{"id":441,"date":"2009-12-29T04:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T12:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=441"},"modified":"2009-12-29T04:57:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T12:57:00","slug":"denying-the-trough-where-they-feed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2009\/12\/29\/denying-the-trough-where-they-feed\/","title":{"rendered":"Denying the Trough Where They Feed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I never could understand Republican logic.&#160; At the same time that they claim that \u2018the stimulus\u2019 is a failure, they not only grovel for stimulus money, but also take credit for what they opposed.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: calibri; font-size: 11pt\"><font color=\"#000000\"><a href=\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/DenyingtheTroughWhereTheyFeed_334A\/GOPigsstimulus.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px\" title=\"GOPigs-stimulus\" border=\"0\" alt=\"GOPigs-stimulus\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/DenyingtheTroughWhereTheyFeed_334A\/GOPigsstimulus_thumb.jpg\" width=\"364\" height=\"244\" \/><\/a> Every Republican in the House and nearly every Republican Senator voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (also known as the stimulus). Although the Congressional Budget Office has credited the stimulus with creating up to 1.6 million jobs, the same GOP politicians who opposed the stimulus have attempted to justify their opposition to the policy by smearing it as a failure. But as ThinkProgress has documented, the same politicians are returning to their districts to take credit for the economic success of the stimulus. <\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: calibri; font-size: 11pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">In the past month, several more GOP lawmakers went home to their district to praise and claim credit for successful stimulus programs:<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.375in; font-family: calibri; font-size: 11pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">\u2013 Earlier this month, <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)<\/span> called the stimulus a \u201clarge-scale failure,\u201d<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&#160; <\/span>[GOPig delinked] but last week hailed a stimulus program in Frankford, Missouri as \u201ccritical.\u201d Referring to a<\/font> <a href=\"http:\/\/thepeoplestribune.com\/?p=3258\" target=\"_blank\">$330,000<\/a> <font color=\"#000000\">loan and<\/font> <a href=\"http:\/\/thepeoplestribune.com\/?p=3258\" target=\"_blank\">$313,900<\/a> <font color=\"#000000\">grant authorized by the stimulus, Luetkemeyer said, \u201cClearly, the 328 residents of Frankford will benefit from this grant and I appreciate the USDA\u2019s willingness to help this community.\u201d In September, Luetkemeyer requested<\/font> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firedupmissouri.com\/content\/luetkemeyer-still-singing-two-tunes-stimulus-money\" target=\"_blank\">$100 million<\/a> <font color=\"#000000\">from the stimulus for a road project in Missouri. <\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.375in; font-family: calibri; font-size: 11pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">\u2013 On his campaign website, <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)<\/span> features his opposition to the \u201cpork-filled\u201d[GOPig Delinked]<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&#160; <\/span>stimulus. However, on his congressional website, McCaul features a story from earlier this month about a largely stimulus-funded project to expand Highway 36 in Texas. In the story, he is thanked for \u201ctaking this project to the<\/font> <a href=\"http:\/\/mccaul.house.gov\/index.cfm?sectionid=48&amp;parentid=7&amp;sectiontree=7,48&amp;itemid=875\" target=\"_blank\">next phase of reality<\/a><font color=\"#000000\">.\u201d[GOPig Delinked] Noting its importance, McCaul says the highway expansion will \u201ccut down on fatal crashes and <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sealynews.com\/articles\/2009\/12\/24\/news\/news01.txt\" target=\"_blank\"><font color=\"#000000\">ensure commerce<\/font><\/a><font color=\"#000000\"> can continue to move efficiently through Austin County and the rest of this important region.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.375in; font-family: calibri; font-size: 11pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">\u2013 On December 16th, <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY)<\/span> sent out a press release hailing<\/font> <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamattersaction.org\/blog\/200912210003\" target=\"_blank\">$1,044,140<\/a> <font color=\"#000000\">in stimulus money Carroll County school system, while crediting himself for securing the money. \u201cI am pleased that our office was able to assist them in obtaining these funds,\u201d noted Davis in the release. On the same day, Davis blasted a separate release claiming that the stimulus had \u201c<\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/mediamattersaction.org\/blog\/200912210003\" target=\"_blank\">failed<\/a><font color=\"#000000\">.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: calibri; font-size: 11pt\"><font color=\"#000000\">Of course, Luetkemeyer, McCaul, and Davis voted against the stimulus. Congressional Republican leadership, who helped corral partisan opposition to the Recovery Act, are also shamelessly attacking the stimulus while requesting stimulus money\u2026 [<em>emphasis original<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2009\/12\/28\/more-stimulus-hypocrisy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first time and this isn\u2019t the last.&#160; You folks who live in districts with a GOP Rep. should consider keeping track of stimulus money going to your district and publicly exposing your pig every time he or she tries to take credit for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I never could understand Republican logic.&#160; At the same time that they claim that \u2018the stimulus\u2019 is a failure, they not only grovel for stimulus money, but also take credit for what they opposed. Every Republican in the House and nearly every Republican Senator voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (also known as <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2009\/12\/29\/denying-the-trough-where-they-feed\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}