By Bill Wilson
Nancy Pelosi is excitedly hustling back to D.C. with her congressional cohorts to pass a $26.1 billion state and teacher union bailout bill.
With teacher unions alone garnering around $40 million in dues money from their $10 billion chunk of the bill, it is easy to understand how the big public employee union handlers were able to get her to put off her previously scheduled “work period” to come back to D.C. to get them the money.
None of this is surprising. It is also not surprising that Nancy and crew will be voting to double tax big companies forcing them to pay U.S. taxes on profits they made overseas, on top of the taxes they have already paid in the countries where the money was earned.
What is surprising is that, according to the Washington Independent, these enterprising union toadies will be rolling back food stamp benefits by $11.9 billion, lowering the benefits a family of three can expect to receive by about $50 a month.
And while limiting access and the use of food stamps may make sense, the Pelosi-Reid Congress’ cutting the program just doesn’t ring true. Except when you read the fine print — the cuts don’t take place until 2014.
In 2014, the current Pelosi-Reid Congress will be a distant memory with not one, but two congressional elections intervening.
So, Nancy Pelosi is rushing back to D.C. to pay the education bureaucracy $10 billion today, and paying for it by taking food out of the mouths of poor kids four years from now — quite the layaway plan.
Of course, the cynical amongst us might question whether this is an honest attempt to pay for this spending, or a political stink bomb that she is leaving for her likely Republican successors. Pelosi isn’t worried about poor people and their many varied advocacy groups protesting her Speakership in 2014. She’s read the polls that show that only 11% of the voters have a favorable opinion of Congress. She knows she won’t be leading the House of Representatives in 2014.
No, it is likely that those protesters will be denouncing mean Republicans who would be letting the Pelosi food stamp cuts go into effect. No one will remember or care that the money was spent by Pelosi and friends to pay for a public employee union bailout four years earlier.
Pelosi likely won’t have the charges of “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor” ringing in her ears, even though she is the one “tweeting” in anticipation of voting to impose these cuts.
A cynic would wonder if Nancy Pelosi is just using these food stamp cuts and their curious timing to further complicate the lives of those who will be trying to fill in the massive deficit hole that she is busily digging.
Of course, Democrat congressmen are scurrying back from their district “work period,” and each one of them need to answer whether they want to support taking food out of the mouths of tomorrow’s constituents in order to subsidize public employees’ unquenchable thirst for more money and power.
My bet is that many will vote in favor of the bill with a wink and a nod toward restoring the money in some future budget if they survive the voter onslaught coming in November. If not, it is someone else’s problem, and a potential issue to use in mobilizing against the new Republican majority in the future.
So, when you see your favorite Democrat politician talking about how they saved hundreds of thousands of teacher jobs, just remember the child who will go hungry to pay for it.
Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
