The latest news about banking regulation legislation in the Senate:
Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is playing a crucial role in bipartisan negotiations over financial regulation, pressed to remove a provision from draft legislation that would have empowered federal authorities to crack down on payday lenders, people involved in the talks said. The industry is politically influential in his home state and a significant contributor to his campaigns, records show.
I've been following politics for a long time, and this is the first time that I can remember where Democrats held a solid and unbreakable majority in both federal legislatures and held the White House. And I have to say, it's been d*mn demoralizing. Evidence A: banking regulation.
You'd think, after watching the financial sector torpedo the American economy, good, efficient, and workable banking regulation would be a priority. And there was hope, in Chris Dodd's consumer protection agency, which would have consolidated financial regulation into one body, and which would have refocused regulation on consumer protection, something has been missing in the crazed, corporate-fueled deregulation blitz of past decades.
You'd think corporate behavior in the financial sector after the bailout - the insolent, massive payouts to its executives, the orchestrated maneuvering to place blame for the crash on blacks and the poor, the exorbitant fees and interest rates imposed on its customers - that regulation would sail through Congress. But Dodd's agency has been effectively torpedoed, regulation watered down.
And now this. Corker's reflexive protection of the most rapacious lending industries in existence. Legal loan sharking targeting those with the least financial savvy and least ability to recover from parasitic interest rates.
And in diluting or warping good legislation beyond recognition, Corker is not alone. After all it was Max Baucus himself who was the first to grab a House jobs bill as it came into the Senate, steered it into his Tax and Finance Committee, and made it contingent on "reforming" the estate tax (and preserving the odious Patriot Act). That's right - a bill to help the unemployed find work must also help the children of the mega-wealthy keep their condos in Vail.
In short, it's been demoralizing seeing this Democratic supra-majority squandered in the back rooms, gutted by "compromises" that riddle bills with so many loopholes that they end up looking like the legislative version of swiss cheese.
Yes, I know, legislation is the result of years of work. Yes, I know I should be patient. Yes, sure, some banking regulation is better than no regulation (...or is it?). But I don't see any relief, any glimmer of values from Democratic legislators.
I'm a big fan of Missoula Mayor John Engen. I lent a (very small) hand to his campaign in '05 even as I was living down in Billings. He continues to impress. He cares deeply about the health of his home town. He's smart. He listens. He's a good politician, in the best sense of that term. He focuses, constantly, almost to a fault, on making measurable progress.
But Engen more than made up for that a few weeks later when he provided a detailed outline of the [economic development] project's mission and methods, and made it clear that he is prepared to continue cracking the whip in order to get results right away.
And check out the team he's assembled to help:
St. Patrick Hospital president Jeff Fee, University of Montana executive vice president Jim Foley; Williamsworks founder and president Whitney Williams, NorthWestern Energy president Bob Rowe, First Security Bank president Scott Burke, Washington Cos. president Larry Simkins and Missoula Redevelopment Agency director Ellen Buchanan
That's a damn smart collection of folks.
My only complaint? The focus seems to be, as it is so often, on recruiting business. There are huge gains still to be made in Montana by developing homegrown businesses. Le Petit's expansion can be big local news. Big Sky's expansion has brought lots of jobs to town. Kettlehouse's growth is having a similar effect. There are interesting tech companies already based in town. Helping these folks grow is likely a surer bet for stable economic expansion than poaching industries from elsewhere.
It's not that poaching business is a terrible idea. I just think it shouldn't be job one.
In an about face or should I say if it is in my district it is ok to spend money, Republicans want the state to spend freed up general fund money on pet projects in their districts claiming that the recovery act creates jobs. Yes, Republicans claiming the recovery act creates jobs. Last time I checked Government doesn't create jobs, businesses create jobs.
Now it might be confusing to someone, but Montana was in a unique situation when congress pass the recovery act - we had money. So, the legislature created a $20 million dollar grab bag of general fund money for local governments to spend. These are not federal recovery act dollars. Remember the rubber-tilled tennis courts in Bozeman was out of this free for all.
Now Republicans are all in a fuss over Schweitzer holding and saving the remaining $3.5 million until we have a better picture of the budget. It shouldn't make anyone blink, these are the same Republicans who said we have "too much in the bank" when the Governor vetoed some unnecessary spending.
The latest pork project Republican to jump for the bacon was Sen. Jim Peterson. No one should be surprised by that -- Sen. Peterson has been living off the tax trough for some time.
