Topic: Obama IGNORES TX Gov Perry's Disaster Declaration Request

[Libertas]

Such petty vindictiveness by Sir Golfsalot I place into the 'high crimes and misdemeanors' category.  One of many such 'high crimes' he has committed.

If the list of grievances against the people and the Constitution of the United States was nailed to a door like Luther's Theses...well, It would have to be one big 'ol door, because beating his 95 seems a sure thing!

[charlesoakwood]

http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2011/05/president-obama-to-visit-texas-next-tuesday/
...
“It’s offensive that the president will make the time to use Texas as an ATM just days after he denied federal assistance for the thousands of wildfires that have ravaged Texas for months,” . “I’m sure Texans in those areas affected by the fires would appreciate a Commander in Chief who is more concerned about their lives and livelihoods than he is with filling his campaign coffers.”
...
Sen. John Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin

ETA: Hey Prince,

[charlesoakwood]

High winds fanning wild fires blew through Amarillo suburbs destroying 12 homes and over 200 acres Monday.  In the area, Sunday, 1200 acres burned.  Last week Governor Rick Perry wrote a letter of appeal to President Barack Obama seeking assistance fighting the fires which have cost the state over $107 million to date. 

It seems the President gives lip service to Mississippi flooding and tornado struck Missouri while waiting for Texas to burn, bankrupt, or be taken over by mohammed supporting la Raza's.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/30/illegal-immigrant-arrested-death-texas-police-officer/

[sablegsd]

I read somewhere that after he told TX to f**k off, he sent relief to f**king mexico's fire.

Damn, I hate that pencil necked, jug eared douche.

http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2011/05/11/obama-sends-cargo-planes-to-help-mexicos-wildfires-and-ignores-texas/

[rickl]

Clearly, any state which opposes Federal policies needs to start preparing to do without Federal funds.  Such money always comes with strings attached, and a state can't bristle at Federal mandates while simultaneously putting their hand out for aid.

[charlesoakwood]

The sticky wicket there is the money states remit to the Feds.
To be consistent a state would also not send money to the Fed.

[Libertas]

Good point Charles.  Usually you hear nothing from the net recipient states, but the net payer states usually complain with regularity.

I find it ironic that the latter do not see the wisdom in severing all financial ties with the Fed's and take care of their own.  If that happened, then the net recipient states wouldn't be net recipients for long and they too would be impelled to cut the Fed's loose.

Man, would I love to see that day!

[rickl]

The sticky wicket there is the money states remit to the Feds.
To be consistent a state would also not send money to the Fed.

Good point, but I'm not sure what money the states collect and remit to the Feds.  That's how it was done originally, but nowadays I think the Feds just tax the people directly, which was not in the Constitution.

[Libertas]

The sticky wicket there is the money states remit to the Feds.
To be consistent a state would also not send money to the Fed.

Good point, but I'm not sure what money the states collect and remit to the Feds.  That's how it was done originally, but nowadays I think the Feds just tax the people directly, which was not in the Constitution.

They do act as agents for unemployment, most of the states have run out of funding and have borrowed funds from the Fed's, they make payments on that.  Also indirectly affecting the Fed's is payments owed by one state to another due to reciprocal agreements and such, which could affect how much stressed states get in Fed aid.  Granted the Fed's shell out about $500b to states each year, but things really get muddled when you look at funded vs unfunded mandates and their impact upon states.  It's all interconnected and the Fed's do carry more weight in the relationship, but politics makes some states winners and others losers...such as we saw with Obama and the Porkulus money that largely went to state employee unions who in turn donate (kickback) heavily to DemonRats.  The incestuous nature of money and politics goes deep, and the sooner this dependency is ended the sooner all other dependencies will end.

Who was i the news today?  Ohio?  Fed's threatening to cut them off for the state cutting Planned (Un)Parenthood off the teat?  They use funding like a club, I hope Ohio tells the Fed's to fvck off!

[Pandora]

Indiana, I think.

eta:  Yep.

[charlesoakwood]

[blockquote]

http://cpr.ca.gov/CPR_Report/Issues_and_Recommendations/Chapter_1_General_Government/Increasing_State_Revenues/GG07.html

In federal FY 2002-2003, Texas received 92 cents in federal payments and services for every dollar sent to Washington. [15] Federal funds are the second largest segment of the Texas state budget, accounting for $39.2 billion, or more than one-third of FY 2004-2005 appropriations. This appropriation was an increase of $2.17 billion from the previous fiscal year. [16]

[/blockquote]

It appears the Fed returned to Texas 39.2B, 92% of what the fed received.  An accountant probably has a formula to calculate what was originally taken remitted by the state to the Fed.

