Monday, March 9, 2009

What Has Your Governor Been Up To Lately? Email from The Color of Change

"President Obama's stimulus package provides money for states to extend unemployment benefits for people in dire need of help, but Bob Riley of Alabama, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, Sarah Palin of Alaska, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana--all Republican governors--are putting politics over people.3,4

All six governors have threatened to turn down these funds. Four are 2012 presidential contenders,5 and they all have a vested interest in seeing Obama fail. They're attacking the President's policies to increase their own profile and cozy up to the most die-hard conservatives.6 They also claim that taking the stimulus money would leave their states in debt when it runs out in three years. But that argument rings hollow--state legislatures could reduce benefits to pre-stimulus levels at that point.

While these governors posture, Black folks suffer the most. In all of these states, Black unemployment is at least twice that of Whites--and in Louisiana and Mississippi, the two Blackest states in the Union, the unemployment rate among Black people approaches three times that of their White neighbors.7

Tell these Republican governors to stop putting their personal and political interests above the good of all their states' citizens. Demand that they accept all of the stimulus money designated for unemployment benefits. And when you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

http://colorofchange.org/govs/"

2 comments:

  1. This is why I hate, loathe and despise politics. I know we can't live without it but I don't have to like it. Nothing ever gets done without a hidden agenda, a plot to disrupt or someone getting their palms greased. All the while with them talking out the backside about how they're looking out for the people. I've come to the conclusion that to get anything done, to get any assistane for anyone it's always going to take a grassroots initiative whose first order of business is to keep any governmental body's fingers as far out of the mix as they can.

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  2. yeah, their reason, as always, for doing this is that they are trying to protect us from having to pay higher taxes...shoots, I don't think anyone would really mind paying a few more dollars in taxes if we could just get the s**t done.

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