The Washington Post details the problems states and municipalities are having paying for services:
Philadelphia officials are leaving 200 police positions unfilled and cutting back on overtime.
Sheriff’s deputies in Polk County, Fla., are picking up more work after the state highway patrol froze hiring and four local police agencies disbanded.
And police in Atlanta are shouldering a 10 percent pay cut after all 1,770 employees and the police chief agreed to a furlough of four hours per week.
The nation’s economic trouble has hit state and local law enforcement, with two out of three large departments reporting budget cuts or hiring freezes. And at the same time, leaders at more than a quarter of the 233 departments that responded to a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum say they are noticing an uptick in property crime that they blame, at least in part, to economic unrest.
Clearly there is an obvious solution for this problem, as any good Republican or centrist will tell you- MORE TAX CUTS. Seriously, though, the craziest thing about the centrist compromise over the stimulus bill is that for whatever reason, they stripped out a ton of aid that would go directly to the states, create immediate jobs. At a time when the economy is shedding 600k jobs a month, not firing a police officer is almost as good as hiring a new one.
There are other solutions and workarounds, of course. Police departments could refocus their mission and move away from the inordinate amount of time and money they spend arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating non-violent drug offenders, but we all know that won’t happen. Even in 2009, America is still firmly in the grips of reefer madness, as Michael Phelps can surely tell you.
If only we had made the Bush tax cuts permanent and forever ended the “death tax,” we would not be having these debates, as everything would just take care of itself.
Josh Hueco
RE: Reefer madness and our penchant for blue-nosed hysteria—this country would have been so much better off if God would have sunk the Mayflower about 20 miles from the English shore.
JL
President Obama always talks about jobs created and jobs saved while discussing the stimulus plan.
Crime is already increasing in the Atlanta area and the sales tax revenues are falling off the cliff in Fulton and neighboring counties.
Somehow cutting funds to the states will be the dems faults for not cutting taxes. (I realize the sentence is illogical but so are the repubs.)
linda
oh please, all that’s just ‘silly stuff’ … just ask senator claire mccaskill — twittering twit:
# Proud we cut over 100 billion out of recov bill.Many Ds don’t like it, but needed to be done.The silly stuff Rs keep talking about is OUT. about 24 hours ago from web
http://twitter.com/clairecmc
Snail Darter
Obviously, Obama can’t wave a wand and make dumb drug laws go away, especially jailing marijuana users. But I’m expecting a slow change in emphasis away from incarceration to treatment. This can be done thru funding police departments and setting a different tone over time.
And the reduction of state money is inexplicable to me as well. Which is pretty par for the course in understanding the logic of most things congress does.
Napoleon
The Senate compromise is an abomination. They litterally cut out stuff certain to save/create jobs and that helped working families for stuff that doesn’t and benefits more wealthy people. On top of it the plan was just as likely to be too small then too big to begin with, before it was made less stimulative.
We are well and truly screwed.
par4
Soak the rich then hang them out to dry.
Rick Taylor
Yup. It’s insane. After moaning about how the stimulus was ineffective pork barrel spending that wouldn’t get into the economy for years, they’ve removed items like food stamps and aid to states that would help the economy very quickly and which are an effective stimulus, while getting more tax cuts (the latest I heard was 48% tax cuts). And they’ll vote against the bill in the end anyway. Pretty amazing work for a party in the minority. And they have us over a barrel, because we have to pass something, and the few centrists in both parties who hold the balance of power are willing to sink the bill if they don’t get what they want. I keep hearing that a normal appropriations bill can’t be filibustered, so we can introduce some of these things then. I certainly hope so (and of course the administration will be admonished for not being bipartisan when they take advantage of that.
As cynical as I am, I was surprised they cut foodstamps. This at at time when they’re bemoaning that limiting CEO’s from using our tax dollars to award themselves bonuses amounts to socialism. Democrats should play this up.
Brick Oven Bill
A small town debated incorporation and the voters declined. Then a push next election cycle and the voters chose ‘local control’. The city councilmen were all good people. Self-interested, like everybody, but good, well intentioned people.