The funny thing about that return is that the state has to use that money the way the fed dictates or as the fed says, agreed upon by the two parties.

I'm with Libertas, "The incestuous nature of money and politics goes deep, and the sooner this dependency is ended the sooner all other dependencies will end."

[rickl]

An accountant probably has a formula to calculate what was originally taken remitted by the state to the Fed.

I don't think the state is actually collecting and remitting money to the Fed for the most part.  I think this mainly reflects the money that Texas citizens are directly taxed by the Federal government, which, as I said, was never originally in the Constitution.  It's probably the 16th Amendment which allowed for that, and that was one of the amendments which solidified Federal authority and control over the states, which of course was also not part of the original Constitution.

Getting out of that is going to be difficult.

[charlesoakwood]

It is a state's money, however it is collected from the state and its citizens and it goes to the fed. A portion of that taken out of the state by the fed is then returned.  If the fed did not have it's hand in a state's pocket, by whatever means, those monies would stay in the state. The fed would have no control over that money, which in the case of Texas is more than $40 Billion dollars. By the same token a state would have no right of request upon the fed.

[Libertas]

There would be a lot of tit-for-tat retaliation-monies denied, programs curtailed and maybe even some lawsuits requiring the Supreme's to settle, but if a brave state governor and a stout legislature were to challenge the Federal behemoth on original Federalist grounds and have concurrent legislation passed to the replace what Federal mandates the state desires to retain unto itself then we would have a resurgence of states rights other states could model off of.  Under original construction the Federal beast was never meant to be this massive and intruding so heavily into individual state affairs, not on a permanent basis anyway.  Some will bring up Lincoln during the Civil War but that is a red-herring IMO and I do not want to engage in another rehash of that era, but the main point is Federal authority vested in the Executive and with the support of Congress can take temporary extraordinary measures as extreme (and I mean extreme, not casual, not manufactured) conditions warrant.  (I'll leave the question as to the extreme condition presented by the Civil War meeting the definition out of this current debate just so we don't go wildly off topic.)  The Federal government was intended to care for the big ticket items of national defense, diplomacy and fostering commerce.  The states were envisioned as incubators of innovation and meeting the needs of their citizens as their citizens desired as expressed through their state and local representatives.  Until the Federal government is trimmed down and states allowed to resume their intended role, states will be little better than vassals of the Federal beast and our citizens serfs at best!

[RickZ]

Libertas,

While I agree with your points about the original concept of the Union regarding the purpose of the Federal Government, I think you're overlooking one point, a fairly important one, I think.  And you can blame Henry Ford.

It used to be that people never travelled much from the area of their birth, much less to other states or even countries.  Wealth, or a lack thereof, had a lot to do with that, but there is also this point:  People were proud of where they were born, of the State in which they resided.  The Civil War helped kill individuals' pride in their home State, "in order to form a more perfect union."  I really cannot see a person siding with their state ever again, though Texas would the only one that even remotely has a chance of tbat happening.  How many people are proud to be from Michigan anymore?  Or California?  Or even a state like Virginia?  So the idea of individual loyalty to a State was crushed by the Civil War.  Witness the number of Civil War monuments to state regiments or battalions.  Like Col. Chamberlain and his Maine boys at the Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg.  Today, the units are one country's arms and army.

Then we have Henry Ford.  Thanks to his assembly line production of the automobile, people became, as the vehicle's name states, self mobile.  Now people were free to move about the coutnry at will, with little to no hardship in travel (Pandora's cross-country story not withstanding).  With that mobility came a homogeneity of our culture, a lessening of the value of being from a particular state.

FDR helped put the final nails in States' Rights by virtue of his massive expansion of the Federal Government thanks to all his programs he created.  With the increase in Federal prpograms, a one-size-fits-all situation occurred, or a one Federal citizen model.

As you state, it will take some governor(s) with some serious cojones to battle the massive behemoth called The Fed.  Too many rely on it for their livelihood, whether through direct employment, Social Security, Medicare, or even Government jobs contracted out to the private sector.  For an individual state to begin to reassert its rights will be frought with risk, as the resources of the Fed are overwhelming when crushing such dissent.  I'd like to see a State try it, though, but I fear that it is like the situation the individual faces with regard to federal intrusion into our lives (that was discussed here elsewhere):  No one wants to be the first to stand up and fight and place themselves squarely in the Federal Government's crosshairs.  We have Ruby Ridge and Waco as recent examples of such rebellion, and the predictable results which then ensued.

