While researching Tuesday's editorial on the federal economic stimulus bill, I cobbled together these numbers:
• The 2008-09 Medicaid budget includes $905.7 million in federal dollars.
• The 2008-09 Idaho Transportation Department budget includes $263.6 million from the feds.
• Idaho public schools get $215 million from Uncle Sam.
That adds up to $1.38 billion, for just three state agencies. All state agencies received just over $1.9 billion from the feds. And unlike the one-time stimulus money, this represents year-to-year federal spending, outside the state's general fund.
I'm not suggesting $1 billion — state government's projected cut from the economic stimulus package — is chump change. I'm not downplaying the staggering cost of this economic intervention, a cost our kids and grandkids will bear. I also understand the perils of using one-time federal dollars to plug holes in the state general fund.
But when House Majority Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts of Donnelly quips that federal stimulus money is as addictive as methamphetamine, as he did on Idaho Public Television's "Idaho Reports" After the Show last week, let's keep perspective.
Idaho has had a federal funding habit for a long, long time.
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Good Point
Strings or no, they always take the money.
Too bad everyone else on that panel with Rep. Roberts did not have any of this information in their head at that time. In fact, there seems to be little research or thought by the Legislature and Governor about these stimulus funds, they played denial for weeks, and the local press largely played along. Yet numerous web sites had all this information about probable state distribution figures while the legislation was working it's way through the House and Senate. At least Barker has been advancing the story in the past few days.
Insanity
The Federal Government rips off everybody in Idaho to stimulate Wall Street or Dubai. We get a huge bill we can never hope to repay, and they send us back pennies on the dollar WITH stipulations and strings. What a deal.
It's a FEDERAL PROGRAM! Where the hell else does it come from?
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To read is wonderful. To comprehend art. Falling back to whatever you believed in is NORMAL.
Public Acknowledgement, Our Most Important Step
I applaud words for encouraging the opening of debate by
"House Majority Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts of Donnell"
in apparently expressing (as has been reported) that
"federal stimulus money is as addictive as methamphetamine."
I might even suggest that we further aver it to be, in deed, worse than Meth.
Might "you/we" be willing to further discuss such in open public forum?
Any willingness for acknowledgments?
IV-mainliners need be brought into further light; not further rewarded, enabled, sheltered nor (heaven forbid) incentivized.
Walter
What good will it do anyway? Move on to the next mess.
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To read is wonderful. To comprehend art. Falling back to whatever you believed in is NORMAL.
Hypocrisy
The right wing mentality is sooooo predictable. I notice that they will NEVER reject Fed monies and freebies for INEL or BLM grazing rights for cattle. ANY technology that comes out of DARPA for the commercial/private sector is embraced. Roads, cars and real estate are prized idols over the welfare of hungry and sick children in poverty. The poor are blamed for their "own" problems. Cheap oil is the real meth drug, and without it, the GOP do not have a complex capitalist economy to hold on to. The Dems won't either unless they see we need to get real and think in sustainable terms about where food is grown and how homes are built, etc.
We desire more monetary units to explore the...
pleasure experiences of your planet.
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To read is wonderful. To comprehend art. Falling back to whatever you believed in is NORMAL.
Where is the money coming from?
If it's our tax $, past, present, future, we deserve it as much as any other state, more than the crooks responsible who already made trillions & stole billions more.
The problem is the crooks in DC. They can't run within a budget because they hand out tax cuts to contributors who hire the same fiancial & economic experts who wrote the stimulus, & accountants who write tax law our representatives pass.
Otter's appointee at the Tax Commission cleared it up, they can't be bullied because they're heavy into tax knowledge. They wrote the tax laws, can't get heavier than that. Accountants paid by the same people who benefit by those tax laws, corporations that contribute to representatives. I don't see that we need an investigation, it obvious, apply tar & feathers.
It's so simple it's criminal. $53 trillion criminal to this point & rising fast. The current fiancial crisis is crooked banking which has been happening for a half century & the current mess is concrete eveidence. Our representatives & their partners are guilty of the greatest scam the world has ever seen, it's documented, it's history. There's no denying it yet we aren't doing anything about it, except handing over more money.
Where is the law, IRS, FBI? If the Ameircan people demanded it there would have to be an investigation. Why don't the people paying for all this do something, anything, chit or go blind? Your families are dying in war to protect US & you won't demand full finanical disclosure by those responsible for all this? How does Homeland Security provide security when there is no financial security? How will the military continue with no $?
Why would they quit stealing from you when you won't say squat?