It is not Permanent

Filling The Room With Smoke

After listening to some Republican governors in the press for the last few days, you cannot help but wonder why some of them insist upon punching more holes in the bottom of a boat which is already sinking. Largely representing the RNC is Gov. Bobby Jindal (R. LA), there is a move afoot to decline certain federal monies from the $787B stimulus bill which just became law (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/governors-on-the-stimulus/#more-9101) .

Here is a report of some of the news on 2/23/09, the very day the President brought together a confab of affected, affecting, inflicted and inflicting economic players and decision makers at the White House: http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#url=http%253A%252F%252Fpr.thinkprogress.org%252

It goes without saying that there are far more people either unemployed or under-employed in the country right now than we have seen or experienced in a very long time (the boat is sinking). A leading (and phony, stumbling) argument for several governors pretending at fiscal heroism (Schwarzeneger and Crist excepted, to name two) is this: they claim that “strings attached” to such funds will force the states to alter their rules and regulations on the eligibility for the states’ unemployment payments, and thereby hamstring and cripple their budgets in the future, long after the stimulus funds are exhausted. It would begin to appear as if posturing, grandstanding (and an irresistible urge to obfuscate) has completely overtaken these state executives. They are puffing up their chests when they should be grabbing buckets and bailing water. Their desire for “personal gain”, political advancement and national publicity, seem to matter far more than their desire to effectively serve the constituents who so desperately need their help, right now. Indeed, HardBall, the MSNBC-TV program (Chris Matthews) on 2/23, played clips of three republican governors who as much as said they were posturing for a run for president 2012, by taking a stand against acceptance of some stimulus funds. It would seem that when your priorities are completely misguided, enabling the boat to sink quicker is somehow interpreted as a way to save lives (read: your own skin) in the immediate future: governors, high, and dry, and warm and comfortable in their mansions, apparently don’t share the same wet feet that their constituents have when the boat starts to take on water. This is especially odd when you think about Louisiana.

In some ways, I suppose, I should not be surprised at this dyslexic appraisal of our state of affairs. The recently unpregnant Bristol Palin has just been quoted as saying “abstinence is not realistic”, among teens, but the religious right sees it differently:

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/128265/. And Fox News reporters today (Countdown, MSNBC-TV) said that, despite the straightforward quote, Ms. Bristol said abstinence was “absolutely realistic” (yes, you read that correctly). You might just guess, that in the minds of many in the GOP, black is white, up is down and yes is no (and “no” seems to be a favorite GOP word, these days). For some of our illustrious leaders, even bass-ackwards seems ass-backwards. Doing the wrong thing seems to be the right thing, or so thinks the right, and these headline-grabbers are hoping you won’t remember how they made you dogpaddle, as the boat sank, when they come up for a next election…and we are “left” behind.

After today’s White House gathering, Gov. Jindal was all over the television, applauding the President’s efforts, while simultaneously attempting to hamper and stultify them. It was a photo op which did nothing to help the unemployed and disenfranchised of Louisiana. He doesn’t get it and I don’t get him. I hope no one else does, either. I think this is what you call operating without a hint of shame. If he is the rising star of the GOP, the dawn may a long time coming.
Firedoglake ran this today: http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/23/obama-on-cable-chatter-im-looking-at-you-jindahl/, and the President said (something like) this, to today’s assemblage: “ When we are talking about $7B out of a package of $787B, which is 5 ,6 , or 7% of the total, it sounds more like politics than anything else…which doesn’t make sense, when we have work to do”. He also reminded them that there was still “plenty of time for campaigning”. If this was a poker game, he just called their (the governor’s) bluff.

During all of the discussion prior to the passage of the stimulus bill, the universal descriptor for the Republican congressmen was “obstructionist”. They were also tiring and boring, and were testing everyone’s patience with their tedious linguistic pranks (Boehner was banal and Graham is crackers). They developed a party line that was anchored in the faulty mortar of more tax cuts and a lack of “real stimulus”. And now, even after they failed to stop the bill’s momentum, the governors have pretended to take up the mantle of smoky confusion to prolong the agony of tedium and empty rhetoric. To refuse needed funds out of grossly misguided principals is destructionist: has no one thought ahead to the costs of “re-construction”? Politics for politics’ sake is always expensive, down the road, and the state of the nation (and the states) has no time for peacock feathers and glory hounds. But see Jindal strut.

There are no perfect solutions for this completely imperfect economic travesty, and there is no faultless foresight concerning the crisis before us, but there is some awfully good hindsight about the last eight years of tax cuts and de-regulation that got us into the fix in which we are semi-fixed. We seem to be sitting atop a legacy of either doing nothing or doing as little as possible, and we must do something (I once had an “uncle” Alex, who used to say, “Let’s do something, even if it’s wrong”: we may be there). In some ways, the proposed delays, distractions, arguments and completely unhelpful “posturing” is akin to the environmental studies that stop needed construction projects: there is a small rabbit in the road, ahead of the bulldozer. Rather than spend a million dollars and two years’ study before the levee washes away the town, someone should stop screwing around and move the damn rabbit . It will take about ten minutes and save the local landscape from devastation the next time it rains. (Does the GOP even realize it is raining?)

This nonsense about “permanent” and/or irreversible state legislation about future unemployment policies is hogwash. These “united states” are still free to introduce legislation which augments, alters, defies or flies in the face of federal programs, whenever they like. They have certainly done so often enough in the past. I do not know what the governors are smoking, but the room is becoming hazy. Perhaps these captains of their ships of state are hoping the populace will get contact stoned from the smoke, and then somehow forget and not hold them accountable later on. But I hope we are not that gullible and short on memory. If anything should be permanent right now, it should be a determination to see that all of those we hold responsible stand up and act that way.