Then came the staff. Decent holdovers from the town days. Who, of course, needed a high-five-figure professional manager from California. Then came resources from growth, which, of course, would never end.
Then, of course, you need six-figure professional consultants, legal, engineering, and accounting. Then it is easier to hire your own staff to oversee the consultants to look out for the public’s interest, you see. Who need an eight-figure building in which to work.
Then there are those public works projects that would be nice. These cost nine figures, and require lots and lots of management, and bond issues, based on this growth that will never end.
calling all toasters
Or much better than hiring a new one, since you don’t have to take time to train the old one, they are better at their job, and they get paid more.
Brien Jackson
I don’t know, the way the traffic cops drive around here I wouldn’t mind having a few less.
Changeroo
No stimulus bill whatsoever would be a better alternative than a jerry-rigged mish-mash of nonsense like we’ve got in DC now.
Reverend Dennis
Isn’t it important, at a time like this, that some Americans can be confident that their lives will be unaffected by the Pelosi/Reid recession? Lower the estate tax and reduce income taxes on the wealthy to make sure that the dreams of the wealthiest among us can still come true.
/Republicans
Rick Taylor
As angry as I am, I have to hand it to Republicans; their strategy is impeccable. After being being beaten in the elections, it looks like they’ve managed to cripple the recovery bill (of course the debate isn’t over yet, so I’m still hoping). At the same time, they’ll vote against it. So they have they can have their cake and eat it. Obama began by compromising with them, the idea being they would get some say influence one the bill, but at the cost of sharing responsibility. So far it looks like the Republicans have gotten more input into the bill, but they’ll vote against it and campaign against it at the very same time. Well played. I guess this is the general strategy, start from a commitment that government is always the problem, use that to cripple government’s attempt to address a crises, then when the response fails, shout look we were right; even after forcing a huge partisan stimulus package down without our support, the economy is a mess.
Of course it isn’t over yet; the bill has to go back to the house. From where I’m sitting, the efforts at being bipartisan and reaching out have blown up in our face, and I hope the administration is working on a change of course.
cosanostradamus
.
Banks & cops laying off…
Sounds like a good time for a heist.
Sonny, Rico, Tony!
Pizza to go, no anchovies!
Then, after lunch, we hit a bank..
Here’s yer Sunday music videos, extra cheese. Plus, WTF "the Cloud" is. Free. On da house. Yaw money is no good heah. Gah bless.
.
Brien Jackson
That seems a bit fatalist.
Zam
They are cutting staff from the university I attend as well.
El Cid
A decade or so, you couldn’t stop Clinton and other centrist Democrats from bragging about their program to put 100,000 new cops on the street.
Are they going to brag now that they took them off?
Keith
The free market is my anti-drug.
Rick Taylor
It’s true, the debate isn’t over yet. The bill has to go back to the house. Crippling is too strong a word, and this isn’t the last bill.
JL
@Rick Taylor: Wait until he nominates someone for the Supreme Court . Personally, I still hope Cheney takes Scalia hunting.
Mike in NC
Worth quoting from today’s local newspaper: "What is wrong with this country? We’ll spend billions for bombs blowing up people in a country where we have no business being. And we have no health care!" – Duane Lewis (lifelong Republican and home builder whose business has failed)
Walter Sobchak
Here’s a great plan I read somewhere recently:
1. Hire Joe the Plumber to become IRS audit czar
2. ??????
3. Return to prosperity
The devil is in the details as they say…
Graeme
Ummm… I would argue the obvious solution would be to end the war on (some) drugs. That would free up some money. If we quit dragging people through the courts for a little dope, that could free up some money, too. To say nothing of the fact we’d save more if we didn’t have to incarcerate ’em.
Scott H
Obama can actually wave a magic wand and make dumb drug laws go away. The Executive sets the priority of how laws are enforced – if at all (which see, the pull back of the regulatory agencies during the Bush Administration resulting in a financial crisis, contamination of the food supply, and increased danger in the work place, among others, add your own).
