Just a day after ensuring that Bethlehem's struggling schools get the $15,000 owed by Hillary Clinton's campaign, LV Congressman Charlie Dent is being slammed for voting daring to side against the Edujobs bill.Republicans are generally opposed to solving problems by throwing money at them, and that's the most likely explanation for Dent's vote. But he also has to be bothered that a Democratic Congress is paying for teachers by reducing food stamp benefits to our most vulnerable citizens. That's right. In our worst economy in the last seventy-five years, Democrats in all their wisdom reduced the one stimulus program that actually helps poor people. But poor people don't vote and teachers do.
Could you feed a child on $4.50 a day? That's a lot of ramen noodles.
21 comments:
DUH! Since you can't donate food stamps to a political campaign, and ACORN has been castrated to the point that the food stamp crowd probably won't be out in force this election, this was a pretty choice for the Big D's.
Didn't see this thread when I posted this earlier, thought a better fit here:
Funny how voting to not fund irresponsible school district spending can be translated into firing 300,000 teachers. The unions have been offered alternatives to layoffs, they refuse at every turn. Every single teaching job lost lays at the feet of people like the pot head in Easton and the fat, gray losers at the top of the pay scale, who refuse to look at anything other than their pension calculation.
School districts promise salary and benefits to the extortionists -for which they have nowhere near the money to pay - and then cry to big daddy government and demand more state and federal borrowing so they can continue to be irresponsible.
Dent stood against this, and it will be a winner for him. Charlie was never getting the union thug vote anyway, and the rest of the country sees the teachers' unions as reaping what they have sown. The nation sees how curbing union excesses at Ford and other companies has allowed them to return to productive and profitable enterprises, so much so that Ford is now hiring again. They didn't return to the dark ages, just stopped throwing good money after bad. And we see what Christie has done in NJ. Yet, the teachers' unions continue to play chicken.
But Charlie, and those who will carry him to re-election, are not going to blink this time.
If Callahan believes otherwise, he should walk the walk and campaign on the promise that he will put the nation even deeper in debt because we need to spend even more on teacher/administrator salaries, benefits and pensions.
Really like charlie or his pathetic party care about food stamp recipients..Yea they are a real republican constituency..Right bernie!
Obama is owned by teachers unions. His first "stimulus" was designed to temporarily save their jobs until the economy improved via the "stimulus." It worked for a year, then, the money ran out. Local taxing jurisdiction who pay teachers are out of money and are firing teachers in large numbers. The NEA is pissed. It wants Obama and a Democrat Congress to continue spending where local boards have determined it unsustainable. It's an attempt to protect a very alienated base. They expected big things and are being fired like never before. If Obama and his party usually phone-in the teachers vote. They know they have a big problem if they can't even count on their most reliable sheep. Santa Claus is going into special sessions to craft goodies in order to save what looks like the last days of their majority status.
How about Charlie explain his vote, instead of his blogger guessing at reasons.
Dent does not care about kids. Bottom line.
Teachers' unions don't care about kids, bottom line.
The reason it's paid for by robbing TANF is that Republicans refused to allow the bill to pass as emergency spending, which would have been added to the deficit. That is what we should have done, and that has been customary for emergency measures for as long as anyone can remember. After all, if 10% unemployment isn't an emergency, what is?
Instead, Republicans insisted that the bill be completely paid for, so Democrats were left to scrounge for revenue sources that didn't raise taxes. A goodly portion of the revenue comes from ending tax breaks for outsourcing, which is almost certainly the reason Dent voted against it.
But the rest ended up coming from food stamps, and the logic was that food prices haven't risen as much as they were expected to, so there was more money budgeted in the stimulus for TANF than was needed. Is that right? No. The right thing to do was to put it on the deficit. Was the bill still worth voting for? Absolutely, because the economic misery that would have resulted from not passing the aid would be far worse than the impact on TANF recipients.
I love how you just created your own reason that Dent voted against it, in the absence of any public statement. If this is actually what Dent believes, he should say so himself, but it still won't be a good reason to have voted to fire 300,000 teachers.
If that is actually what Dent believes, there is a growing movement of liberals in the House to restore those cuts via the child nutrition bill. We'll see if you're right based on how he votes on the child nutrition bill.
Geeting,
Socialism works great until you run out of other people's money.
Maybe someday you will actually get it and stop wasting your intellect on your Liberal Utopia
Until such time, good luck with everything...
Yeah, we're starting to run out of other people's money!
Here is the problem: Education administrators are overpaid. Over 30% of ASD employees are administrators, making up 65% of the payroll. look at ASD's budgey, why so many Principals and assistant Principals?
Look aat BASD. Morons lost millions in Swaptions. The problem should not be laid on the teachers, it should be laid on the idots we elected to School board.
