Peoria Pundit

Press release:

MASSIVE GOVERNMENT STIMULUS HAS NOT HELPED CATERPILLAR AS PROMISED

Schock:  While the stimulus bill has not helped workers, it has saddled them and their children with mindboggling additional debt.

Washington D.C. – A little more than a month after passage of the President’s economic stimulus bill, it has become reality that the hype and promises Caterpillar would not proceed with planned layoffs and rehire laid off workers if Congress passed the stimulus bill was inaccurate.

Congress did pass the stimulus bill and the President got everything he wanted from Congress.  Yet, today Caterpillar announced even more layoffs.  These additional layoffs confirm CAT workers were misused by the Administration as justification for the stimulus bill.

“These additional layoffs are a result of the on-going recession,” said Schock.  “Sadly, the false hopes that passage of the stimulus bill would enable them to keep their jobs are now a horrible letdown.  I opposed the stimulus bill because only 6 percent of this massive bill was for infrastructure.  I supported legislation that would have created twice the jobs at half the price, and included more funding for infrastructure that would have increased the demand for Caterpillar machinery.”

“In my speech against passage of the flawed stimulus bill, I said ‘this bill is too big to get it wrong,’ but these layoffs are another sign that they did get this bill wrong,” continued Schock.  “As a result, we have little increased infrastructure construction, more layoffs, dashed hopes, massive wasteful spending and vastly increased debt.”

“I will join the President and colleagues in Congress if they are willing to embark on a sensible agenda that would lead to economic growth,” Schock concluded.  “The challenges we face are too important not to.”

From Wikipedia:

Triangulation is the name given to the act of a political candidate presenting his or her ideology as being “above” and “between” the “left” and “right” sides (or “wings”) of a traditional (e.g. UK or US) democratic “political spectrum”. It involves adopting for oneself some of the ideas of one’s political opponent (or apparent opponent). The logic behind it is that it both takes credit for the opponent’s ideas, and insulates the triangulator from attacks on that particular issue. Opponents of triangulation, who believe in a fundamental “left” and “right”, consider the dynamic a deviation from its “reality” and dismiss those that strive for it as whimsical.

And now consider this paragraph:

Urging strict future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.

Emphasis mine.

Here’ an idea, Mr. President: Introduce legislation recinding those part of the stimulus package that do nothing put prop up state and local government programs. Leave only those part that put people to work by funding infrastructure project, like roads and bridges.

Take a look at the “shovel ready” Illinois stimulus projects submitted to the U.S. Conference of Mayors (organized for public consumption by Stimulus Watch). See Peoria in there? Nope.

Where is the combined sewer overflow project? Were are the sidewalk projects? The Peoria City Council debated this for two meetings.

The City of Bolingbrook managed to submit 22 separate projects worth of combined $107,900,000.

The shovel ready projects are the only part of the stimulus package that approaches good government. And Peoria seems to be left out in the good.

After a cursory glance at these projects, I don’t see any local cities on the list. No Jacksonville or Springfield projects either. In fact, there’s nothing in the 18th District that I notice.

Is Peoria being punished because Congressman Aaron Schock didn’t didn’t vote for the stimulus? It’s worth asking.

Hat tip to Chef Kevin.

This YouTube video makes some of the same point I am making about the stimulus package, namely that the final version is NOTHING like  it was advertised as being. And it’s not very stimulating at all.

Hat tip: Precinct Committeeman.

Sorry Obamaphiles. I calls ‘em as a I sees ‘em. I might have voted for Barack Obama and against Aaron Schock. But on the issue of the stimulus package, I’m siding with the freshman Congressman and against the freshman president.

This exchange lays out my reasons:

“I found it very interesting that after the President finished his speech and I stayed around, not one employee at that facility approached me and asked me to vote for this bill,” Schock said. “In fact, I have received over 1,400 phone calls, e-mails, and letters from Caterpillar employees alone asking me to oppose this legislation.”

“Why? Because they get it. They know that this bill is not stimulus. They know that this bill will not do anything to create long-term, sustained economic growth,” he said.

Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was asked about Schock’s comments during the regular daily briefing today.

“I think if the Congressman goes and looks at the bill through an economic lens … not just through a political one, I think he’ll see benefits not just for his district and his state but for the entire country,” Gibbs said.

Schock spokesman Dave Natonski shot back, “Congressman Schock was looking through an economic lens when he voted against the stimulus package, as it doesn’t take an economic expert to realize this so-called stimulus package was nothing more than wasteful, pork-barreled spending that would stimulate the government, not the economy.”

An aiside: This passage is from the Washington Times article Schock: No awe for Obama or stimulus. Folks, can we officially call a moritorium on the use of “awe” in any headline about Schock? Please?

The stimulus DOES have parts to it that make sense. There are a ton of unmet infrastructure needs, and it makes sense to put people to doing these projects. That sort of government spending makes sense as a way to stimulate the economy, because it’s the sort of government spending that SHOULD have been going on during the past to decades, but wasn’t.

But most of this bill’s spending isn’t about infrastructure. It’s about doling out cash to prop up unessential government programs.

And they are doing it in a way that would make the media AND most Democrats scream in outgage were the Bush administration and a Republican Congress doing the same thing.

Obama ran on a platform of more hope and less fear. Now, he’s telling us that the time to panic is now.

No. It is not. And anyone who says “slow down” is accused of mouthing Rush Limbaugh talking points or with applying for a job with FOXNews. Or, it’s rationalised away by saying Bush got away with it, so it’s unfair to criticize Obama.