How many Administrations have crowed about putting more cops on the street, and now the convenience is to dither about paying public safety services salaries? Does that funding need to be part of the stimulus? Maybe not, but it is certainly urgent.
We got a President who can walk and chew gum at the same time. We’re still stuck with a Congress that can’t tie their shoes without getting the gum stuck in their laces.
El Cid
I still want Obama or somebody to announce that the IRS will now begin using the warrantless wiretapping and spying powers approved for the NSA.
"What? You conservatives demanded that the government have these powers! We’re just making sure that they’re used!"
mellowjohn
the obvious solution is to cut taxes to zero. then governments will be swimming in money.
passerby
I think We the People have been looking at this the wrong way. Obama declared that trickle-down economics have been a failure and that he’d like to see trickle-up instead.
If the elected officials’ club in Congress are willing to consider saddling the American workers and taxpayers with a trillion dollar program, why not give $300,000 to each man, woman or child who has a SS number thereby letting us stimulate the economy?
We’d be putting the money into a bank thereby giving them the capital they need for investing/loaning.
We’d pay down or pay off debt making ourselves more liquid and here again putting capital into banks.
We’d be buying cars, washers & dryers, homes, computers, and travelling which bring tax revenue to our communities and raise demand for the manufacture of goods and services.
The variables would be subject to market forces. For instance, a glut of jobs needed to meet demand would create competition for labor causing higher pay and better benefits.
There may be other things to consider, but would this approach be any more risky that pouring the capital directly into banks where the fat cats (no offense to Tunch and Walter) cover their own asses first?
And I’d bet Congress, in the blink of an eye, would immediately find reasons to raise taxes so as to fill their feeding trough.
I’m sure the so-called economic experts would find a gazillion things "bad" about this idea but, wouldn’t you agree it would have the immediate effect we need?
This is the Deus Ex Machina Plan that I’ve been hoping for.
Seriously. Think about it.
JenJen
Why was Mike Pence just on my teevee claiming that Bush saved the economy by cutting taxes in response to 9/11, when the first big, massive Bush Tax Cut passed in mid-2001?
And since the first Bush Tax Cut was actually conjured up in 1999 during the GOP Primaries, and not in response to the recession that came later, why do they still insist that Bush pushed it through in response to the recession? Revisionism, no?
Me confused. Me even more confused that nobody deigns to ever call any of these people on their horseshit.
Brien Jackson
Because that comes out to $90 trillion?
Snail Darter
@JenJen:
Barney Frank is the only one I can think of, who lays it out in direct clear terms. They should make him the official dem spokesman for teevee punditry. The rest need to just sit back, watch, and learn.
passerby
@Brien Jackson:
Oops. I must have misplaced a few 000s in my calculation.
How ’bout we give $300,000 to every American citizen over the age of 18 (those who have a SS#)?
And, if we’re not careful, we could end up with a "It’s Mad Mad Mad Mad World" type of argument about who is deserving to receive the money. But, I’d rather we have that argument instead of which banks should get the $$$.
mellowjohn
JenJen @ #28:
because republicans are allowed to lie with impunity when on the talk shows. i think it’s written into their contracts.
barkleyg
Or, don’t raise my local taxes, such as property and sales taxes. But, like here in Orange County, Cal, these same people are wondering why their house burned down during the last set of fires.
Well, you cheapskate, you voted down funds for more fire stations, equipment, and personnel. Repugs want all that government can offer, but they don’t want to pay for it. Hey, fire stations, policemen, educators, etc, just don’t grow on trees, you have to pay for them, and we do that locally with local taxes, which are usually voted down.
We are in the last throes of an 8 year expeiment with a "tax cut theory" of the economy. It has FAILED miserably, and even the rich are now feeling it. Obama should tell this country tomorrow that the old ways have failed, the Repugs are still clinging to the old ways while the country wants the Obama way. He should tell Americans to now vote with their phones and e-mails, and let the Repugs know that we want a new economy of government spending being the basis, instead of tax cuts.
