Perry rejects stimulus money at unemployed’s expense
Today Gov. Rick Perry rejected $555 million in federal stimulus money destined for unemployed benefits at a press conference in Houston. ”I am here today to stand with Texas employers and the millions of Texans they employ to resist further government intrusion into their businesses through an expansion of our state’s unemployment insurance program,” Perry said in an article by Elise Hu of Austin’s KVUE. Perry held with a Republican line that infusion of federal money is not good for the economy and plans to solve the problems himself.
Perry said he is “concerned about the belief that has gained a foothold in our national consciousness that the best and only way to solve our nation’s problems is to drown them with taxpayer dollars.” In doing so Perry joins a list of Republican governors who have decided that Republican principle is more important now than getting the economy on solid footing. Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) did so on Wednesday and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has also stated he will reject federal stimulus money during his response to Pres. Obama’s address to Congress.
Perry is setting his Republican stance prior to a potential primary battle against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) in 2010. The problem is that this political posturing does nothing to help Texans who are umemployed and could benefit from the stimulus boost. The Texas Legislature does have the option of approving the funds and Rep. Tan Parker (R- Flower Mound) filed a bill to do so yesterday.
Texas is not immune to the recession that some would claim was created by regressive Republican economic policy. Perry’s reason for rejecting the bill relates to providing benefits to part-time workers. However, if you examine further that is one of the four different criteria of which states would have to select two to qualify according to an article in the New York Times. For better or worse, the US is in a hard economic state that needs something to pull itself out before things get worse.
Nonsense, Perry’s claim (stated multiple times) is that accepting this money would leave the state worse off in the long run finanacially – because we would have to spend more long-term than we actually receive. Even the Dallas Morning News – clearly not a fan of his decision – cites his reasoning here: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-stimulus_13tex.ART.State.Edition2.4abe02e.html . I agree with Perry – we’re better off taking care of fellow Texans on our own, and building long-term productivity and employment, rather than taking federal money with too many strings attached.
Hyrum there have been a few different opinions on what would be worse economically. I’ll try to dig them out and post some of them up. Believe it or not, I’m not as far to the left as you might think and do have some empathy for what Perry is stating. It’s just that he listed only one option as his reasoning for rejecting. As I’ve stated at the E-N there are three others, one of which relates to training. Regarding Texans being on our own, I don’t buy into that argument. That may be a pride thing but when it comes to helping people’s lives I’ll put pride aside in a minute. I can’t go with the binary answer on that one until I see all the details. Some strings may not be a bad thing.