Stop the BigGovJobs bill; Update: Bill passes 247-161; Obama signs the bill
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The Democrats call their $26 billion, Big Labor/bankrupt states’ bailout legislation the “EduJobs” bill.
Let’s inject some truth in advertising.
The “EduJobs” bill is nothing but a BigGovJobs bill — a massive election season pay-off to Democrat special interests. With your money.
I noted last week that Nancy Pelosi is summoning her minions back to Washington for a special session to rush the Senate-approved legislation into President Obama’s hands (the House had approved an earlier version of the bill). As with so many other political wealth redistribution schemes peddled by the ruling majority and championed by the White House, this one comes wrapped in endless, specific-seeming promises of salvation (it will save “3,000″ in Washington state, “5,000 slots” in Illinois, and “4,200″ in Michigan).
But like porkulus math, BigGovJobs math ain’t all it’s cracked up to be:
“This is potentially great news, because in these economic times we can use some bridge to get us through,” said Lisa Freiburger, chief of operations for Grand Rapids Public Schools. “But we also have some huge questions.”
The bill cleared the Senate on a 61-39 vote, and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated she plans to call representatives back from their August break to vote on the bill, which President Obama is expected to sign.
According to the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, Michigan’s $318 million allotment would be the seventh-highest, behind Texas, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia.
The money could be used to cover an estimated 4,200 jobs.
Some of the money comes from other school programs, with $50 million cut from an adolescent literacy program, nearly $11 million from a teacher technology plan and $82 million from a student financial aid administration plan.
But school officials said they have no idea what strings would be attached to the money, whether the state legislature would approve the cash as part of a special supplemental budget, how long the money would last, and how they would pay for stop-gap measures while waiting for the taxpayer funds to flow.
Officials in Maine know it’s all just another empty game of kick the can:
…will Maine’s $39 million share from the education jobs package actually restore lost teacher jobs?
First, there’s the bureaucracy to deal with.
“It would clearly take some months for us to pull it together,” Maine Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin told me when I first asked him about the education jobs package two weeks ago.
That’s because, if the money is handled at all like economic stimulus funds, states will have to apply for their share, the feds will have to approve it and state education officials will have to figure out how to distribute it.
Second, school districts might be skeptical about another federal handout.
After all, they’re already dealing with the reality that their share of economic stimulus money will dry up after the upcoming school year.
“That’s the cliff that people are talking about,” Augusta schools Superintendent Cornelia Brown told me two weeks ago.
The education jobs package is likely another pool of one-time money.
So, if districts return positions to their payrolls in September and the revenue outlook doesn’t improve substantially for the 2011-12 school year, the cliff might be that much steeper during upcoming school budget season.
Who really benefits? You guessed it:
…Kyle Olson of the Education Action Group argues the bill is payback to unions that have supported congressional campaigns.
The Muskegon-based union watchdog estimates the NEA would get about $36 million in dues from the bill, and the American Federation of Teachers would realize about $14 million.
“It’s not about student achievement. It’s about protecting the adults,” he said. “Public schools have a spending problem, not a funding problem. Pelosi and her regime are perpetuating the problem at a time America literally can’t afford it.”
Mark Tapscott notes that the tax-dollar dependent National Education Association is hard at work….pushing its dues-paying members to lobby Washington to pass BigGovJobs.
Mike Antonucci at Hot Air reports that while the Dems push the teachers’ union bailout, school districts across the country are rehiring laid-off teachers without having to reach into other people’s pockets.
The hurried House vote on this latest Pass It Now/Read It Later bailout is expected Tuesday.
Help stop the BigGovJobs political protection plan:
Protests are planned in at least a dozen states, and Tea Party activists are set to show up at Congressional offices Saturday through Monday, according to conservative activists familiar with their plans.
Demonstrations will occur at the offices of Democrats’ facing tough re-election races, including Reps. Betsy Markey (Colo.), Dina Titus (Nev.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), John Spratt (S.C.) and Rick Boucher (Va.), according to a planning paper circulating among conservative groups.
Phone numbers for those vulnerable Dems:
Betsy Markey (202) 225-4676
Titus (202) 225-3252
Heinrich (202) 225-6316
Pomeroy (202) 225-2611
Spratt (202) 225-5501
Boucher (202) 225-3861
***
The bill would be paid for mainly by closing a tax loophole used by multinational corporations and reducing food stamp benefits for the poor. It passed mainly along party lines by a vote of 247-161.
