House Democrats: Help us, Obama!

Paging Barack Obama. Barack Obama, would you please pick up the white courtesy phone?

Franklin Sands, Florida Democratic leader here. You remember me from that fundraiser in Weston, right? Good times. Good times. Look, Mr. President-elect, I have a favor to ask. I'll be blunt. Can you hurry up with that stimulus package? We could use some help with this budget mess in Florida.

House Democrats this morning turned to Washington for help, calling on Republican leaders to slow down the budget cuts in anticipation of "substantial gains under a federal economic stimulus package." During an 11 a.m. news conference, Sands said the GOP, working in secret, is rushing to make cuts that could hurt an already fragile state. (Republican response here.)

"The Republicans are proposing wholesale across-the-board cuts but they are not really thinking out these cuts as they make them," he said, a gaggle of Democrats at his side. "Slashing the budget at this time is actually very imprudent because of the imminence of the stimulus package coming out of Washington, which we hope will bail us out, which will bail out 12 years of Republican fiscal mismanagement."

Democrats said their counterparts should better prepare for a windfall under a national package that could top a trillion dollars. "We all know right now in the United States that leadership is coming, and it's coming from the new presidential administration," said Rep. Keith Fitzgerald of Sarasota.

Rep. Geraldine Thompson of Orlando suggested that lawmakers wait a few weeks to see what the package could look like. "Florida is one of the hardest hit states in the nation and so we feel we will get a greater share of the stimulus package and therefore will not have to inflict the kind of pain we're talking about."

(Weren't Democrats recently clamoring along with CFO Alex Sink for a speedy special session?)

There are some problems with the Democrats' high hopes. The Obama administration has already acknowledged that the package could be delayed and the Washington politics that Tallahassee loves to hate will surely affect the process. Moreover, no one truly knows how big the package will be or what strings could be attached to the funds.

Fitzgerald acknowledged that the Republican bill does anticipate getting some federal money to offset the crisis, but said Democrats were doing their part to create a viable plan.

The bill calls for replacing money taken from the Lawton Chiles fund ($400-million) then replenishing some of the budget stabilization fund ($600-million) and also anticipates Medicaid funds.

Democrats counter that cuts are being made across the board and any replacement plan should take the long view as well.

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Comments

[Republicans ruined our economy.]

Sands is incorrect. It's 30 years of Republican fiscal mismanagement.

[Florida Democrats]

Oh please, Lord Obama, The Most Merciful...help us!

We've spent ourselves into oblivion on stupid things like "art" that would have no chance in he|| of selling on the free market.

We've allowed rampant fraud in services, such as Medicaid.

We dump more and more money into failed government schools, only to find that administrative costs eat up the majority of the money whilst our children and teachers suffer.

Oh sure, we could fix these things, but that's not we Democrats are here to do. We simply need MORE MONEY!

Please, Lord Obama, Most Merciful, hear our prayer!

A 3.5% reduction, following a 75% increase in revenue… being sold as the end of times.

BRILLIANT!

Rollback taxes and spending to 2002 levels, cap taxation and spending at the annual CPI going forward, expand SOH to all property both residential and commercial, and vote every incumbent out of office at your first available opportunity.

Problem Solved!

Raise taxes on polluting businesses and criminal developers. Use the money to fund regulatory agencies. Close all income tax loopholes and put an end to offshoring of profits. Restore the capital gains tax to pre-Bush levels. Institue a 35% windfall profit tax on Exxon Mobil after a 40 Billion increase in revnue...

Brilliant!

Problem Solved!

The States trillion dollar bail out plan.

raise cigarette taxes.

NOW!

[T-HIZZEL]

THEY WONT RAISE CIGARETTE TAXES BECAUSE THEY PUT 2 MUCH MONEY IN THERE POCKETS BUT THEY WILL CUT MNEY FROM THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TRYING TO FIX WHAT JEB AN CHRIST HAVE MESSED UP!!!

[T-HIZZEL]

2:30 you hit the nail on the head....if only these lame ducks would realize there here to help the people not profit off them!!!!

T-Hizzel -

I don't think Christ had anything to with it...he's been dead for a couple thousand years.

"which we hope will bail us out, which will bail out 12 years of Republican fiscal mismanagement."

Holy crapole, is this the same as that lame blogger on here all the time?

"We all know right now in the United States that leadership is coming"

Printing TRILLIONS of dollars and pumping them into the economy will cause massive inflation. That is what Democraps call leadership?

Let me use a line that was coined by some of these Liberal whack jobs pre-election:

We can't afford more of the same (as in same tax and spend maddness the Liberal nuts are proposing)

Seriously, raising taxes and hiring more government workers is crazy. Bernie has his books inspected by the SEC. Apparently they missed the one man CPA that was reporting $1.7 Billion in revenue per year. And you want to hire more of them?

If I have this correct, the lame democrats in tally do not want to cut the budget, rather they prefer to have the fed print worthless greenbacks to fill the void.

NOW THAT IS LEADERSHIP I TELL YOU!

DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS UNDER NANCY PELOSI & HARRY REID HAVE RUINED THE U.S. ECONOMY IN JUST 2 YEARS SINCE THEY TOOK CONTROL IN 2006.

THAT IS WHY THEY HAVE AN ABYSMAL APPROVAL RATING LOWER NEAR 9%, MUCH LOWER THAN PRES. BUSH.

VOTE OUT ALL DEMOCRATS!!

[Bernie Madoff]

Franklin,

I have your money right here

The dems didnt screw up this economy in 2 years and you know it,more lies from your talking heads.Why were all the talking heads claiming the economy was just fine and this was a cyclical movement until just a couple months ago? Every one of your leaders were screaming that the "liberal media" were just trying anything they could to derail the republicans.I heard rush and hannity say this almost daily for over a year,now its the dems? Yeah right...As for a low approval rating? Look no further then the records set by republicans on stalled and blocked bills to see exactly why this was a "do nothing" congress,it wasnt the dems and only you fox watchers are blinded to the real facts about the new records set by the republicans.You point to the low approval rating and didnt mention the republicans losing seats.
Bush doubled the size of government and look at the national debt right now,numbers dont lie,,,thats your guy isnt it? Dont blame us as the big government party,that crown was given to bush/pubs for a long time to come