Say Anything Blog

The drunken sailors on leave increased spending during Bush’s economic boom and now the states want the feds to send more money:

At a time when states like Arizona are grappling with billion-dollar budget shortfalls, the federal government is making matters worse by reducing assistance to the states for Medicaid and other social services, Gov. Janet Napolitano told a U.S. Senate panel Tuesday.

Even the economic-stimulus package recently approved by the Democrat-led Congress figures to cost about two dozen states, excluding Arizona, nearly $2 billion this year and next because of corresponding reductions in state corporate and individual income-tax revenues.

So letting citizens of the states keep more of their own money is preventing the states themselves of taking more of it. The states have a right to that money damn it, so the Feds better offset it.

...This fiscal year alone, 18 states face budget shortfalls totaling $14 billion. It gets worse for fiscal 2009, with 21 states projecting shortfalls in excess of $32 billion. For Arizona, Napolitano expects a $1.15 billion shortfall this year, $1.7 billion next.

“States are left with the very real problems of service delivery - educating children, maintaining roads and providing health care - at the same time that we must cut our budgets to compensate for dramatic declines in revenue,” the Arizona Democrat told the panel.

Complicating matters, as commonly happens when the economy slows, states are seeing increased demand for food stamps and unemployment assistance.

But Steve Voeller, president of the conservative Arizona Free Enterprise Club, said any similar federal bailout would serve only to “cover up the fact that the state simply spent too much money on all sorts of things when times were good.”

“Asking for $12 billion in new state spending to provide ‘economic stimulus’ is like telling a drunk to sober up by heading down to the local tavern,” Voeller continued.

While the federal government ponders funding cuts for Medicaid and other state needs, it has already heaped additional costs onto local governments. Napolitano provided a laundry list of complaints:

• Federal funding for homeland-security grants is down by more than half from fiscal 2005.

On the upside, we have not been attacked in 6.5 years and most of the spending increase was in response to 9-11 and much of misguided.  Blame Bush for this for keeping America safe using wiretaps, intelligence, and purging Afghanistan and Iraq of their terror supporting regimes.

• Arizona is owed more than $400 million through a federal program to reimburse states for their costs in jailing illegal immigrants.

Yet Arizona is seeing real progress in the number of illegals in the state simply by enacting employer sanctions laws.  Plus Arizona has stopped spending on entitlements for illegals.  Prop 300 did that.  Surely that money helps offset the cost of jailing illegals.

• The states have received less than $100 million to assist with implementation of a national identification card known as REAL ID. Costs to develop and operate the system range between $3.9 billion and $11 billion over five years.

Dems will fix that when Hillary is elected.  The ACLU was against REAL ID in the first place.  Wait, I guess if we stop he REAL ID, we might have to increase funding for Homeland Security after the terrorists attack us again.

One of Congress’ biggest spending hawks, Rep. Jeff Flake, told The Arizona Republic, “States have a legitimate gripe with the federal government with regard to unfunded mandates, particularly the costs related to illegal immigration.”

But the Arizona Republican added that “Congress may be reluctant to bail the states out when many of them, including Arizona, have been on a spending binge over the last few years.”

So let us build a border fence and states should enact laws like Arizona’s Prop 300.  Illegals are fleeing our state.  Bet that helps huh.