Sunday, November 16, 2008

Article of the Day

Don't Bail Out My State, by Mark Sanford

This guy sounds like quite a stand up governor. He's my new second favorite governor, bumping Schwarzenegger down to third.

8 comments:

Jim Gust said...

who's the favorite?

Aras said...

Who do you think? Here's a clue: I can only name three current governors. Maybe I could name more but I'm not sure if Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney are still governors, for instance. I guess I can name a fourth, Bloomberg, but he's not it.

Anonymous said...

that's my state! yay!

Aras said...

Oops just kidding, I just remembered Bloomberg 's the mayor, not the governor.

Trashcan said...

My understanding (based on tuesday morning quarterback) is that the enormous federal deficit in recent years is entirely made up of money going out to the states. That is the federal government subsidized the states to the tune of 500 billion dollars, and federal deficit was go figure 500 billion. So for all the complaints about the federal government being too big, creating a deficit, really it is just bookkeeping to shift deficits from local governments to the federal government. ( i don't remember the actual numbers so i guesstimated 500,000,000,000)

Aras said...

Well Loky, if that's true, then Sanford is exactly right: the states that are fiscally irresponsible are not punished for that at the expense of responsible states, just like fiscally irresponsible banks are not punished, thanks to the bailout.

Anonymous said...

What does the federal mandate thing mean? It's not a term I've heard

Aras said...

Here's a good answer with a good example, Rachel:

"A Federal mandate is a requirement set by the Federal government. It usually is in the form of a new Federal Law. In some cases the Federal government doesn't have the authority to do something, so they will find a way to change something else. Drinking age is defined by the states, but the Federal Governmet passd a law that they wouldn't provide highway funds to any state that didn't raise their drinking age to 21."-From Wiki Answers

This is my counter: