Sunday opinion: Federal stimulus “a bonanza” for North Country
Here’s a sample of this weekend’s newspaper editorials from around the region, many of them focusing on government budget issues.
The Plattsburgh Press Republican offers guarded praise for President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.
It’s futile to second-guess the program. It is here. Now, the only productive debate is whether it is doing any good. On that score, the stimulus has been a $96 million bonanza for the North Country.
Meanwhile, the Watertown Daily Times editorial page says state governments are facing the stark realities of balancing budgets as stimulus spending winds down.
States have anticipated the loss of federal stimulus aid, but officials hoped the economy would recover and state revenues return to pre-recession levels. That hasn’t happened and some in Congress are talking about even greater reductions that will have far-reaching effects on states and local governments.
Also on the topic of groaning government budgets, the Glens Falls Post Star is proposing that secret contract talks with public employee unions be opened to more scrutiny.
Given the significant financial impact on taxpayers of employee salary-and-benefits packages at all levels of government, maybe it’s time to rethink our societal acceptance of secrecy when it comes to public contract negotiations.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise focuses on a more local issue, praising Saranac Lake’s village government for shifting a Federal housing grant to benefit Habitat for Humanity.
The Saranac Lake village board made the right call Monday night in directing a $400,000 federal-state housing grant to Adirondack Habitat for Humanity instead of a group that wants to overhaul the former Paul Smith’s College dormitory on Church Street, making 12 apartments for middle-income people.
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Every where I look I see people talking about and believing “things will get back to normal”. Well, what if this is the new normal? Our dollars buying power is dropping folks. Our trade deficit is obscene, yet we couldn’t afford American made products if we could get them. Food is rising, fuel is rising. Maybe it’s time to accept that Gov’t can’t spend us out of this mess and look for other alternatives that deal with reality instead of political solutions to the problems politicians created.
bret,
i’m all ears. what do you have in mind to increase the buying power of the dollar?
personally, i think it’s a good thing to be done with the era of cheap household goods. i prefer to spend more to buy a quality, us made product. kitchen aid stand mixer, filson clothing, local woodworker furniture; all will last the test of time and help fellow americans stay working.
If I had an answer that was assured to work I’d be running things. I don’t have an easy answer. We’ve devalued our currency over the past few years, our debt makes our money worth less and by printing more and more it falls in value further. We can rein in the currency, but that leads to inflation. I would think the first thing we need to do is to stop adding more currency to the system. Slowing Gov’t spending would help as would a balanced budget. We carry way, way too much debt and the interest payments are a killer. Plus, our trade deficit is a killer too. But you can’t just slap tariffs on all imports and expect people to go out and buy Filson and Johnson wool on a Walmart budget.
Seriously, I don’t know if we can get out of this mess. I don’t know if we’ll ever see the early and mid 90’s again. I forget the term used but there’s an unadjusted unemployment number that counts those who just aren’t looking anymore, those that don’t fall under that “first time unemployment application” number. It’s alleged to be between 22 and 28% last I saw. When I say “alternatives” I mean things like not expecting every high school grad to get a loan for 2-8 years of college, not expecting grants and…well, pork from gov’t. That gov’t is simply going to have to concentrate on paying their bills and incurring no new debt, on streamlining, consolidating and seeking efficiency. We duplicate services and agencies already, the time will come that we can’t do that. As a nation we might have to get used to the idea of not eating imported foods, not getting those $14.00 work pants, not being able to get work shoes for $30.00. We may have to get used to the idea that we have to scrape and scrimp and save a whole lot more than we do now.
I don’t know. My fear is that there’s going to be a confluence of “little” events- a series of crop failures, a disease that maybe affects bee’s or birds, maybe an unintended consequence to genetically modified seed, a major earthquake or a war we aren’t even involved in that adds to the problems. When you get into things like major solar events, EMP, climate change (more of a problem because of the way we want to live, feed ourselves and our global economy as opposed to an end of the world event), peak oil, biological disasters, major plate shift earthquakes in series, volcanic issues….. man, we live in a very fragile world. It wouldn’t take too many “little” events to give us problems we can’t even picture.
Well, getting back on track, we need to end our wars and the spending. We need to limit our Federal and State spending. We need to develop our own economy instead of building the worlds economy. That kind of goes against some of my preferences, but we’ve let things go too far in one direction and haven’t taken care of the other. No matter what we do the economy is going to take more of a hit, I see no other way around it. And we aren’t alone in this. People depend on us to spend to support their economies. China depends on us, holds a lot of our debt as do other nations. If we slow our spending or attempt to regain control of our currency it harms China and others…wars have started over less.
Maybe the new normal will be depression followed by growth followed by recession followed by depression. That’s pretty much the way things went for the first 150 years of this nation. They called them “panics” back then. Maybe I’m just nuts too. Maybe it’ll somehow magically all work out and we can get those 1.9% credit cards again.
Press Republican “On that score, the stimulus has been a $96 million bonanza for the North Country.”
A stimulus package for the Democratic constituency. Wonder if the North Country would have been so well endowed had Doug Hoffman won.
This so-called stimulus is nothing more than a transfer of wealth, and will only last until the wealth is gone, or until the country gets taken over by adults.
I would like to see some reporting about exactly where the 96 million went? I am not against it at all but just wonder who got what?
I have not seen it directly over here, but that does not mean it does not exist.
JDM says: “Wonder if the North Country would have been so well endowed had Doug Hoffman won.”
Stimulus vote in the House was taken Jan. 28, 2009. Bill passed Senate and was signed by the president in February of 2009. Doug Hoffman lost (the first time) to Bill Owens on Nov. 3, 2009. Unless time travel was involved (and I wouldn’t put it past Obama to have developed wormhole technology in Kenya, and to have kept it secret from real Americans so he could use it against us), the two issues are not related.
It is true, however, that liberals were for the stimulus. And therefore it is bad.
And there appear to be plenty of projects in this region that are in for some stimulus money. According to Rep. Bill Owens’s office, Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties are in for a combined $96,347,185. Of that, Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake is down for $8.3 million.
The regions are “in for some stimulus money”.
Where I came from, this puts the stimulus money endeavors in the future, not in the past.
Trudeau Institute “is down for $8.3 million”.
Where I came from, that means the Trudeau Institute hasn’t received any money, yet.
It is childish to dip your hand into your children’s and grand-children’s money, and spend it all on yourself, and hand them the debt as an inheritance.
Me too Mervel. Just where did this $96 mill go? I do know that there were State projects that stated their funding came from some stimulus program, but I can’t help but think if there was $96M, it was diluted before it hit the actual projects and never actually put $96M into the N Country economy.
Citizen Journalists Bret and Mervel,
Here is your MLK Day homework assignment. Follow the money and report back to us:
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/default.aspx
Thanks OA that is an awesome website.
Just quickly it seems the school systems where I live have benefited greatly from these grants, in addition the Hermon volunteer fire department got 800K, go figure?
I will keep looking, thanks.