Someone said it best, if you take the hypocrisy out of politics you won't have any politicians left. But you can't have it both ways - spend in my district, but cut the budget. Now I just wish reporters in Montana could pick up on this hypocrisy.
Oregon just raised it taxes on businesses. And Senator Jeff and 44 others say we need to advertise in Eugene and Ontario and Hines and elsewhere and entice businesses there to come to Montana because of our business-friendly tax climate.
To his and the R's credit, the rhetoric is, well, rhetorical:
Essmann said Oregon had taken a "higher tax path" to the detriment of good business. And while Montana's own tax system isn't perfect, he added, it does offer a favorable tax policy when compared to Oregon.
Among the advantages, Essmann named Montana's top marginal income tax. He said it helps small businesses retain capital and reinvest it, making it possible to expand and hire new employees.
"We need to leverage every competitive advantage we can," Essmann said. "We think now is the time, when we have a need for more jobs - and with small business in Oregon feeling under duress - to advertise the availability and the quality of our work force, and have Oregon businesses take a look."
So, what's going on? Jeff and his fellow travellers might need to review how the higher tax path was accomplished. By a vote of more than half of the state's registered voters.
Actually, there were two initiatives that passed. The Montana R's conveniently ignore the fact that the Legislature approved the tax increases last spring. Irate Oregonians took matters into their own hands and gathered enough signatures and place the tax increases on the ballot. By gum, we'll show 'em. Measure 66, which raises taxes on households earning $250,000 or more, passed by 54 percent. Measure 67, which increases corporate levies, passed with 53 percent.
Tamara "Tammy" Hall, the ultra-angry, ultra right-winger in Bozeman who pens an occasional column for the Bozeman Chronicle and is supposedly a "motivational speaker" for a living, has written a hater-piece about the Governor this week. She compares him to a rat, calling him arrogant, and using the favorite new accusation of the right wing: that he is a "celebrity" (talk about desperate). It's probably for the best that the column doesn't appear online, as I'd hate to have to link to it.
The interesting part about Hall, and the small handful of angry, downwardly-mobile types that pay any attention to her, is that Schweitzer recently got the endorsement of Newt Gingrich and the Wall Street Journal. I don't care much for Newt or the WSJ's Stephen Moore who wrote the editorial, but Schweitzer did deserve the credit because he made the decision, when the state was flush with cash, to save money rather than spend it.
(And Schweitzer is probably the only politician in the last fifty years to get praise from the WSJ while advocating a Canadian Health System.)
Nevertheless, the continuously manic and angry Hall may have become delusional as well, and should check the label on her medication. Because if she is calling somebody a tax-and-spend politician when they have just gotten praise from Gingcrich and the WSJ for being fiscally responsible, she probably needs to up her dose.
Laying people off is hard work. Fortunately, it is also lucrative. Despite entering bankruptcy, Smurfit-Stone paid out $47 million in bonuses to executives and other employees in 2009.
I suppose this is the new trickle down from Wall Street's largesse. Infuriating.
In another reminder that the economic turmoils (either the painful short-term recession or the long-term remaking of the Western economy), Smurfit-Stone is shutting its Frenchtown plant. This is a huge blow to the area economically, where the mill provided damn good pay by our standards:
In specific terms, the plant closure means the loss of 417 high-paying jobs, with an average annual salary of $70,000.
"Those jobs represent about 4 percent of the Missoula's economy," Barkey said. "In terms of what it represents for the economy - that's about a $45 million loss annually.
Through ripple effects, one economist thinks we may see as many as another 1,000 jobs lost in the region.
The only bright spot in the dark day was the fact that employees will receive benefits under the Trade Assistance Act - but only because those federal benefits were approved within the past year during the plant's last round of layoffs.
As the day wore on, as Houseman went from one management meeting to the next, taking short breaks to explain the news and its repercussions to his fellow union members and coworkers, his exhaustion and heavy heart could be heard in his voice.
Weary, he talked about upcoming meetings with Smurfit representatives to discuss severance packages and about the many union meetings to come.
His voiced cracked, and Houseman paused for a moment to say quietly: "This is not a very good day."
Do you ever go to sports games and here fans boo their favorite teams and wonder what is wrong with people? Personally I can't stand 'boo birds'. Of course, real life is different than a sport. When it comes to every day real life, careers and the after effects of certain decisions, I would consider booing bankers.