JenJen
@mellowjohn:
woody
"Screwed" doesn’t put a patch on it, pardner…
It started in 1968, and they haven’t looked back.
We are now so deeply, thoroughly, completely, utterly, irreversibly, totally FUCKED! We, and our family, friends, progeny, pets, and the whole planet are, and we just stand around chewing our cuds and gazing in rapt pleasure at the image or our wonderfulness on every screen…
"We’re # ONE! We just proved racism doesn’t exist anymore, and that the sweet honey of justice will flow from the Preznit’s rhetoric. We won more medals at the Olympics than anybody. We can’t be THAT fucked, can we?"
Yup…Hide (and hide well) and watch…
JenJen
Speaking of Michael Phelps, if any of you missed SNL last night, I implore you to go watch Seth Myers’ "Really?!" rant.
Best part of the program by far. I’m still laughing!
woody
Big Money will win out.
Big Money ALWAYS wins, no matter what.
"The power of careful observation is often called cynicism by thos who haven’t got it."–G.B.Shaw
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Graeme: Not to mention the revenue from the taxes there-on. One could easily put a $100/oz tax on cannabis and pot-heads would be clamoring for it.
But as my sainted Mama useta say, "that would be too much like doin’ right."
Brien Jackson
Because that still comes out to solidly over $14 trillion.
JL
@JenJen: Thanks!
JenJen
Ooooh, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is on John King’s CNN show right now, basically telling Republicans they can suck it and the House is gonna put the education spending back in the bill and ensure any tax cuts will go to the lower- and middle-classes.
Wasserman-Schultz is one of the best Dem surrogates out there, and it’s nice to see her back on TV.
passerby
@Brien Jackson:
Ok, then how ’bout this. If we add up the TARP money, plus the stimulus package (which is growing by the day), in addition to the billions Geithner wants to pour into the banks to prop up a fraud-laced, failing market system (to be announced Monday), could we agree on $ 3 trillion total? What would happen if we gave $30,000 to everyone whose average income does not exceed $250,000?
The numbers are plastic. But the trickle up concept can only work if those dollars (amount to be determined) are pumped in at a low level–our level.
Right now the goal seems to be to give the money to banks so they can loan it out. I just don’t see how we benefit by going into debt to banks that have been engaged in unbridled, free-wheeling predatory practices. It falls under the category: SS/DD.
In effect we, as tax payers, would be on the hook for the 3 trill AND as individuals be on the hook to pay back a loan with interest. Seems like we’re being screwed coming and going.
LA Confidential Pantload
Interesting that the Senate version tracks the Rush Limbaugh version so closely in proportion of spending to tax cuts. A superficial reading of this is that Rush is a more effective leader for Republicans than the President is for Democrats. Or maybe not so superficial.
D. Mason
Fixed.
gbear
@Napoleon:
We are well and truly
screwedheaded for committee.Start calling congresscritters. It’s about all we can do and it only takes a minute. Don’t think of it as a waste of time.
Bill H
No, it would not. It would keep jobs from being lost and, while certainly worthwhile, that is not the same thing.
I am wholly in favor of this bill and wish it were bigger, but my own party keeps shooting itself in the damn foot. They are calling everything "stimulus." Actually, the bill is a combination of rescue, preservation and stimulus. Saving existing jobs is simply not stimulus, even when you make a ten minute speech explaining how it is stimulus. Stimulation increases activity. Saving existing jobs keeps activity from declining, but it does not cause it to increase.
They just hauled off and said, "Well we’re not going to focus on doing one thing and doing it well, we’re going to do everything and do it all in one big huge bill." The problem is they are spending what should have been spent on the one thing on a whole lot of things and wind up trying to do a number of things and failing at all of them.
We needed an $800 Billion stimulus bill. What we are winding up with is an $800 Billion bill with (and I don’t know what the final numbers are, but…) $200 Billion relief, $200 Billion rescue, $200 Billion preservation, and $200 Billion stimulus. Epic fail.
