Is Lungren Trying To Have It Both Ways On Stimulus Package?
With mid-term elections less than a year away and the battle lines for California’s 3rd Congressional District clearly drawn, is Repub...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2009/12/is-lungren-trying-to-have-it-both-ways.html
With mid-term elections less than a year away and the battle lines for California’s 3rd Congressional District clearly drawn, is Republican Congress member Dan Lungren guilty of “extreme hypocrisy?”
That is a label being hoisted on the three-term conservative by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) who says that Lungren is practicing “extreme hypocrisy” with regards to the stimulus package.
The DCCC points out that in recent interview Lungren characterized the stimulus package as fanning the fire of the recession. Lungren said:
“It [the stimulus package] was a terrible tragedy in the midst of an economic downturn. We poured kerosene on the fire,” he said. “I’ve held my tongue on this, but we’ve got to get our priorities in order.”
However, the DCCC point outs Lungren has also praised in-district infrastructure projects that were funded by federal stimulus dollars. Among them were a Rancho Cordova road improvement project and a SMUD project that Lungren said was vital to “energy, environmental and national security issues.”
“The federal government gave out money it didn’t have,” Lungren said in the Folsom Telegraph interview. “Obviously, (the stimulus package) didn’t work.”
The DCCC counters Lungren claims by pointing out that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in analysis released on Monday that the economic recovery package has generated up to 1.6 million jobs, lowered the nation’s unemployment rate up to 0.9 percent and boosted the economy by up to 3.2 percent.
Hypocrite or flip-flopper?
Sp does Lungren’s saying different things to suit different audiences make him a hypocrite or flip flopper?
As next year’s mid-term battle between Lungren and presumed Democrat-nominee Dr. Ami Bera heats up, you can be certain the DCCC will be calling Lungren out, as they say in Chicago, early and often
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3 comments
The DCCC is the real hypocrite on this issue. Nancy Pelosi and her party passed Obama's "stimulus" package -- a package that has failed to work as the DCCC promised. Lungren did the job that we elected him to do -- to make sure he secured the fair share of funds for his district. We're paying this bill, and will be for many years to come. We should at least get the direct benefit of these funds, and Lungren has made sure the taxpayers in his district aren't solely paying for improvements in Nancy Pelosi's district.
But then, this is the same old tired tactic that the DCCC hacks use in their political games. Remember back in February when the DCCC went on a media rampage against Republicans that voted against the stimulus, claiming one opposing vote cost Florida 330,000 jobs? (See http://tinyurl.com/y8zhqnv). Turns out they were full of bull. The White House is only claiming 150,000 jobs created. (http://tinyurl.com/kohxev)
The true cost of the stimulus is over $3 TRILLION for the next 10 years. (http://tinyurl.com/adzqkt) That's $20M per single job created. If there's allegations of hypocrisy to be made, I'd take a closer look at who is making them...
A GOP representative a hypocrite? really? ;-) [sarcasm]
Although it's still in rough shape, anyone who doesn't see the response to the pending total economic collapse (left by the Bush administration)as an excellent save clearly had no idea of how bad things were looking this time last year.
That we didn't slide into a serious depression is a testimony to the skill of the response.
Could it have been better? Sure, if the Republicans whose policies got us into the mess had supported the sound policies and not attempted to prevent the serious action required.
Increasing the debt is not a good thing, but it's a whole lot better than what would have happened without it.
And I am going to give some credit to Bush for the TARP funds which were a big part of the recovery of our financial sector. Having said that, it was his administrations lax oversight that allowed the bubble in the first place.
We seem to go through the same cycles again and again: Dems fix the economy and create a surpulus (eg Clinton), the public think it was easy and vote in Reps who then trash it for the next Dem administration. It would be nice if, for once, the Reps would have left office with an economy that wasn't going down the drain.
"trickle-down economics" - the worlds biggest financial con (on the working class) ever? maybe.
Shaun,
Thanks for giving us the DCCC talking points.
Let's look at some other factors.
One of the things that the spin doctors leave out of their talking points is that it is Congress that controls spending and oversight, not the President.
So when the economy was good and we had a surplus who was in charge of the purse strings and the economy? Oh that is right it was the Republican led Congress that balanced the budget, sure Clinton signed it but it was the Republican bill that he signed.
Who was in charge of oversight and the purse strings when everything started to go down hill? Hmmm let's see, right again Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the Congessional Democrats.
Now we have Democrats in charge of two branchs of government, and all the spinners can do is say it was Bush's fault.
You have to love this latest spin, Lungren opposed the stimulus so he can't use any of the money or he is a hypocrite. This tact is being used because their last tactic was Lungren can't bring any stimulus money to the district because he is a Republican and not in the majority. Now that he brings projects to the district the argument is he is a hypocrite. Make up your mind Dems, you can't have it both ways, I know you will keep trying but we are not buying.
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