from my blog at http://theatleeappeal.com/

Obama’s proposal to give “short-term relief” on states that are deep in the red is nothing more than a small bailout attempt. Don’t confuse it with anything else. From that evil, wretched, vile news organization of Fox News:

The Obama administration is proposing short-term relief to states saddled with unemployment insurance debt, coupled with a delayed increase in the income level used to tax employers for the aid to the jobless.….Rising unemployment has placed such a burden on states that 30 of them owe the federal government $42 billion in money borrowed to meet their unemployment insurance obligations. Three states already have had to raise taxes to begin paying back the money they owe. More than 20 other states likely would have to raise taxes to cover their unemployment insurance debts. Under federal law, such tax increases are automatic once the money owed reaches a certain level.

Read that again real carefully, more specifically the second sentence. Now ponder this for a minute. States are $42 billion in debt to the federal government on unemployment insurance alone. We’ve had the Obama administration pass extensions of unemployment benefits over and over and over to where you can be unemployed for nearly two years and still get unemployment insurance. Nothing like getting paid not to work! States are having a hard time keeping up with their unemployment payments, so they borrow money from Uncle Sam to pay people not to work. What does our bailout-in-chief propose to the states who owe money? “Don’t worry, the people you are borrowing money from are going to give you even more money to help pay back the money you already owe!” This would be like me calling up Sallie Mae regarding my student loan: “Hey, Sallie, yeah I’m in a tough spot. I haven’t budgeted my money very well and I’m deep in the red. Any chance you can just give me some money to reduce the principal amount on my loan that I owe and then I’ll find a way to pay back the money you loaned me to help pay my loan?” And people want to try and label Obama as some sort of new-age Ronald Reagan? Obama couldn’t even spell Ronald Reagan unless it was printed out on a teleprompter, let alone grasp the concepts of common sense Reagan used in governing.

But this all goes back to Obama’s core belief: Government is king, and government is good. Only in the mind of a true statist can one justify the correction of poor government with more government. Let me ask you this Mr. Obama. Have you even considered the consequences if the United States were to have a major credit downgrade? Don’t think it’s not an impossibility.  Dagong Global Credit Rating dropped our rating one level from AA- to A+ shortly after Bernanke’s QE2. If Obama’s Keynesian economic policies are not slowed down, or stopped all together, our bond ratings will have to drop due to our debts hitting critical mass, and rating agencies losing faith that America will be able to pay back even parts of its debt. When that happens, our debts will explode even more because the cost of borrowing will have increased. Washington is wanting to borrowing money it doesn’t have in order to help states pay back money they don’t have to debts they owe Washington. Stephen King couldn’t write a script this out of whack.