Saturday, February 21, 2009

On Liberal Newscasting

I happened to catch a news brief on ABC this evening. I was outraged at the blatant liberal bias shown in the report. ABC's presentation roughly followed these lines: "Some Republican Governors are planning on rejecting parts of the new Federal Economic Stimulus Bill; why are they allowing politics to interfere with the good of the citizens of their states?" One version of this story went to so far as to declare that because the black population in the GOP-led states would suffer by Gubernatorial rejection of funds, the Republican Governors were planning on rejecting funds.
I don't know if one could more deliberately sidetrack and distort a legitimate action by state governors. First, the news story acts as if there is only one possible reason why anyone would reject Federal money: selfish politicking. Other versions went so far as to imply that hatred for another race would be the cause of such an action. This is extremely irresponsible, false, and biased reporting. Here is what two Republican Governors said to defend rejection of Federal money.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that he will decline stimulus money specifically targeted at expanding state unemployment insurance coverage, becoming the first state executive to officially refuse any part of the federal government’s payout to states. In a statement, Jindal, who is slated to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s message to Congress on Tuesday, expressed concern that expanding unemployment insurance coverage would lead to increased unemployment insurance taxes later on. “The federal money in this bill will run out in less than three years for this benefit and our businesses would then be stuck paying the bill,” Jindal said. “We must be careful and thoughtful as we examine all the strings attached to the funding in this package. We cannot grow government in an unsustainable way.” Jindal is one of a small group of Republican governors, which includes South Carolina’s Mark Sanford and Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, who have said they might refuse some or all of the stimulus money targeted to their states. In an interview Friday, Barbour said he, too, would likely decline funds for broadening access to unemployment insurance. “Subject to learning more, my position is that Mississippi won’t accept funds that require us to have a tax increase later, because [they would force] us to change our rules for qualifying for unemployment compensation,” he said. (Alexander Burns, Yahoo News The full news story can be found at Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090220/pl_politico/19092 )

Republican reasoning makes a lot of sense to me. Why take a handout now that everyone will suffer for later? If we all were looking for less in the way of a free ride, the economic crisis would be much less drastic. Alas, human nature always seeks the easy way, mistaking that path for the path to happiness. I only pray that the false City of Man will not prevail, despite its renewed impetus under the current political regime. Pax.

--Amator

2 comments:

lover of beauty said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
lover of beauty said...

That's one of the things that is really bothering me about this administration and its supporters: the rhetoric of guilt being used to lance opposition as if opposition by its nature were the severest form of moral evil, and a rejection of salvation.