Arizona's First Political Blog

E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
The Magic of Steady Eddie P

A few days ago I received a newsletter from my Congressman, Ed Pastor.

Said newsletter starts off with the header "District Projects Funded", proceeds to a front-page article entitled "Federal Funds Secured...", and then just goes from there. Page after page of headlines such as ....

"Phoenix and Glendale crime-fighting enhanced with federal funding boost...."

"$150,000 for Guadalupe seniors' transport..."

"Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS receives $300K for community project...."

Now you might ask why is the federal taxpayer funding projects that are so local nature; isn't that the duty of the local citizenry to cough up the dough? Yet that is how Mr. Pastor has built a two decade long career in Washington, by bringing home federal dollars to his district. Of course by the same token, taxpayers in his district are funding community centers, local police, and senior bus trips in places like Iowa and Arkansas so fair is fair.

We ship our tax dollars to Washington so we could then feel grateful when our elected officials manage to bring some of that money back home. Why not just directly fund the local and state government to implement those projects and skip the middle man? Because then people like Pastor would be out of a job.

It's sort of like going for the evening, being forced to use the valet service to park you car and then you are expected to tip the valet guy for doing something you would prefer to do yourself.

Other items of interest from Mr. Pastor's letter....

1) Phoenix is receiving $ million for "continued environmental and community outreach efforts required by the FTA related to a(n) Light Rail Corridor Extension." It's nice to secure federal money to pay for something mandated by the federal government in order to build a project that would have had a chance in hell of being built without federal money.

2) Mr. Pastor takes credit for supporting such programs as Cash for Clunkers, the American Clean Energy and Security Act ("Cap and Trade"), as well as "... to continue Congress' work to... lower the deficit." Seriously.

3) Not a peep about health care. When you are so secure in your district that you can win by 30 points and you don't say a word about health care, and this was probably was probably pre-Scott brown, well you know where things are going.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 6:23 PM