seem to have been causing, perhaps it would have been better to deal with this issue first in a separate bill and do it correctly rather than try to cobble a bunch of unrelated spending items together to ram it through as a “stimulus” bill.
I’m just saying.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
The Governor should decline the money; then our DFL led legislature can accept the money; then the Governor can veto any of the strings attached laws. It is more about principle since our liberal state probably has more restrictive laws than the strings that come with all that mooolah.
This isn’t the first time the Federal Government has bribed and bullied us into passing laws that we didn’t want in the first place.
I thought Jindal was on target in regard to “permanent” changes to his State’s laws.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:24 am
“Those who follow the crowd are quickly lost in it.” –source unknown
Is Pawlenty following or leading?