Election Issues Today

The GOP failed to support the President’s economic stimulus package.

Because the GOP consistently FAILS to support the interests of the MAJORITY of American voters, they will ALWAYS be the minority party.

Because the GOP has AGAIN put party loyalty and party line ahead of basic human needs, the GOP will again lose seats in Congress in 2010.

President Obama may have wanted to enjoy some semblance of bipartisanship, but there never was much chance that his Party would be able to bring many of the GOP stalwarts over to the other side of the aisle…not even to vote for a package that represents our “best” chance, yes, perhaps our ONLY chance to bring about economic recovery during the next two years.

And–two years from now, all those GOP Congressmen who voted against the stimulus package will have to answer to their constituents.  Why do the Republican members of Congress shoot themselves in the foot?  Over and Over again.

Did they not notice the election results?  They LOST!   American voters REJECTED their philosophies and did so overwhelmingly!

Well, thankfully, the party in power doesn’t have to depend upon bipartisanship to GET THINGS DONE.

Not everything in the stimulus package is perfect; not everything will work as touted; not everyone who wants a job will get one; not everyone will get a tax break the next two years;

BUT…AND THIS IS IMPORTANT:  the MAJORITY will.

President Obama’s stimulus plan will restore funding for local police forces that was initiated under President Clinton and pretty much pushed aside by President Bush.

The program is known as Community Oriented Police Services, COPS for short, naturally, and aims to add 100,000 police officers over the next eight years. Unlike the tax cut aspects of the stimulus plan, this money directly creates jobs at the local level.

The plan includes about $1 billion for local government to hire more police officers. The economic crisis feeds fear of increased crime and so this portion of the stimulus plan presents an opportunity to improve upon the Clinton program by eliminating the 25 percent local “matching” fund requirement that had made it difficult for many municipalities to take advantage of the previous COPS provisions.

I can attest from personal experience that municipal governments are hard-pressed to maintain police and fire services when local tax revenues are falling. Police and Fire Departments eat up a majority of a City’s annual budget.

Whether or not these economic hard times will lead to increasing crime rates is unknown, but that is an argument being brought forward to support keeping law enforcement well-funded for the next few years.

There is also additional money in the stimulus package, about $2.6 billion, that will be available to help local law enforcement with assistance to crime victims, rural drug problems, and police overtime.