This morning, the National Press Club hosted a press conference on the Economic Stimulus Effect on States & Localities that addressed some of the many immediate needs and concerns of the nation’s governors, local legislators and counties.
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Click here to watch video of the press conference
Click here for the federal website: recovery.gov
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John Thomasian, Director of the National Governors Association – Center for Best Practices, estimated that states face $250 billion in shortfalls between 2009-2011 and cautioned that “states are still going to have to tighten their belts over the coming years.” Thomasian charged the governors with the local oversight and authority of the disbursement and management of the stimulus funds.
He identified critical avenues of urgent federal funding to the states that should have positive macroeconomic impacts: Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance and direct appropriation funds.
The words of the cliché, “if it sounds to good to be true…it probably is” played out in living color, as Thomasian said,
“This stimulus bill is interesting and perhaps, calling it a stimulus bill is inappropriate to some extent, because a lot of things in the bill create the foundation for long-run economic growth, they create opportunities. In particular, there are four areas that we are highlighting for governors that they need to pay attention to – to create the opportunities for longer-run economic growth and efficiency while not necessarily being spent out immediately.”
Thomasian’s warning that there are “four areas” that all US governors need to pay attention to, begs one to ask.....Is this stimulus money ultimately conditional upon the full compliance of each state with these four programs? We don’t yet know.
A summary of the ‘highlighted four-areas’ for all governors:
- Health IT – there will be money to build out and create a Health Information Technology Network that would create electronic patient records.
- $19 billion of Research & Development funds that will flow down to the universities through various means.
- A large amount of money for alternative energy distributed through several programs – that achieves an unnamed strategic goal.
- Broadband Build-out funds that will require careful planning and partnerships with the private sector.
Michael Bird, Counsel for the National Conference of State Legislatures, spoke on the commitment of the stimulus to education; K-12 being the priority. He said that each 2006 state education budget would be the minimum “baseline” amount for education funding, although later Thomasian said each 2008 education budget would be the “baseline” if it were higher than 2006.
Edwin Rosado, the Legislative Director of the National Association of Counties, argued that there is a trickle down to counties in financial assistance, infrastructure and building projects. He said, “Negative economic impact rolls downhill. And, when you look at the fact that county governments are the ones at the bottom of that totem pole of government assistance and government programs – the people that deal with constituents everyday, it’s people at the county levels.”
Rosado pointed out that counties own and operate 44% of the nation’s roads, 45% of bridges, 1/3 of public transportation, 1/3 of airports and many health care systems and hospitals.
While Arizona only has 15 counties, the average number of counties per state is 62. Texas has 254 counties, Georgia has 159 and Virginia has 134. That is a lot of bureaucracy to cover.
Michael Bird landed the RED-ALERT quotes of the day when he said, “This bill was not about help - to balance state budgets.”
Later he confidently exclaimed that, “This is a Band-Aid on a sore that needs stitches.”
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