Posted on 12/17/2009 10:12:10 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON – Washington is moving to assist California and other cash-strapped states that face the prospect of raising taxes or cutting spending again in 2010 to balance their books.
The House took the first step Wednesday evening, passing a $75 billion jobs bill that would help states pay for infrastructure projects and prevent more public employees from being laid off.
Some are calling it Stimulus II, and the sequel would come as good news for 35 states that face budget gaps totaling $31.5 billion by the middle of next year. California is projecting the largest shortfall, at $6.3 billion, followed by Illinois and New York, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Earlier this year, the White House disappointed California officials when the Obama administration made clear that it had no interest in backing the state's emergency loans as a short-term measure.
But now the White House is signaling that it wants to send more money to the states. Without offering any specifics, President Barack Obama mentioned the idea in an economic speech last week, and state officials are eager to hear exactly what he has in mind.
On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, is urging Congress to finalize a bill quickly, before state legislatures begin their work in 2010.
"It is very important. It would prevent the firing of schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters and health care workers who are meeting the needs of the American people," Pelosi said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
It would prevent the firing of schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters and health care workers who are meeting the needs of the American people,” Pelosi said.
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It will likely lead to the firing of hundreds of Democrat legislators in the upcoming November election, Pelosi did not say. :-)
Lesson to states: If you make the hard choices and balance your budgets, watch your spendthrift neighbors get propped up by the Feds.
Great, just f'n great.
Strange. Budget woes always hit the schools, police and fire departments the hardest. They never seem to require the second assistant associate director of public arts to lose a job.
Isn’t it a fact that much of the original Porkulus money still hasn’t been spent?
Do you know that the original $787 billion Porkulus could have created 15,000,000 jobs paying $50,000 a year? This is just round numbers, and I know the money goes out in gov’t contracts, not to individual employees. But still, the original Porkulus should have created millions of jobs.
That is, if simply throwing money at an issue worked in the real world, then we wouldn’t have seen unemployment spike as it has.
Unions, Unions, Unions...
God forbid they cut spending and spend their money more wisely. Their used to be a time when the lowest bidder would win a job from the state.
35 states. Let me guess, the most liberal states, right?
Texas is about to have its own problems. The doubling or tripling of unemployment taxes on business will likely cause higher unemployment.
California lost 47000 employers in 2008. I don’t want to emulate that.
The bulk of stimulus has not been spent. They are saving for the election year.
Schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters and health care.NEA and SEIU rub hands.
I hope the voters clean house. After the first "stimulus" bill was supposed to fund infrastructure projects like highways and bridges, they discovered the Highway Trust Fund was empty! How many times will taxpayers' money be spent on the same thing, only to disappear down a rat hole?
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