Herald article of Senator Brown when announcing his candidacy.
September 13th:
I believe government is getting too big and that the federal stimulus bill made government bigger instead of creating jobs
That’s fine, all candidates should express their opinions. But today Brown came out with this:
Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown says Gov. Deval Patrick should fire his so-called “stimulus czar” after a congressman complained the state wasn’t spending its federal funds quickly enough.
Brown said in a statement Jeffrey Simon has let down workers in a state with near-double digit unemployment, especially construction workers.
Did Brown have a change of heart over the past few weeks?
I am against the stimulus, it does not create jobs, but if you don’t spend the stimulus funds fast enough to create jobs you’re gone!
Thanks Senator.
It looks like he was right on Sept 13th that the stimulus bill was not creating jobs, it was making government bigger, and he is still saying that the money should be creating jobs, not making government bigger. It looks like he was proven correct to me.
if it’s not being spent, then how is it making government bigger?
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p>Wouldn’t Brown want MA to not spend the stimulus money at all and just give it back?
I get the sense its sitting in some account under control of the state, and it’s too late too give it back. It’s sitting there with a pair of eyes on it, but we’re letting the state use it to pad the coffers during a revenue shortfall and not using it for useful projects and renovations, etc. I’m not saying giving it back wouldn’t be a good idea, maybe it is not too late to say we don’t want it, we don’t want to put our children further into debt or give them higher taxes.
and that the bidding process is not as quick as repaving a road. So it’s going for useful projects, but some projects are larger in scope and will have longer term employment.
This is the classic problem for big government Republicans.
So why doesn’t Brown come out and say, don’t spend it at all, instead of spend it faster or people should get fired?
There’s no advantage to saying “send the money back”, even though Massachusetts sends $1 to Washington for every 77c we get back. The state has an addiction to federal dollars: Kennedy or Kerry could direct the money to certain people and therefore be seen as providing jobs for those people. If Senator Brown decides not to chase federal money for in-state projects, he really will go nowhere as long as the feds are still taxing away all that money. In some sense, it’s better to at least get the 77c back on the dollar rather than 0c.
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p>If Brown makes the case that the system of federal life-support for an over-regulated, over-taxed state economy has to end, from federal officials down to the local Boston elections, that federal taxes have to come down so that money can be invested locally, then at least that makes sense. I’m not saying it gives him a chance at winning, but at least it’s consistent.
Maybe we can find the answer in Paul Krugman’s column today:
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p>Substitute “governor” for “president” and “Massachusetts” for “America” and Brown’s comments maintain their consistency. Deval was for accepting the stimulus funds, therefore Brown was against. Deval is against spending the money like a drunken sailor, therefore Brown is for.
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p>As far as Krugman quotes, though, this one is better:
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without full knowledge that it was coined by Republican patron saint Ronald Reagan. You should have seen the Glenn Beck attempting in his delusional paranoia to link to to a conspiracy. There’s not enough Lithium in the US to make this guy remotely sane.
Massachusetts has spent much of its initial stimulus money on subsidizing the state operating budget, which preserves state employee jobs but provide zero leverage to create private sector jobs. The infrastructure spending, which was the subject of criticism of Governor Patrick by a (Democratic!) congressman, was supposed to be focused on projects that would be undertaken by private contractors and thus creating/preserving private sector jobs in the construction trades, etc. So Brown’s criticism isn’t misplaced or contradictory in the least: use stimulus money to grow the private sector and create/maintain private sector jobs rather than feeding the beast of the annual state operating budget. Full disclosure: I’m with Brown.
“Stimulus” doesn’t actually stimulate, it serves some purpose by reducing unemployment for a little while. What difference does it make if that’s public or private?
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p>If stimulus spending worked, we should be spending $10 trillion dollars a year to have a return of $11 trillion or whatever, no matter whether you’re a Democrat or Republican. Nothing comes from nothing.
..it looks the same. Trillions for rascal corporations, a couple coins for the yokels pockets, plenty of pork. All the while, neither party brings up the fact that the same laws that caused the fiasco are still in effect. No one talks of changing them. Add to that the trillions we pay for our military presence everywhere and the wars without end and we’re talking about fiscal ruin forever.
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p>All these people running for office look the same. They all talk the “free lunch” and deliver what their corporate masters tell them to. Time after time. They should pray that the public never figures out who created the fiscal mess over the past 1/4 century. People don’t like being fools all the time.
… that there is stimulus money being spent on projects by private contractors. I don’t know where you’re getting this. Got a cite?
Governor Patrick has provided detail on where the money is being spent. If you look at the transportation spending, you can take a look at the contracts yourself. It’s all private contractors.
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p>I’d be interested to know where you are getting this information.
… transportation. There were other avenues for stimulus funds as well.