Brien Jackson
Inflation, roughly speaking.
Napoleon
Actually it is. Saving a job that pays $40k a year is exactly the same as creating a job for $40k a year.
opium4themasses
@Napoleon: No, cause we’re not any farther ahead. We’re just not as screwed as we could have been.
Napoleon
@opium4themasses:
Your wrong. If they don’t spend the money on keeping an existing job that will go away without the expenditure there is no difference between funding that job instead of a new one and not funding that job but instead spend it to create a new job. The only difference between the two that in the first example Ms. A is employed and Ms. B is not, whereas in the second Ms. A is unemployed and Ms. B is employed, but the net result to the economy is exactly the same. The unemployed person will have minimum expenditures going forward whereas the person who is employed will not. It doesn’t matter whether it is A or B.
PS, I think everyone understands at this point that no matter what the government does we are going to keep loosing jobs, but the better the plan the quicker we bottom out and start to recover. We should me so luckly if they come up with something that keeps us just treading water.
NonWonderDog
@opium4themasses: So, if we lose a $40k a year job, and then create a new $40k a year job, that’s more stimulative than not losing the $40k a year job?
Howd’ya figure?
passerby
@Brien Jackson:
What would happen if we gave $30,000 to everyone whose average income does not exceed $250,000?
And what will happen if we give trillions of dollars to the banks, and state and municipal governments? Roughly speaking, of course.
opium4themasses
Eh, this is semantics. I wouldn’t count a net change of zero as jobs created, merely water treaded. Then again, we’re looking at mostly minimizing the negative rather than actually moving positive anytime soon.
Mostly I am just tired of the smoke and mirrors involved in the various economic report cards.
Also, inflation is usually good for people with negative net worth which is true for much of America.
robertdsc
I wish the Dem leadership in both houses would have asked any centrist/Repub who brought up tax cuts the following:
I wish. Very much.
Svensker
The kicker is — at least in rich parts of the country, like northern NJ where I am — the police are horrendously overpaid (nice guys, good at their jobs, but overpaid). In my little town of about 4,000 with essentially no crime, cops get $100K after 8 years, and can retire after 20 years at 80% with full health/dental benefits. Where is that money going to come from? Do you think I’m going to show up at a city council meeting and agitate for lower pay and/or lower benefits for the cops — the guys I might have to call in an emergency? Nuhuh. But our local taxes are already killer — what’s going to happen when revenues fall to the point where they can’t pay those benefits and can’t raise taxes any more?
Bill H
Let me try this one more time. Stimulus is an action that stimulates, that activates, that energizes, that makes things become more active.
Not losing a $40k job does not make anything more active, more energetic or larger. It maintains the status quo ante. That is desireable, but it is not stimulation.
Creating a new $40k job makes the economy more active, it puts an additional $40k into the economy, making it more active. It stimulates the economy.
They are not the same thing.
If you allow a cow to continue walking about in the field, that is undoubtedly better than killing it. (For the cow, anyway.) If you hit it with a cattle prod it will take off at a run. Not killing the cow and hitting it with an electric prod are not the same thing. The former results in a walking cow, and the latter in a running cow.
If we just save all of the existing jobs we will sitll have a crappy economy. Or does anyone think the economy is good right now? The stimulus is needed to make the economy better than it is now.
Do you see the difference?
NonWonderDog
@Bill H:
So if we let all the teachers get laid off, and then hire them to do construction (which they’re probably not very good at), that’s better for the economy that keeping teachers doing what they’re good at?
If you can spend $40,000 to employ someone in a down economy, you can either spend it to keep someone in their job, or you can spend it to hire someone else to do a different job. In the first case, the economy hasn’t lost that job, and hasn’t gained any, for a net gain of zero jobs. In the second case, the economy lost one job, and gained another, for a net gain of zero jobs. In addition, someone highly trained at their job was let go, and must now find another job to do–one they are not trained at.