A Bankers convention recently went down in Chicago but was met with protesters. Basically, banks are only concerned with making as much money as possible. The fat cats sitting at the top have no problem giving themselves some of the relief money granted by the Obama Administration. A couple of things that Obama has worked towards improving deal with the lending industry. Obama has encouraged a loan modification to homeowners facing possible foreclosure. He even invested $75 Billion in perks for lenders who can avoid foreclosure. Well, recent reports have come out saying that it is STILL better for lenders to eat a foreclosure than go through a loan modification. The entire scene is SLOPPY.
I don't know, but to me that is just a travesty. This is something the Obama Administration has to change quickly. With the rise is unemployment lenders have to put their clients best interests first. People need all the help they can get.
But there's also, it seems, growing opposition to cap-and-trade from people who should be on the side of progress - but whose reaction is basically "Eek! Markets!Wall Street! Speculation! Bad!"
We don't need this.
So let me talk a bit about why this reaction is 99% wrong, and bad for the planet....
By all means keep a watchful eye on speculators and regulate derivatives - and make market manipulation illegal, as Waxman-Markey does. But don't apply standards to emissions trading that you don't apply to any other market.
The solution to climate change must rely to an important extent on market mechanisms - it's too complex an issue to deal with using command-and-control. That means accepting that some people will make money out of trading - and that yes, sometimes trading will go bad. So? We've got a planet at stake; it's crazy to cut off our future to spite Goldman Sachs's face.
I've been suspicious of this meme since rightie concern trolls showed up here and elsewhere bragging about how Wall Street is already planning how to make a killing on cap-and-trade. For one, speculators typically don't explain how they're going to manipulate markets before they do.
But at the National Abortion Federation, a hotline for women seeking abortion information has been "ringing off the hook," according to the group's president, Vicki Saporta.
"We are currently getting more calls from women who report that they or their partner have recently lost their job, and we are also hearing from more women facing eviction," she said.
One recent inquiry came from a 24-year-old married woman in Colorado who was evicted after her landlord went into foreclosure. Another came from a 32-year-old pregnant mother in Virginia who had lost her job and health insurance.
"As more and more women and families are struggling due to the crisis, it's affecting more than just low-income families. Now more middle-class and working class families are facing the types problems that we've heard from low-income women," Saporta said.
As with many other nonprofits, abortion assistance groups are being inundated with requests for aid just as funding is drying up.
It'll be interesting to see conservatives contort themselves opposing abortion and health care reform, because apparently they're inversely related.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, the best way to reduce abortion is to improve access to health care and day care. Certainly the answer isn't to use the state to impose draconian, 14th-century morality on the people. And, h*ll, that didn't work too well back in the 14th century, either...
It's hard to feel any sympathy for these people. I mean...they got us into this mess chasing their paychecks. An excerpt:
Their anger takes many forms: There is rage at Obama for pushing to raise taxes ('The government wants me to be a slave!' says one hedge-fund analyst); rage at the masses who don't understand that Wall Street's high salaries fund New York's budget ('We're fucked,' says a former Lehman equities analyst, referring to the city); rage at the people who don't 'get' that Wall Street enables much of the rest of the economy to function ('JPMorgan and all these guys should go on strike-see what happens to the country without Wall Street,' says another hedge-funder)."
Hm. What happens if they go on strike -- and no one notices? Or better yet, we use their "strike" as an excuse to reform the financial industry?
But seriously, none of these *sshats would actually go on strike. They know someone would gladly step in and do the same thing they do for a tenth of their pay. And probably do just as well.
The public views bankers much like the law views the robber. The money they made was illegitimate. The business was fraudulent. They took hefty cuts on hyped transactions that moved fake money. They inflated the bubble and saw their fees rise commensurately. They made things worse, in other words, and by making things worse, they made themselves richer. The robber, at least, does not leverage your jewelry before pocketing it. The banker's money was not fairly acquired and thus restitution is owed.
The bankers would protest that collapse was not, in fact, their intention. The proof is in the equity: They were paid -- at least in part -- with share in their own stock. That stock is now worthless. They may have been stupid but they were not malign. They may have been incompetent but they were not thieves. Their behavior might have been different if their contracts had included clawback provisions. But customers wanted the rewards of risk and so paid bankers to take it. Everyone got what they wanted until everyone got what they feared. But the banker holds no special moral culpability for the reversal of fortune.
