Obama trashes GOP govs not interested in “stimulus” money

President Obama had harsh words Monday for conservative critics of the $787 billion stimulus plan who have argued that the it contains needless pork barrel spending.

“When I hear people who say, well, there’s a lot of waste in this program, from my perspective at least, keeping teachers in the classroom is not wasteful,” he argued.

“From my perspective, tax cuts to 95 percent of working families is not wasteful. From my perspective, providing all of you additional resources to rebuild roads and bridges and levees and dams … that will enhance the quality of life of your state, but also make it more economically competitive. That’s not wasteful.”

President Obama made the comments during a meeting at the White House Monday morning the with the nation’s governors, who are in the nation’s capitol for an annual conference.

Some Republican governors, however, did not back off their criticism of the stimulus package.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-Louisiana, highlighted items such as $1 billion in added spending for the national census and $50 million in federal spending for the arts while speaking to reporters after the meeting.

It’s “not apparent to me why they had to be in the stimulus package,” said Jindal, who has been tapped to give the official Republican response to Obama’s Tuesday night address to a joint session of Congress.

Jindal, seen as a possible contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, said his fellow Republican governors nevertheless wanted to give Obama “every opportunity” to succeed in sparking an economic recovery.

No TweetBacks yet. (Be the first to Tweet this post)

February 23, 2009 · Filed Under Uncategorized


Comments