In 2005 East penn closed 8 schools saying they didn't need them, but turned around the next year and demanded we pay for new ones. Now they want a new Baseball field? Charlie Dent was right. We need to force the local school districts to manage the money wisely. If we keep giving them handouts, they will keep acting like drig addicts.
Repubs and food stamps! Thats a knee slapper. Bwahahahahahahaa! Look, Charlie is weeping!
BASD had one person that blew it on the swaps. Let's not make it sound like it was more than it actually was. The taxpayers are too cheap to pay for more than one business manager and lowball their salary. So you get stuck with a bad one.
The problem is, if Callahan does not get elected to the House, then Bethlehem continues to live with him, and if he does get elected to the House, then the country gets to live with him.
Both situations are losing propositions.
Democrats are really desperate. November is going to be a very sweet payback. I can't wait to vote.
anon 3:30
ASD has one of the lowest administrive costs per student in the state. Of 500 districts, only 22 spend less on admin costs per student. additionally, ASD spends 65% of it's resources in the classroom. This is not the district you want to cite to try and make that point.
Anonymous 11:42 AM said...
Really like charlie or his pathetic party care about food stamp recipients..Yea they are a real republican constituency..Right bernie!
________________________
There's the problem, it's all about satisfying your "constituency" instead of doing what's right.
I'm looking for the candidate who'll do the right thing, not just buy me off.
First they secure the the gov't union vote with jobs and call it stimulus. Next blame the other party for a food stamp cut back and then "fix" that to buy off another constituency.
Your taxpayer money at work, buying votes.
I have yet to see any food stamp recepient in such dire straits that they only live off of the entitlement. What I really like is when I am at the Giant waiting to pay full freight for my groceries after working TWO jobs, some food stamp person is arguing in front of me with the high school cashier why they can not buy something with their stamps. Then, they whip out cash to pay for it. Food stamps are a good thing if USED for PEOPLE who are not physically or mentally able to work. Other than that, get a job!!
Retired ASD teacher here.
Mr. Geeting, much of the growth in school administrative personnel can be attributed to the demands of unfunded mandates placed upon the districts.
There's been far too much government intervention in local school district matters for at least the past decade.
Today's schools are involved in many more tasks than just a few years ago.
Geeting, you must think money really does grow on the trees in the Utopian Jungle. Your ideas about defecit management and acceptable levels of taxation really do smack of 1980's style Soviet governing. Look how great that turned out. (Geez, and I'm a registered Democrat!)
That said, kids and the elderly (and the mentally ill) are helpless. Our society must bear that burden, somehow. But, food stamps are widely recognized as a good program that is rampantly abused. I personally have a few friends who accept food stamps. Let me tell you something: not everyone on food stamps NEEDS them. But, some people do. I don't support axing the program, but cuts do need to be made because MONEY DOESN'T GROW ON TREES and we cannot pay for all these people indefinitely. It's not like we're taking everything away - we're making a decision to FUND TEACHERS' SALARIES by cutting a program that is getting abused and is unmanageable, financially, in the medium and long term.
Once Geeting gets a wee older (and a moderate amount richer) he will understand the concept of money. One day, Jon, you won't be so eager to hand over your own hard earned dollars to a government that has proven to be incompetent at every level. In the mean time, it is interesting to see what the truly left wing fringe can dream up to do with MY money. I'm all for paying for necessary services from Uncle Sam and all his relatives, but enough is enough.
To Mr. Geeting, as I commented your LV Independent commentary on "Toomey doesn't care about the deficit" :
"I will give you that BOTH parties in Congress have been fiscally irresponsible, and BOTH parties have been equally hypocritical when it comes to preaching about fiscal responsibility. However, your post kind of proves the point....the GOP controlled first six years of the W years saw terrible deficits that made me wonder what happened to the party of "fiscal responsibility." But, since the Dem controlled Congress from Jan 2007 onward, and additionally with a Dem president, deficits have just continued and accelerated.
Considering your comments on Lehigh Valley Ramblings earlier (below) (THIS LVR POST) your commentary on Toomey sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.
"Jon Geeting said...
The reason it's paid for by robbing TANF is that Republicans refused to allow the bill to pass as emergency spending, which would have been added to the deficit.(repeat, "which would have been added to the deficit") That is what we should have done, (repeat, "that is what we should have done")....
Instead, Republicans insisted that the bill be completely paid for, so Democrats were left to scrounge for revenue ...
... The right thing to do was to put it on the deficit (repeat, "the right thing to do was to put it on the deficit")"
monkey mama - I don't want to pay for the defense budget or farm subsidies. Do we get to pick and choose the parts of the budget we personally want our money going to now?
You attack Geeting and his financial position. I do have money and I'm not up at night tossing and turning over every minor tax increase. Services cost money and before we cut food stamps we should be slashing the DoD. In my opinion of course.
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