Belling joins the chorus

Mark Belling joins the wingnut echo chamber in the defense of Scott Walker's indefensible position against taking any of the federal stimulus money for Milwaukee County -- a position since modified several times by Walker.

Belling, frothing at the mouth as usual:

It is terribly obvious the Obama plan will put fortunes in the hands of poverty pimps, political hustlers, grubby contractors and anybody else with a political pal. Write book, here’s a million dollars... Local taxpayers will have to match the federal loot with money of their own. Programs started now with the federal stimulus will have to be fully funded with local money when the stimulus checks dry up.

Walker is saying he’ll only take money that requires no local match and no local operating costs. I haven’t found a single other politician in Wisconsin recognizing that the federal stimulus money will create massive new local spending.

As others not infected by right-wing rabies have noted, the Obama plan that so "obviously" will do all of the things Belling hates hasn't even been written yet. The Poverty Pimps appropriation hasn't even been earmarked. Nor has a local match been specified.

But Scott Walker is far from the only politician recognizing that some local tax money will also have to be spent as part of the stimulus. What many of them have said, however, is that a 20% county match (if that's what it ends up being) is far preferable to a 100% county-financed project, which is the likely, eventual alternative for a lot of much-needed projects. That, and the fact that Milwaukee County taxpayers will pay their share of stimulus costs whether their county accepts any money or not, is why Walker looks like a minority of one on his ill-considered stand.