[U]nless I've missed it, the "centrist" group has yet to offer any sort of explanation for why aid to budget-strapped state governments took such a conspicuous hit in their "compromise." I mean, the fiscal crises affecting nearly all of the states are real. The recession-deepening cuts they are already making in personnel, in infrastructure programs, and in direct services to low-income Americans, are very real. Do the "centrists" think there's enough money in the package as amended to head off these highly unhelpful developments, or do they just not care? Who knows?A cynic might observe that all of the four senators that Arlen Specter identifies as the organizers of the "centrist" coup-by-amendment--himself, Ben Nelson, Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman--happen to come from states where the governor is of the other party.

But another factor, particularly given the timing, might have been a strange little statement put out by the Republican Governors' Association last Thursday urging Congress to reject the stimulus legislation entirely, because governors really didn't need the money. In quotes from RGA chairman Mark Sanford of SC, Gov. Sarah Palin of AK, Gov. Rick Perry of TX, Gov. Bobby Jindal of LA, and Gov. Haley Barbour of MS, the statement complained vaguely about "strings and mandates" accompanying the bill (although much of it either increases the federal share of costs for existing programs, or, in the case of the single largest program killed by the "centrists," made $25 billion available for absolutely anything the states wanted to do), and called instead for tax cuts. This maneuver was obviously intended to undercut a statement made a week or so earlier by the bipartisan National Governors' Association asking Congress to act quickly on the stimulus legislation--and noting the urgency of aid to states--and scattered press reports that many Republican governors were at least privately expressing support to Obama.

Mark Sanford has been so adamant in his opposition to what he calls a "bailout" of the states that Rep. Jim Clyburn from SC secured language in the House version of the stimulus bill allowing state legislatures to bypass governors and apply for federal assistance if the governor refuses to do so.

I don't know if the "centrist" senators or their staffs read any of this "don't help us" stuff, but it makes about as much sense as any other explanation of the specific steps they took to reshape the stimulus legislation.

I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised. If the party is banking on the economy failing for a reversal of their political fortunes, this would be one way to do it. It seems like a tremendously risky, self-destructive thing to do, but then conservatives count on victimization and anger at liberals to create their patented backlash politics.

It's tempting to say," let them reject themoney and we'll use it got other things then," but there are a lot of people, especially kids who don't get to vote, who don't deserve to have their states spiral into depression level economies just because their idiotic Republican leadership wants to score political points. (All the people who voted for these jackasses should lose lots of sleep, however. It's going to catch up with them.)

Obama was being bipartisan today down there in Florida with Governor Charlie Christ, who isn't insane. But he can't be bipartisan with people who are willing to stab their own constituents in the back for crude political and ideological reasons --- or with their agents who play the roles of "moderates" on TV.

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