Representatives scattered around the country and world for the August break were summoned back to Washington for the one-day session as Democrats stressed the need to act before children return to classrooms missing teachers laid off because of budgetary crises in the states.
Two Republicans voted for the bailout — Castle and Cao.
The 3 Dems who voted no on BigGovJobs bill: Bright-Alabama, Cooper-TN & Taylor-Miss.
Update: Obama signs the bill…surrounded by teachers.
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Of course they’ll pass it. It’s always easy to
spendbuy votes with somebody else’s money. I know it’s only a dream, but the FEC should count every one of these bills as Dem campaign spending.Isn’t this money already given to the States in the original Stimulus Bill?
Typical democraps. The only way they can stay in power is by buying union votes.
Like . . . how will you ever pay for this on the backs of cash-strapped taxpayers? I’d call that “huge”.
I’ve always wondered how the Dems could refuse to use unspent stimulus money from the first stimulas fiasco and insist on using additional taxpayer dollars to fund their “kid in a candy store” projects.
I put their line of thinking right up there with their refusal to support having to use a picture id in order to vote.
Actually, come to think of it, it’s not really hard to fathom because everyone knows its just blatant dishonesty from the get go. Dems don’t even try and disguise their lies anymore.
The first order of business after nullifying the Obamacare bill should be to abolish the Departments of Education and Energy if Republicans take both houses.
Driving the economy the way they would drive a rented car.
Maybe it is time for us to “beat a rented mule”.
By now I think there is no danger in the Democrats pushing another government jobs bill. Everybody knows the epic big government economic fail that Obowma and the Democrats are.
Locally, our teachers unions are being cut because of no students. Our local Sheriff enforces 287-G and the illegal aliens cleared out of our town. Maybe all states should do it.
The Dems are only popular just like the ugly girl that puts out! Eventually the public will wake up to reality and have to chew it’s collective arm off!
I love this from the Washington State story:
Yes it was, but just like it was pointed out when the Stimulous money was sent out gift wrapped…what happens when the money runs out. The answer is pass another bill for more money.
Thanks you AGAIN Maine.
You suck.
FIFY
When you’re digging a hole in the wrong place, the obvious solution is to… make the hole bigger!
Dem Math = PreK3 Math
It should more appropriately be called the BigGovHand_Job Bill. Stroking the members that support YOU!
For local taxpayers, the bill is called the BigGovScrewingYouOverOnceAgainWithA_StraightFace Bill.
To this congress, spending is an addiction, just as strong as crack.
And unfortunately, the Obama Administration is the enabler, pushing those crack-ho congresspeople out onto the street to support their habit.
Maybe a little too direct for a Monday morning, but I’m fed up.
Let’s see now, our government spends huge amounts of money that it doesn’t have to supposedly solve economic problems and it does not work. So, it spends more money that it doesn’t have and it still doesn’t work. So, it really gets tough and REALLY SPENDS MORE AND MORE MONEY AND AS A RESULT IT REALLY, REALLY DOESN’T WORK.
SOOOOOO, AS A RESULT, (keep repeating over and over).
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
So the government gives taxpayer money to special interest groups who then keep some of it and funnel the rest back to the government. And this is different from a banana republic how?
The “Blue Ribbon” Debt commission will recommend a Value Added Tax shortly after Election day. And the Lame duck Democrats will do their damnedest to get a bill on Obama’s desk before they retire next January.
All the promises that this president had for “hope and change”, all the supposedly “brilliant” czars that he personally appointed to solve his problems, and THIS IS WHAT WE GET? A drunk monkey can push a button and spend money and it appears that we are paying the equivalent of thousands of drunk monkeys to sit on their butts and do nothing but spend money.
It’s too bad the oil spill wasn’t any worse. If they hadn’t had to put out all those skimmers to clean up the oil before it got to shore, they could have added lots more government jobs and billed BP.
With the oil clean-up winding down, there are going to be fewer clean up jobs that probably counted toward employment the last few months.
get your finances in order and baton down the hatches. It’s going to be rough for a little bit. but the government will ultimately inflate our way out of it. When everything goes down, don’t sell out because it’ll come back fast!