What Klein leaves out is that the bankers gamed the system, removed the safeguards from the finance, then relentlessly followed a path of risky investments that benefited only a small portion of society, all the while banking on the fact that all of society would take on their losses. Which we did. And still do.
So there is "moral culpability." Bankers are simply mistaking the culture of high financiers for society writ large. It's not okay to be greedy at the risk of someone else's expense in the real world. Sure, the hedge fund managers' customers are also culpable. Let them take losses, too.
Top officials at Chrysler Financial turned away a government loan because executives didn't want to abide by new federal limits on pay, according to new findings by a federal watchdog agency.
Instead, the car company "opted to use more expensive financing from private banks, adding to the burden on the already fragile automaker and its financing company." Chrysler execs are no doubt banking on the hope that, if the private financing fails, they can still turn to the government as a last resort. In the meantime, they can enjoy their overinflated executive pay.
In any case, all this reminds me of an interview with former IMF economic advisor Simon Johnson, who advocates getting rid of the country's "financial oligarchy."
So by now you've probably heard that the Good Guv sent the horse slaughter bill -- HB 418 -- back to the legislaturewith amendments quashing the bill's extraordinary language that essentially gives any slaughterhouse developer a free pass on health and environmental regulations. HB 418's sponsor, Ed Butcher, plans to fight the amendments.
What with all my b*tching about how this bill gives the horse slaughter industry privileged protection from litigation, it's irked me that most reports talk about the issue as if the legislature is voting on slaughterhouses themselves. So it's a relief to see Schweitzer, with his veto, focus the discussion on the bill's important elements. Schwetizer:
Before addressing my specific amendments, I want you to know that, like you, I believe horse owners must be responsible for the health and care of their animals. Like you, I believe it is unacceptable that any horse would be left starving or to die due to neglect. I also believe owners should have access to a legal method to put their horses down as necessary and appropriate - due to age, infirmity, or other legitimate circumstances.
While I understand the value in licensing horse slaughter facilities, it is equally important that any facility approved to operate in Montana comply with this state's health and environmental laws. Therefore, a person applying to license a horse slaughter facility who wishes to do so in accordance with Montana law has nothing to fear from the amendments I propose.
This isn't a bill about horse slaughterhouses, it's an attempt to gut state regulations for a specific industry -- and, if successful, no doubt a harbinger of a host of similar bills in future legislatures for the worst offenders of environment, health, and safety regulations. If your vision for the future of Montana is a landscape peppered with unregulated horse slaughterhouses, tire-burning plants, and nuclear waste dumps, by all means, support Ed Butcher's opposition to the Good Guv's amendments.
But if you believe that all industry compete on a level playing field, that all businesses should abide by the rules we've set for them, that we shouldn't craft special legislation for the worst industries, you'll support Schweitzer's amendments.
Oh, and as a little added touch of comic relief for a post heavy with serious rhetoric, check out the Missoulian's recent editorial on the bill:
Nobody wants to see these noble animals suffer. We can probably all agree that something needs to be done. We need a way, and a place, to dispose of elderly or infirm horses.
That is why we must once again applaud those who have stepped forward to take on the heavy burden of this responsibility, namely the folks behind Willing Servants, a new organization based in the Bitterroot Valley that helps find homes - or humane ends - for unwanted horses.
We are not so sure about a bill the Montana Legislature approved recently that would make our state the only one in the nation to welcome a slaughterhouse for horses that now awaits only Gov. Brian Schweitzer's signature, or veto. Himself a regular horse-rider (in campaign ads, at least), we imagine the governor, too, is asking himself: What is it about horses?
Those whacky horses!
Way to take a stand, Missoulian. Sadly, this mamby-pamby avoidance of issues seems to be becoming a trend among the state's newspapers...
Speaking of dealing with the finance industry with kid gloves, check out Simon Johnson's piece in The Atlantic.
The former chief economist at the IMF and MIT economics professor, Johnson notices the similarities of the collapse of the US economy with other collapses overseen by the IMF in "emerging markets." Basically a financial elite partners with its government to undertake ever increasing financial risks where profits are gobbled by the elites and losses underwritten by the government. According to Johnson, during the first throes of financial trouble, the government always ponies up to the economic oligarchs with tax breaks or government bailouts.
Sound familiar? It should. In essence, the financial industry has been leveraging its power over the US government into increasingly favorable deals, in which it receives oodles of taxpayer money while only delaying or mitigating the roots of the current crisis.
