This is not helpful. Via Pat Dollard:
But both men said states can’t continue to climb out of the recession alone, and a majority of governors renewed their bipartisan appeal for Congress to pass stalled jobs legislation that includes billions of dollars in aid to states.
Just days before the new budget year began July 1, the House and Senate failed to complete legislation that would have extended, through June 2011, important parts of the federal stimulus program enacted last year to provide unemployment insurance and help offset recession-driven cuts to education, health care and public safety.
The measure offered $35.5 billion for unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and $16 billion for Medicaid, the public health care program for the poor. It also would have added an estimated $33 billion to the deficit.
Even so, several Democratic and Republican governors suggested in interviews and during panel discussions that the short-term gain was worth the long-term pain.
“We need more help from Washington to protect against job cuts and health care cuts,” Gov. Pat Quinn, D-Ill. “”If we don’t do that, we’re following Herbert Hoover economics.” (emphasis added)
We are not following Herbert Hoover economics. We are implementing FDR economics. You know, the economics that extended the Great Depression.