Excellent!
Republicans need to start drafting bills to break up the unions under anti-trust laws. Start with the NEA and SIEU. They need to nullify contracts created negotiating with these monopolies.
This is more of the same…
Obama LOVES fascist economics.
Big Labor is an important player in the corporatist collective…
Not really. Unions have special protections in anti-trust law. We just need to expose them to the same standard as business.
DOES HARRY REID HAVE PICTURES OF SNOWE AND COLLINS DOING DOGS OR WHAT?
What, cash-strapped? Maybe not quite, just think about all the billions tied up in IRAs, 401ks and other assorted tax-deferred plans…that, um, could be taxed out of desperate need for cash, or flat out siezed by the fed to use in a fiscal “emergency” and be issued i.o.u’s with nominal interest to eventually be paid, maybe.
When you’ve lost the Boy Scouts, you’ve lost America. Next up to bail on this failed Presidency, teachers’ union members who will realize they were far better off under Bush.
It does make you wonder.
***
Comrade Obama (PBUH) and his socialist / marxist ilk keep robbing us peons and rewarding their enablers / buddies. And peeing on our backs and telling us it’s raining as they laud their economic “progress”. Keep digging–the hole isn’t deep enough yet!
***
The 2010 and 2012 elections can’t get here soon enough. REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER.
***
John Bibb
***
The gov’s solution to every problem – spend more money. If the powers that be had to fork over their private incomes to prove the their solutions worked, then the solutions might be different. Constantly throwing money at a problem hasn’t worked without have a good reason for the spending. DC hasn’t had enough good ideas.
Breaking News:
Feds Buy 1000 New Printing Presses $100,000,000,000
AP- Apparently the old presses just gave out from extreme use. The US Fed has borrowed another $100,000,000,000 from China to buy new presses. Unfortunately, any money printed on these new machines have any monetary value.
I think it’s donkey’s
Stimulus defined (and why they never work):
Bingo! Democrats get rich by “administering” public social programs. The money set aside for the program gets stripped away by the administration costs well before it reaches the actual recipients. The intended recipients, as it is understood by those who write the bills, are those tabbed to administer, or dole out the cash. (Think ACORN and SEIU’s “Get out the vote” funding.)
It’s nothing new. It’s similar to a business that conducts fundraising for a charity. The charity only gets 23 cents on the dollar…the fundraisers get the rest. Pretty simple, really.
Trickle-down economics, Democrat-style.
Could have saved the money and just seise aeverone’s assest and income, issue everyone an ObamaCard (made with recycled materials) accepted at federally approved ATMs and retailers, with an automatic 10% federal use fee whenever used. Better than worthless paper money and environmentally friendly too!
.
It’s tinkle-down…
that would be “just sieze everyone’s assets”. Trigger finger too quick to submit. Arg.
How do we rid ourselves of the RINOs? Start anywhere with the process, Collins and Snowe either voted out or publicly change Party, Linsey, McLame, Both TN Senators, and others; change Party or voted out.
No, he bribed them with Medicaid money, according to Rove.
Good one! Subtle… but good. lol.
And financially starve the RNC, RNSC an RNCC – drive them out of business unless they actually change leadership and policy to actively support grass-roots conservatives and withhold funding of dem hand holding RINOs. These orgs do more harm than good for the party. Support your chosen candidates directly.
Why, does he want to buy some? They come in a boxed set entitled “Oly and Sue do Dobermans”.
It’s actually worse than that if you can believe it. Lloyd Doggett D-Texas managed to get language inserted SPECIFICALLY for Texas and applying ONLY to Texas that requires the Governor agree to continue to spend the money, even after the fed money runs out, forever. Two small problems with that, The Governor doesn’t have that authority, and neither does the State Legislature, their time window is limited to two years by the State Constitution. so since neither the Governor nor legislature can agree to this, the $800 million that the feds are waving under our noses really does not exist. We can’t touch it, even if we WANTED to.
Correction the cutoff date is 2013, but it is still beyond the Governor’s authority.
http://palestineherald.com/breakingnews/x2064740609/Perrys-hands-tied-on-education-funding
>>>>>> EduCrap <<<<<<
“We Helps All The Many Peoples Get Da
JobsChecks“Republicans need to campaign on the fact that Democrats voted to cut “$50 million cut from an adolescent literacy program, nearly $11 million from a teacher technology plan and $82 million from a student financial aid administration plan” to fund their payoffs to the teachers’ unions.
