Richard Shelby says Alabama shouldn't depend on the federal stimulus package to make ends meet. Governor Riley believes a federal stimulus is crucial for the state budget and the economic recovery. According to Rasmussen, 58% of Americans say most members of Congress will not understand the stimulus bill when they vote either for or against it. Can it be that Bob Riley better understands what the economic stimulus means for Alabama than does Senator Shelby? Or Senator Sessions? Or the 6 out of 7 Alabama Congressmen who have already voted against it? I suggest that is exactly the case.
Last Friday I had the opportunity to ask Rep. Artur Davis (who favors the stimulus package, by the way) what could be done here in Alabama to convince our delegation to support President Obama's economic stimulus package.
"Honestly the only thing that would really help the members of Congress weigh this would be if they had to spend time writing a budget in Alabama. Gov. Riley has gotten to the non-ideological place that he is on stimulus because he has to craft a budget."
Davis mentioned several of the real programs that need funding -- Medicaid, prisons (not sexy, but vital), public health and so forth.
"When those things are happening you stop looking at the world in an ideological way. And I give Gov. Riley a lot of credit for being ... reasonably open on these things. And candidly, I wish my colleagues understood how important this is for Alabama. These are the consequences:
Right now we have 12.6% proration in education ... this would take us from proration to a $100 million increase in education funding.
10% proration in the general fund ... this would take us back to level.
That is how consequential this stimulus package is for Alabama. Candidly it is frustrating that all my colleagues disagree with that. And it's doubly frustrating when I hear some of them saying "Oh, this bill disfavors rural areas." Sure, is it possible that we could, instead of getting from level in the general fund that we could somehow come out ahead if we had even more stimulus money? Sure. Is it possible that we could have even more than a $100 million increase in education if we had more stimulus money? Sure. But the perfect can't be the enemy of the good. Or the enemy of the achievable. And doing nothing is obviously not going to elevate our prospects in Alabama."
Essentially the only way to reshape the heads of our congressional delegation is to put them in a situation of having to balance the state budget. It's easy to snipe at state government's budget woes when you aren't responsible for insuring essential state services get done. It's somebody else's problem -- "an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual" -- so Shelby, Sessions, Bacchus, Bonner, Bright, Griffith and Rogers feel free to vote NO on the economic stimulus no matter the consequences to their own state. Shame on them for lacking the compassion or the imagination to treat Alabama's problems as their own.
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