Articles from February 2009
February 2, 2009
House Republicans Respond to Obama Stimulus Plan
Ever the patriotic lot, the Oklahoma House Republicans are already hard at work stimulating the nation’s economy. The retail sector has been hard hit by the economic downturn. Circuit City has blown a circuit. Other national retail chains are laying people off or flirting with bankruptcy. But the conservative leaders of the legislature’s lower chamber are buying high dollar flat screen televisions like lobbyists used to buy lunch.
Apparently wanting to either support the President or beat him to the punch the Speaker has authorized the use of thousands of taxpayer dollars to purchase flat screen monitors. These monitors will have the dual use of economic stimulus and to clearly see in high definition excellence the red ink in this year’s budget.
The main 412 A, B, and C meeting rooms are awash in high definition flat screen electronics as is the appropriations room. A portable unit is available in meeting room 108.
The purpose of the new screens according to House Officials is to better display committee votes and to provide for presentations of important information to committees. Despite the new electronic gadgetry the screens were not available for presenting the recent historic inauguration ceremonies from Washington D.C. Other, older electronic devices picked up the proceedings just fine. Maybe the new devices don’t pick up the old Democratic analog signals.
It will be interesting to see how the first Republican legislature in state history responds to the estimated $2.5 billion dollars in Federal stimulus the Obama administration may send our way. Expect to see those dollars start showing up in this current fiscal year and for Oklahoma to continue to receive stimulus for the next 18 to 24 months. Funds will be targeted primarily for education; health and transportation but expect smaller amounts for energy and environment and for welfare.
The Medicaid portion of these funds will be vital in keeping many struggling Oklahoma rural hospitals afloat. U.S. Senators Inhofe and Coburn have expressed misgivings over the package and will probably vote against it in the Senate. Our U.S. House Republicans have already said they don’t want the money. It is a good bet they will want to have a say in how it is spent however. It looks like much of the stimulus package may go directly to Democratic Governor Brad Henry. The Governor may get to decide where more than 1/3 of the funding goes without consulting legislative leaders or congressional delegations.
New President Pro Tempore Glen Coffee is also trying his best to help President Obama. Coffee praised Obama for saying he wants to strengthen government transparency and accountability. Coffee wants to do the same thing at the state level – and he wants to do it the old fashioned Democratic way too. Coffee wants to create a new agency. This will set up a battle with Governor Henry who has not been keen on expanding the state bureaucracy while cutting state budgets.
This will be just one more area that Coffee and Henry will but heads. Henry will no doubt want to keep commitments to early childhood education, K-12 education and research proposals such as EDGE in his budget. Coffee will likely want to divert funds to public safety, corrections and perhaps even more tax cuts. This will be in addition to his drive to enact tort reform and workers compensation reform.