[Libertas]

State loyalty, in and of itself as such, never entered my thought process, I guess that makes it intentional.  If states were the incubators of innovation as originally intended, then states with thriving economies, low taxes, more liberty, blind justice and true representative/non-careerist representation...then citizens would flock to that state and other states would have to compete in like fashion or devolve into a dysfunctional state.  That is the kind of earned loyalty and pride I can get behind.  Our mobile society could be leveraged into a positive force, if leaders of vision have the foresight to see it and act upon it.  But it will be tough indeed to get enough of a states political leadership to start the ball rolling.  It may require leadership from DC to give up control over certain areas on order to spark the states into action, but the top-down approach only works if you have effective control over all branches of government, something that in this day and age is not very easy to accomplish.  And if Obamakov (God spare us!) gets another 4 more years, baring state action what else is there left to stave off permanent serfdom?

[charlesoakwood]

Historically being from a state was part of your ID, this is true the world over.  Being from the mountains, or swamp, the plains, will shape the perspective of those from that region.  The 1950's movie's did a lot to promote the notion of some kind of romantic states loyalty. This thought is exclusive of politicians who, of course, make that appeal to loyalty.

Henry Ford capitalized on our natural mobility, we have always been mobile.  We left the Old World for America and we kept moving till we filled the continent. I will not be long before we are boarding Virgin Liners for the New World which we will colonize and prosper.  It is our manifest destiny.

[Pandora]

State loyalty, in and of itself as such, never entered my thought process, I guess that makes it intentional.  If states were the incubators of innovation as originally intended, then states with thriving economies, low taxes, more liberty, blind justice and true representative/non-careerist representation...then citizens would flock to that state and other states would have to compete in like fashion or devolve into a dysfunctional state.  That is the kind of earned loyalty and pride I can get behind.  Our mobile society could be leveraged into a positive force, if leaders of vision have the foresight to see it and act upon it.  But it will be tough indeed to get enough of a states political leadership to start the ball rolling.  It may require leadership from DC to give up control over certain areas on order to spark the states into action, but the top-down approach only works if you have effective control over all branches of government, something that in this day and age is not very easy to accomplish.  And if Obamakov (God spare us!) gets another 4 more years, baring state action what else is there left to stave off permanent serfdom?

That's already happening as folks are fleeing Michigan and New York.  Those are just two off the top of my head.  We got the hell out of the frying pan of NJ only to jump into the fire of CA, and then came to NC, looking to just get shut of laws/taxes, laws/taxes, laws/taxes.  Here would be a good place to insert the issue of the "locusts" doing the same, diluting the effect of the freedom-seekers by advocating to recreate the "stifle" we all left behind -- God help us.

I can only see this mobility and liberty-seeking escalating once any state -- Texas? -- takes a stand and gains even a minor foothold, with the added benefit of the locusts being content to stay where they feeeeel "protected".

[John Florida]

State loyalty, in and of itself as such, never entered my thought process, I guess that makes it intentional.  If states were the incubators of innovation as originally intended, then states with thriving economies, low taxes, more liberty, blind justice and true representative/non-careerist representation...then citizens would flock to that state and other states would have to compete in like fashion or devolve into a dysfunctional state.  That is the kind of earned loyalty and pride I can get behind.  Our mobile society could be leveraged into a positive force, if leaders of vision have the foresight to see it and act upon it.  But it will be tough indeed to get enough of a states political leadership to start the ball rolling.  It may require leadership from DC to give up control over certain areas on order to spark the states into action, but the top-down approach only works if you have effective control over all branches of government, something that in this day and age is not very easy to accomplish.  And if Obamakov (God spare us!) gets another 4 more years, baring state action what else is there left to stave off permanent serfdom?

That's already happening as folks are fleeing Michigan and New York.  Those are just two off the top of my head.  We got the hell out of the frying pan of NJ only to jump into the fire of CA, and then came to NC, looking to just get shut of laws/taxes, laws/taxes, laws/taxes.  Here would be a good place to insert the issue of the "locusts" doing the same, diluting the effect of the freedom-seekers by advocating to recreate the "stifle" we all left behind -- God help us.

I can only see this mobility and liberty-seeking escalating once any state -- Texas? -- takes a stand and gains even a minor foothold, with the added benefit of the locusts being content to stay where they feeeeel "protected".

 It's going to come to where those people will be made unwelcome in those states.There will be a shoot out sooner or later before they muddy up the good states left to live in.

[charlesoakwood]

It doesn't necessarily happen that way.  Some may not be locusts but hard workers who by ignorance bring the same political and culturally week mindset, they will work, obey the laws, vote, and change the laws and thereby change the culture forever.