02.27.09
Gov. Perry, eyeing ’10 primary, sticks it to unemployed
UPDATE 28-Feb 1:11pm CST: DKos is on this. Click over and participate in the comments now! Charles Kuffner has it too.
A local man who lost his job in 2008 was quoted in yesterday’s NYT calling out Gov. Rick Perry for his refusal to take federal stimulus money to extend unemployment benefits.
“It just seems unreasonable,” Mr. Kight said, “that when people probably need the help the most, that because of partisan activity, or partisan feelings, against the current new administration, that Perry is willing to sacrifice the lives of so many Texans that have been out of work in the last year.”
It’s a tragic story from one end to the other. Henry Kight lives in Williamson County and has worked in the tech industry for decades. Gov. Perry’s stance is purely political. He wants to paint his likely primary opponent, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison as being pro-bailout. There’s a problem, however. Sen. Hutchison voted at every opportunity against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In order to appear even more anti-Obama than Hutchison, Gov. Perry is refusing to take some of the money that the Act would direct to Texas, including this federal unemployment benefit.
Economists say that unemployment benefits are the most effective stimulus available, since it is spent immediately and directly in communities where workers are displaced. This dampens ripples through the economy caused by those layoffs.
At this point in the recession, most folks in Williamson County know someone who has recently lost their job. Gov. Perry’s grandstanding turns their misery into a political football. Besides being shameful, it will worsen the effects of the recession on all of us.