Sen. Richard Burr cannot have it both ways. Burr cannot satisfy his base in the Republican Party by voting against the $787 billion federal stimulus bill early in 2009, and then in October play Santa Claus in a North Carolina community that received almost $2.1 million from it.
Eight months ago, Burr was vocal in his opposition to the stimulus plans offered by the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress. Burr said that the stimulus was "wasteful" spending and that the money would create little, if any, long-term economic growth.
He went on Fox News to say that the bill was full of "things considered in the normal appropriations process" for years, but rejected by Congress. He added that most of the proposed projects "don't meet the threshold of stimulating economic growth or job creation."
Burr was not alone in opposing the stimulus. Only three Senate Republicans voted for the bill. Burr is a fiscal conservative, and his stand was predictable. But, because he is so strongly against the stimulus, he should have avoided the ceremony in the Alexander County town of Bethlehem, where Christmas truly was coming early. The local fire department was receiving a stimulus check from Uncle Sam. The money will pay to build a new facility.
According to the Hickory Daily Record, Burr said that the grant "is a great thing for this county ... We're not accustomed to federal dollars in that magnitude finding their way to North Carolina." This is where Burr was trying to have it both ways.
These federal dollars would not have flowed to Bethlehem, of course, had Burr's stand on the stimulus package prevailed.
As for the money being a "great thing" for Alexander County, how can Burr characterize it as such when just a few months ago he was telling Fox News that projects of this kind are unworthy of funding?
No amount of wiggling will get Burr out of this contradiction. In Washington and on national television, he denounced the stimulus program as a collection of wasteful projects but then he took credit, if only by implication, for bringing the bacon home.
Twenty-five years ago, Sen. Jesse Helms defended his seat with a withering attack on then-Gov. Jim Hunt, his Democratic challenger. Noting similar inconsistencies by Hunt, Helms' TV ads repeatedly asked, "Where do you stand, Jim." A similar question may be appropriate for 2010: "Where do you stand, Richard?"
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