I’ve been watching Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R – Texas) debating John Kerry (D – Massachusetts) debating the economic stimulus bill and it’s related problems with bipartisanship on MEET THE PRESS. Needless to say, Kerry is pushing for jobs, education and infrastructure employment. Hutchinson is pushing for tax cuts, of course, and is threatening another 100% Republican pullout. What stuck in my mind, however, was her statement that the Infrastructure has been well-funded so far and is not a problem.
This caught me by surprise (but not, apparently, host David Gregory who seemed much more interested in trapping Kerry in a statement on Thomas Dashiell’s tax situation.) I’ll have to wait until they post the video online to catch the statement again, but I’m pretty sure our highways and bridges have not had strong Federal support and the infrastructure is falling apart. One of the reasons is the last 8 years of tax cuts pushed by the Bush Administration and six years of it with a Republican controlled Congress that threw away a surplus and cut the taxes and, finally, lost billions of dollars on war spending – read borrowing from China, etc. – and other throwaways. But Hutchinson thinks the infrastructure is covered, and let’s cut more taxes.
The Republicans got us into this mess and they seem insistent on keeping us in it, despite Obama’s visibly forward approach to working with them.
Give me a break. Jobs are disappearing in the tens of thousands (I just found out that I will probably lose my part-time teaching gig at the end of the term, so I’m back with the crowd having been jobless more than once in the last three years) and the local business economy is shrinking from area to area. Retirement funds are disappearing in big bites as 401(k)’s have their investments shrinking from month to month.
So what will the Senate do with the Stimulus Bill? Tune in next week.
