Crain's New York listed 'Winners and Losers' from the Stimulus Package vote.
"CONGRESS IS CLOSING IN on a stimulus package. Last week, the House passed a bill worth $819 billion. The Senate still has to pass its own version, and a compromise bill must be drawn up. But the differences are not vast, and the legislators have reached consensus on many of the main elements. Here are some early winners and losers
"LOSERS
Rep. Peter King The Long Island Republican toed the party line and voted against the stimulus package—even though it included $80 billion in new Medicaid funding, something Mr. King has long pushed for. The vote could hurt him in 2010, when he may challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand or make a run for governor."
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A letter to Peter King...
Dear Congressman King:
How lucky you are to represent such an affluent district. (And, of course, how lucky your constituents are to have you represent them.)
In the fabled, Gold Coast Third Congressional District, there apparently have been no foreclosed mortgages and none threatened. There are no wage earners who have lost their jobs and livelihoods. No
businesses have closed and no stores are empty. Clearly, no one is on Medicaid and no one is dependent upon food stamps. Thankfully, no parents are worrying about how they are going to be able to stretch their budgets to pay bills now and provide for their children in the future. What a nice island of financial security and ease!
With this as your home base, it surely was no big deal for you to join your fellow House Republicans in voting unanimously against the President's economic recovery bill.
It didn't even require that you know what was in the bill and how, with its imperfections, it could help bring the country back from the disastrous brink to which you and your colleagues and your Texan hero in the White House have brought us. All you had to do was to be told how to vote and, lemming like, you followed.
Obviously, there was no need to give any thought to coming up with an alternative bill. That might have shown some initiative and thinking. What really counted, wasn't it, was that you and your fellow patriots not lose the opportunity to stick it to Obama? So much for bipartisanship and for putting your country ahead of personal ambition and pique.
I have often wondered exactly what you do in Washington, having watched in vain for something significant to show for all your years in the House. Something, that is,besides going off on tax-payer subsidized junkets, advising grateful generals on how to conduct the war and, inevitably, having your picture taken for the folks back home. This shameful (what a quaint word, shame) episode has only strengthened that curiosit.
But wait, I do know, don't I? And it isn't pretty.
How fitting it is, if we look beneath our feet, wed find manhole covers, sturdy and expensive, covering sewers.
Your legacy, Congressman.
Sincerely,
If King voted against the Stimulus package even though the booty included at least $80 Billion related to expenditures he favors - wouldn't that be described as a principled stand?
Looks like an added bonus now months later, when we've all seen how the stimulus package didn;t do a damn thing except push us further into debt.
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