Johnson:
The challenges the United States faces are familiar territory to the people at the IMF. If you hid the name of the country and just showed them the numbers, there is no doubt what old IMF hands would say: nationalize troubled banks and break them up as necessary.
This may seem like strong medicine. But in fact, while necessary, it is insufficient. The second problem the U.S. faces-the power of the oligarchy-is just as important as the immediate crisis of lending. And the advice from the IMF on this front would again be simple: break the oligarchy.
The financial elite has too much power over the government and is blocking the most effective solutions to the financial crisis, which would put their power and money at risk. To do that, Johnson recommends breaking up the banks into smaller institutions after nationalization, policing them with robust anti-trust legislation, and capping executive pay.
Basically recreate the banking industry into something that's boring -- and safe. And preferably an industry that doesn't hold disproportionate power over our government.
Still and all, don't you wish that Obama were willing to treat bankers the same way he's treating the carmakers? It's pretty much impossible not to compare his tough words this morning with the conciliatory tone and even more conciliatory actions he's taken with the financial industry.
If anything, this only underscores how weak the auto industry is, both economically and politically.
Matt already touched on the hypocracy here, but let's let Sirota have a go, too:
Last month, the same government that says it "cannot just abrogate" executives' bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions' wage contracts. As the Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to GM and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and "extract(ing) financial concessions from workers." In other words, our government asks us to believe that it possesses total authority to adjust contracts at car companies it lends to, and yet has zero power to modify contracts at financial firms it owns. This, even though the latter set of covenants might be easily abolished.
Sirota also mentioned that these AIG bonuses were crafted after corporate executives knew the company was collapsing, which reminds me of this danger Galbraith mentioned in the article I highlighted yesterday:
Delay is not innocuous. When a bank's insolvency is ignored, the incentives for normal prudent banking collapse. Management has nothing to lose. It may take big new risks, in volatile markets like commodities, in the hope of salvation before the regulators close in. Or it may loot the institution-nomenklatura privatization, as the Russians would say-through unjustified bonuses, dividends, and options. It will never fully disclose the extent of insolvency on its own.
Seems to me that some of these banks are probably ripe for nationalization, restructuring, and reselling...
Update: Oh, and another thing, this kind of hijinks should serve as a glaring reminder that management should not be trusted when it suddenly starts expressing concern for workers' rights...
Okay. I haven't been paying much attention to all the hubbub about AIG bonuses, etc. It's chump change! It has nothing to do with the state of the economy or our ability to get us out of the current crisis! It's just political noise, an issue that serves as an outlet for the public's wrath.
In other news, we're still in the middle of a recession.
For one, James K Galbraith thinks the Obama administration is underestimating the depth of the current crisis and isn't spending enough to blunt it. He argues that doling out cash to banks won't solve our problem: without borrowers -- that is, a financially robust middle class -- the credit crisis won't end:
A brief reflection on this history and present circumstances drives a plain conclusion: the full restoration of private credit will take a long time. It will follow, not precede, the restoration of sound private household finances. There is no way the project of resurrecting the economy by stuffing the banks with cash will work. Effective policy can only work the other way around.
To restore "private household finances," Galbraith puts forth an ambitious government program:
The first thing we need, in the wake of the recovery bill, is more recovery bills. The next efforts should be larger, reflecting the true scale of the emergency. There should be open-ended support for state and local governments, public utilities, transit authorities, public hospitals, schools, and universities for the duration, and generous support for public capital investment in the short and long term. To the extent possible, all the resources being released from the private residential and commercial construction industries should be absorbed into public building projects. There should be comprehensive foreclosure relief, through a moratorium followed by restructuring or by conversion-to-rental, except in cases of speculative investment and borrower fraud. The president's foreclosure-prevention plan is a useful step to relieve mortgage burdens on at-risk households, but it will not stop the downward spiral of home prices and correct the chronic oversupply of housing that is the cause of that.
Jhwygirl has some excellent posts up. Earlier she posted the schedule for the first half of this week -- just to give you a taste of what contentious things were batted around in the legislative chambers.
Krazy Kerns' gun bill -- HB 228 -- had its hearing, and jhwygirl noted that opposition is increasing. And it's gaining wider attention, too. Gouras' AP report landed in the Seattle Times. I still don't get it: do Montanans think that needing to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon is a bad idea? And as jhwygirl noted, Larry Jent's SB 92 establishes a castle doctrine for Montanans that's reasonable. Why the love for Kerns' bill?
