Help For State/Local Governments Must Be In Stimulus

Work on President Biden's stimulus bill is kicking into high gear now that the impeachment trial is over. One of the most argued about provisions of the bill is the billions included to help state and local governments.

Republicans are saying that help is not needed, but the chart above (using figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) shows the opposite. More than 1.3 million state and local government jobs have been lost in 2020 due to the Trump Pandemic Recession. Many of those jobs are needed, but state and local governments just can't afford them right now.

Republicans were willing to go big with a trillion dollar tax cut that went many to the rich and corporations. It is hypocritical that they now want to cheap-out when it comes to saving state and local jobs. 

The help for state and local governments must stay in the stimulus bill, and Democrats must be firm about this.

"Grandma" Gives State Jobs To 7 Campaign Aides

It looks like the time-honored and ethically-questionable practice of political patronage is alive and well in Texas. Candidates winning state-wide office often reward some of their campaign aides with lucrative state jobs [and you know these aren't entry-level positions].

The tradition continues this year among the winners --

* Governor Rick Perry has hired 5 of his campaign aides to fill state jobs.
* Incoming State Comptroller Susan Combs has rewarded 2 of her campaign staff with state jobs.
* Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has hired 2 of his campaign staff.
* Attorney General Greg Abbott has found a state job for 1 member of his campaign staff.

But you know the practice is getting out of hand, when the losers in the November election also start handing out state jobs to their staff. One Tough Grandma, Carole Strayhorn, was defeated in last November's election. But that did not stop her from hiring 7 members of her campaign staff to be state employees.

The 7 staff members hired by Strayhorn will be making a combined salary of $40,000 a month. If my math is correct, that's an average salary of over $5,700 a month for each employee. And you, the taxpayer, get to pay for Strayhorn's largesse. Aren't you proud?

Tom "Smitty" Smith, head of Public Citizen's Texas branch, is not so proud. He says, "This is outrageous. The outgoing comptroller shouldn't be hiring new employees, especially from her campaign. This is a time when she needs to be winding down her activities as the comptroller rather than padding the payroll."

I agree with Mr. Smith. It's bad enough that we taxpayers must pay to reward campaign staffers of the winners. For us to have to also reward campaign staffers of the losers is just plain ridiculous!