Please. If you are going to make an argument on this blog, make it a rational argument, not name calling or a sputtering “but, but, but Bush …”  like you are some seven-year-old upset about how Life Is Not Fair.

From a press release:

Schock Calls for Public House – Senate Stimulus Negotiations

 Calls for Stimulus conference negotiations to be open to public

 Washington, D.C. – Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) issued the following statement calling for an open and public forum for House – Senate negotiations on the stimulus bill.  House rules dictate that there must be an open hearing for conference committee negotiations.

 “Given the billions of taxpayer dollars at stake in the stimulus, negotiations between the House and Senate must be completely open and transparent.  American taxpayers deserve to know how and where the government plans to spend their money.  I believe it is an open invitation to trouble to keep these negotiations closed.”

 “Allowing this historically enormous spending package to be negotiated between a small handful of people behind closed doors would eliminate accountability to the American taxpayers and wholly undermine all efforts at bipartisanship.”

“I support fast action but not at the expense of getting this wrong.  We need to work in an expeditious and bipartisan manner to proceed under full sunlight so taxpayers can have full faith in this process and the resulting economic stimulus bill.”

I listed to part of President Obama’s press conference last night. He did a pretty good job of describing the stimulus package as something it is not: A way to get money into the hands of working class people as soon as possible. That’s the excuse for a spending plan that more than anything else takes money out of the hands of future generations to support existing and future government growth. 

Indeed, a close look at the current stimulus plan shows that as little as 5% of the money is going toward making the country more productive in the longer run – toward such things as new roads, bridges, improved rail and significant new electrical generation. These are things, like the New Deal’s many construction projects, that could provide a needed boost to our sagging national morale.

Instead, we are focusing once again on those who have been getting the best deal for doing the least. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports state and local government workers get paid 33% more than their private sector counterparts. If you add in the pensions and other benefits, the difference is over 40%. In New York alone, public-sector wages and benefits since 2000 have grown twice as fast as those of the average private-sector worker.

Egregious stories of overpaid public workers are legion. In suburban Chicago, for example, some school administrators are making over $400,000 with benefits and incentives. Recent reports out of Boston suggest hundreds of firefighters and police officers make well in excess of $100,000 a year. And of course, there are the California prison guards who can make upwards of $300,000 a year with overtime.

If states and municipalities wanted to raise state and local taxes to guarantee the continued employment of these people, they could easily do so. But then people’s local taxes would have gone up, causing pain and misery to the people who could conceivably turn them out of office. Instead, the money is coming from Washington, which has the ability to print money. 

It boils down to this: Using state and local taxes to pay for state and local government is much like paying cash, or writing a check that’s going to be cashed in a few days. Using federal money for the same purpose is like using credit cards.

The relatively tiny amount of real infrastructure improvement spending will have a limited immediate effect. The future taxes to pay for the remaining 95 percent of the stimulus package will create a future nightmare that will make this seem like like the good old days.

From today’s NYTimes:

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

I am officially fed up with you, House Republicans.  After 6 years of approving ludicrous spending bills for a manufactured war, NOW you decide to preach “fiscal responsibility”?  I put that in quotes because it is an abomination for anyone to use that phrase to describe lowering the price tag on this stimulus bill.  It is clearly fiscally irresponsible to vote against the proposed $888 billion bill.  It takes only one semester of intermediate macroeconomics to understand what our government needs to do right now:  spend, spend, spend.  Spend it as responsibly as time allows, but right now, in the middle of this crisis, time is more valuable than bureaucracy.  You lost, Republicans.  Even so, you were given an opportunity to contribute to this bill.  Rather than contribute any fresh ideas, or offer some original means of spending this money, you caved in to Limbaugh’s demands and renewed the cycle of manipulating the tone of the debate for political pandering.  Hell, there is no debate.  There exists not one self-respecting economist in America who would argue against at least $800 billion dollars in government spending right now.  And no, cutting taxes is not the same as spending money. I would go as far as to say that attempting to block this legislation is borderline criminal, dare I say, treasonous.  Without massive spending by our government, beginning immediately, our economy WILL collapse into a lengthy depression.  We WILL see people starving on the streets.  Not just the “darkies, druggies, and ne’er do-wells” you love to blame our “moral decline” on either.  You will see middle class Americans, like myself, begging for food in the streets hoping to stay warm long enough to get to the next meal.  This WILL happen and I will not argue about it.  Get your lips off Rush Limbaugh’s ass and go vote for some spending.

Yes, I’m talking to you too, Aaron.

Congressman Aaron Schock

Congressman Schock’s Contact Page

From the Washington Post (hat tip Capitol Fax Blog):

A group of Democratic and Republican senators sought to trim as much as $100 billion from the economic stimulus plan. Some of the most expensive items to be cut:

• $39.8 billion for state education departments to shore up school budgets.
• $14 billion for education programs, including special education and Head Start.
• $9.5 billion for Energy Department programs, including an environmental cleanup fund.
• $6.5 billion for space exploration, science programs and grants for local crime-fighting efforts.

I’m guessing that money that Peoria School District 150 thought would help plug that budget hole was part of that $39.8 billion. And if so, I’m guessing that they will take another stab at closing Woodruff and Peoria Central. And I’m guessing they WON’T be discussing eliminating administrator jobs and cutting consultants.

And none of the items I’m seeing on the elimination list look like shovel-ready infrastructure projects designed to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

No doubt there will be screaming from some quarters about how Congress hates poor people.