And the Horse Butcher bill sailed through its Senate committee yesterday. Now I'm not deaf to the need for a place to send horses to slaughter -- I'm not even against using the plant to slaughter wild horses -- but as jhwygirl points out, "this is one bill that has been cited as a violation of Montana's guaranteed right to a clean and healthful environment."
Another way of looking at this bill, is that it gives preferential legal and regulatory treatment to one particular industry. Why? Why not hold the horse slaughter industry to the same health and safety benchmarks as any other?
Mike Dennison's got a report on SB 499, which would lower the coal-severance tax for "green" projects. Its sponsor, Jeff Essman, argues that lowering the tax means more coal production and revenue. Opponents call it another boondoggle for the coal industry:
That same promise was made 22 years ago when the coal industry successfully lobbied to cut Montana's 30 percent coal-severance tax to 15 percent, they said - and it did not lead to more coal production.
"Except for a temporary increase to get the bill passed, there was no increase in production; if anything, it has gone down," said Verner Bertelsen of Helena, a former legislator and co-chairman of Montanans for the Coal Trust. "We doubt that reducing the tax will stimulate coal development in Montana. There are many more significant factors in siting a coal mine."
I'm leaning towards the boon-doggle side. That, and coal's a dying industry. Let it die, and let's think of better, more sustainable long-term use of our public lands...
And in Missoula, there's some buzz that it's not receiving its fair share of the stimulus money. And what money it is getting isn't going to mass transit or city infrastructure projects.
Can anyone explain Greg Barkus' rant on the Rotunda Report against government spending during a recession? It sounds like a theory patched together from shaky theoretical texts and right-wing blogs. We're in a Keynesian world right now; does Barkus not know that? In any case, it's kind of chilling to think that this man has any power over the state economy.
"But panic ruled the day," Rehberg told the state lawmakers. "The idea that it was the bailout or nothing is a false choice that politicians invented to justify their votes to irate constituents back home."
Kalispell state senator, Greg Barkus, writing on the Rotunda Report on why we need to toss aside environmental regulations for stimulus-funded projects:
The purpose of this bill is to make sure that we convert these federal stimulus funds directly into projects, and therefore jobs, as soon as possible. I believe it's important that we don't delay these projects with paperwork and red tape.
There's no question that this is the worst I've seen our economy in my lifetime. We've lost a couple of thousand jobs in the Flathead Valley in the past couple of months. We need to get these funds moving and Montanans working as soon as possible.
Hm...looks like they forgot to coordinate their notes...
Sean Quinn posted the full, unedited version of Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer...and it's amazing.
Not only does Stewart makes look Cramer look like a lying, groveling d*uche, but he pretty much, in just a few minutes, peels back the facade of news coverage. It's a game. The media starts know it's a game. They know what's going on, but they package the news for consumption, and a product that's very different from reality is what's shown.
You can speculate why. Media figures are herd animals; they're shy about stepping out alone into unchartered territory. They deliver content they think their audience wants. They don't think their audience is sophisticated enough to understand the subtleties of issues. Whatever.
But as Stewart pointed out, media coverage has consequences.
Schweitzer unveiled the details for his proposal on how to spend the state's stimulus money yesterday. Dennison's summary of the proposed expenditures seem pretty reasonable to me; most of it is one-time spending expenditures, some of it crucial maintenance projects that will return value for the investment, such as weatherization of low-income homes, energy conservation projects for state buildings, and highway construction.
Again, don't forget about the website the Good Guv's office put up to track stimulus spending: Montana Reinvestment Act. I believe this pdf -- "ARRA allocation" -- is a detailed list of the proposed expenditure, and HB 645 (pdf) is the House bill that would enact the spending proposals.
Shall we guess what House Republicans will object to? I'm betting they'll look to excise anything to do with poor kids -- like lunch program or nutrition assistance, food stamps, etc. I mean, that's been the M.O. for these folks this session, right?
By the way, if you want some hilarious reading, check out Dave Lewis' avowed "reluctance" to spend the federal stimulus money. Wouldn't that have been funny if Lewis had actually tried to block this spending package? And hasn't Dave Lewis become the Mike Lange of the 2009 legislature? Whenever I think of the GOP's efforts to block a mandate supported by 70 percent of Montanans to extend health care coverage to uninsured children, I'll think of Dave....
