By Jim Johnson
PoHo Contributor
Jim Johnson is the creator of The State of Sunshine blog.
Today is the 36th day of the 2009 Legislative session.
Today is a busy day in Tallahassee. The Senate will end its week today, and the House may as well – both houses will take a break for the Passover and Easter holidays. Here are a few interesting items:
By Jim Johnson
PoHo Contributor
Jim Johnson is the creator of The State of Sunshine blog.
Today is the 17th day of the 2009 Legislative session.
The agendas for the House and Senate Thursday contain a number of bills, only a few are worth noting here:
From The Hill:
More than a dozen of the GOP’s most conservative members on Thursday introduced a bill to reauthorize controversial PATRIOT Act provisions set to expire later this year.
The group of House Republicans – who include Whip Eric Cantor (Va.), Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) and Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith (Texas) – want to extend for an additional 10 years the ability of national security agencies to conduct “roving” wiretaps, have access to library patron information and greatly expand the reach of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Those provisions of the PATRIOT Act are set to expire this year.
Because without the ability to know that I checked out “The Devil We Know” by Bob Baer from the Jan Platt Library, the terrorists win.
Bipartisanship in our future? Not if the House Republican leaders have their way, as they are furiously working to ensure another party-line vote when the compromise stimulus bill shows back up for a final vote. The prospect, however, doesn’t look good, as 10-15 House Republicans seem ready to support the economic recovery act. Politico adds it up:
ZERO SUM GAME: House Republicans are trying to give Dems another goose egg in terms of GOP support on the final stimulus package. As Politico’s Patrick O’Connor reports: “There’s a lot of safety in zero. That, at least, is the message Republican leaders are taking to their wavering rank-and-file. House Republican made headlines – and won some much-need unity – when they denied President Barack Obama a single GOP vote on the House version of his economic recovery plan late last month. Few expect the same results when the House takes up the final version of a $789 billion package Friday; Republican members and aides were braced Thursday night for 10 to 15 defections.”
UPDATE: House minority leaders got their way, and not a single Republican in the lower chamber voted for the Obama Stimulus Plan.
Not one single House Republican voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 yesterday. Thank God it passed anyway, by a party-line vote of 244-188.
I say that not because I like pork (yes, Pelosi et al. stuffed some junk into the bill that has very little to do with stimulating the economy.) Or because I think the plan has enough tax breaks for small businesses (it has some, but could use a little more.) Or because I like socking future generations with nearly a trillion dollars in debt. I don’t.
But the consensus among economists is that spending is needed to create jobs. Building infrastructure is not only a quick way to put people to work but makes a small dent in our national backlog of public investments in roads, bridges, transits, energy-efficient buildings and a new energy grid that is sorely needed and will pay dividends (and create jobs) in the long run as well.
What you saw yesterday wasn’t the end of Barack Obama’s ability to reach bipartisanship, nor was it a principled stand against Big Government by Republicans. It was two other things:
The year really DID seem to go by fast …
One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.
Headlines after the jump:
Talking up West Tampa state Rep. Michael Scionti in this week’s PoHo installment in Creative Loafing.
