As posted last Sunday, our nation's governors have less opportunity to "play politics" with the stimulus bill, since they are actually charged with the responsibility of taking care of people. They balance budgets, ensure garbage is collected, someone answers the phone at 911, police patrol the streets, courthouses hear cases, etc, etc. So when this reality hit:
The Senate version of the bill, to satisfy the demands of a group of centrist senators, cuts tens of billions of dollars in aid to the states from the measure passed by the House late last month. The single biggest of those cuts was a $40 billion reduction to a state stabilization fund, which angered many governors and state legislatures.
... the folks who feel the pain along with the people, put politics aside and got into the action.
Facing rapidly declining revenues and mounting cuts to state services, governors around the nation scrambled Monday to influence senators to change their positions on the Senate’s economic stimulus bill, which is less generous to state governments than the one approved by the House.
As the bill headed toward final passage in the Senate on Tuesday, state leaders made frantic calls to Congressional committee leaders and amply exercised their thumbs, sending BlackBerry messages from the back seats of cars between appointments, all in the hopes of averting cuts and shoring up their ailing budgets. Though no changes could be made to the bill on Monday, House and Senate representatives still must sit down to reconcile the differences between the measures.
The Senate version of the bill, to satisfy the demands of a group of centrist senators, cuts tens of billions of dollars in aid to the states from the measure passed by the House late last month. The single biggest of those cuts was a $40 billion reduction to a state stabilization fund, which angered many governors and state legislatures...
Read the full story
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