How is the second scenario better for the economy?
You’re arguing that we need to do both, but you can’t do both if you rob the budget of the first to pay for the second.
John Cole
@Bill H: Bill is clearly right, which is why I wrote “At a time when the economy is shedding 600k jobs a month, not firing a police officer is almost as good as hiring a new one.”
The point being, not losing a job right now is better than losing it, even though it is not a net stimulus with a job gain. Basically, we are sticking our finger in a dike, but just keeping a person employed The Republicans would prefer to place C4 at the same dike. Actual stimulus would be hiring someone new to do a new job.
Nellcote
Why aren’t mayors and governors coming out publicly and showing why the money is needed? They could be doing more to bring understanding on a community level.
Xenos
Here is the solution: get the stimulus package passed with no state aid. Just get it done so you can move on.
Then announce a major legislative project — have all the governors submit bills to the White house for the dollar amount of the unfunded mandates the states have been covering. Calculate the total cost and determine a correctly sized tax surcharge on the top two tax brackets to pay the cost of the mandates. Submit it to House, and it passes in short order. Submit it to the Senate, and let the GOP filibuster it as the state governments starve to death. Teachers fired, policemen fired, total collapse.
Brute force… make them talk until they drop, while the public watches them block the funding necessary for all the little towns in Dixie and Appalachia to survive. Wait the bastards out until they submit.
LanceThruster
Michael Phelps is clearly a terrorist (as per the DHS line that all drug use supports terrorism).
How big is the pool at Gitmo? (though since it will be closed maybe his new facility will have a better one).
srv
If you want to put your money where your bong is, join the Kellogs boycott.
Zzyzx
@Xenos: Again, what I learned this weekend is that the Republicans wouldn’t have to filibuster it. A 3/5 vote in the Senate would be needed for any bill that raises the deficit.
Now what Obama could do is declare it an emergency bill like Bush did with the Iraq War funding, at which point it just is a straight up or down vote.
Stuck
And here’s another brain teaser born of wingnut logic. If you let expire tax cuts that were legislated as short term stimulus to expire to begin with, is that a tax increase?
Elie
There is a huge noise machine right now and it includes not only the right and the MSM but factions within the progressives and liberals. Very difficult to plot a straight course for Obama.
This is war — but a strategic war where sometimes success may first start out as failure. This bill may need to fail and our economy worsen before the consequences and suffering knock the bullshit out of the so called decision makers and perhaps people get into the streets.
In my very humble opinion, too much of the critique of Obama and this bill from our side is not focused on strategy, but on picking apart one provision or another — which is fine and many times justified, but misses the larger problem — we do not right now have a government functioning well enough to deal with this huge and profound disaster in a systematic, coherent and effective way. We have cars filled with clowns whirling round the Big Top, spilling out, squirting the audience with crazy foam and tweaking each other’s noses. We have clowns crowning themselves as kings and producing reams of clown statistics and reports that are not bringing information, just more confusion and noise..
I know this, the strategy is up to Obama and his people and I hope that they are dialed into the reality of what we have. This country is not ready for bipartisanship. This country is not ready for real responsibility and accountability either. 8 years and longer of ineffective governance and leadership on both sides of the aisles have given us an environment similar to that of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg — everyone headed for the lifeboats with the first dozen being lowered half filled with rich men and the people in steerage locked in to drown due to the struture of the ship to keep the poor away from the rich. Hopefully we are not the Titanic but we may have to have our hair shot through with silver first and live through some real hard times… You knew didnt you that the old order wouldnt go without a fight? That they wouldnt just concede defeat and let the "good guys" run things?
Its Obama’s hand on the tiller though, and if I am him, that is how I want it and the only way it can be given the above reality. Hopefully he has one or two good people around him who he can trust but its up to him to go up to Mordor and return the ring. Things will not be normal for quite a while — indeed — for change to ocurr, discomfort is necessary. (Gawd, how did folks get through the civil war and the revolutionary war?)
I pray for him and us…