With the monumental failure of Obama’s “jobs” bill (actually
just a checklist of liberal agenda items under the pretense of
jobs), Democrats have decided to break the bill out into a few
separate smaller spending measures. First on the list:
direct bailouts of mismanaged state budgets.
The new measure is a $35 billion aid package to state and local
governments to help them avoid layoffs of teachers, police officers
and firefighters. It’s virtually certain to be blocked by
Republicans opposed to spending money to boost the economy.
Direct aid to the states is a very popular measure, but it’s
unlikely to do much good and amounts to little more than a way to
use taxpayer money to preserve government union jobs. Moreover, as
the Wall Street Journal
reports, spending at the state level has done little good.
Remember how $200 billion in federal stimulus cash was supposed
to save the states from fiscal calamity? Well, hold on to your
paychecks, because a big story of 2010 will be how all that free
money has set the states up for an even bigger mess this year and
into the future… Ten states have a deficit, relative to the size
of their expenditures, as bleak as that of near-bankrupt
California. The Golden State starts the year another $6 billion in
arrears despite a large income and sales tax hike last year. New
York is literally down to its last dollar. Revenues are down, to be
sure, but in several ways the stimulus has also made things
worse.
Hold on to your wallets, folks. As the Democrats parse out their
spending bill into smaller, more popular legislation, there’s a
greater chance your money will be thrown down the giant money hole
of useless federal spending.