ECS
Every old Democrat scheme is new again!
Back around 1970, state-sponsored technical schools and community colleges sprouted like spring onions here in my patch. We were going to take all those ex-convicts and workers with obsolete skills and teach them to be computer programmers. Now these schools are EVERYwhere. Larger counties have multiple campuses sprinkled around the county.
Not that this is bad, but it was wildly oversold. Unmotivated kids who learned little in high schools mostly learned just as little in technical schools and community colleges, although they have been good resources for some students. Immature students who could not pass algebra in high school definitely did not become — in big numbers — smart, hungry computer programmers who could compete in the world market.
But the Democrats want to spend money, because that’s what Democrats do. They think government can solve the problem of a slack populace in a competitive world. Or maybe they don’t think that at all…they just want to push money out into communities where it will be controlled by their constituents. And they want to award a lot of meaningless diplomas to their constituents — it will help, later, to justify their unemployment checks. It won’t be their fault that they don’t get hired; they will have stood in line were the sugar daddy g’mint told them to stand.
Not to worry, though. They’ll probably be able to get small business loans through Maxine Waters’ bank to open nail salons in the hood. Those small businesses are the strength of the nation.
The Deemocrat victory strategy for 2010…
RUN AWAY…!!!!
As long as they’re running away from Texas. We’re getting infested with these liberal refugees like a plague of fleas.
Why can’t they be honest? The only jobs Pelosi and the Dems are really interested in saving are their own.
Because their brains would explode.
I think they should just concentrate on the illegal vote, after all it is legal isn’t it. And you can vote them over and over. Oh ya and don’t forget the dead people. I have a close conservative friend that just past away….he’ll be voting democrat this fall. And it is established that even if you get caught cheating the election you still get to take the victory, you cannot over throw a sacred election or admit you allow illegal votes….so what’s to loose
The TRUTH? They don’t think we can handle the truth so they never bother to use it. I am on vacation in the Big Sky and this is the first time I have had wi-fi or any real source of news. Five weeks without new information to help me hate a Liberal: Priceless.
===
Let your sidearm be like Master Card:
Don’t Leave home without it.
The ideology of liberalism (quasi socialism) has had its test run this past 2 years; and as predictable as tomorrow’s sun rising, it has failed. The only difference is that the “marginally-interested-in-politics” crowd is waking up to that fact. Let’s all hope that this administration’s abysmal performance is the death of liberalism in this Country once and for all.
off topic: I’d really like to hear MM’s take on what happened at the Loncoln Memorial. Specifically, I would like to know which “officer” of the Parks Dpt. ordered the cessation of National Anthem singing ….
One thing is for sure they would not have stopped the cnating of President Barry’s favorite sound at sounset the call to Mooslim prayer.
Just passed.
Passed.
Typical vote buying by the Ds.
Will it never end ?
If the Rs did this, the Ds and the lsm would be all over the Rs like stink on poo.
The Rs stink at using the media.
Wasn’t the friggin’ $787 billion “Stimulus” bill a “jobs” bill?
What is they thought they were stimulating, other than Dems’ salivary glands?
Why did they need another $26 billion?!
I’ve got a state senator with a radio show here in Houston going ballistic over something the very liberal Lloyd Doggett inserted into the bill. Anybody know what it is? No coverage in the Houston Chronicle of course. From what I hear Texas is obligated to pay our 8% share but we are not allowed to draw from the funds.
What the HELL do these libturds mean by TAX LOOP HOLE?
You mean if we get to keep our own money it’s a LOOP HOLE???
It’s probably the same kind of loophole that allows a citizen of one state to dock his yacht in another state to avoid triggering an enormous tax. Only when a company does something like that it’s somehow “bad.”
I say we should just print a quadrillion ($1,000,000,000,000,000) dollars, pay off our debts, make everyone in the country a multi-millionaire and stop all this talk about pesky deficits, and wasteful soul-destroying big government programs. Perhaps this is Obama’s August surprise.
Great, our tax dollars converted to union dues and straight into the Dem election coffers.
What a slimy thing.
This story needs to be told to voters, over and over and over.