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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (458546)	2/22/2009 1:37:04 PM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573720

My senator.... Al ============================================================ Shelby discusses stimulus bill, other issues The Cullman Times By Patrick McCreless staff writer To Sen. Richard Shelby, borrowing $787 billion is not good fiscal responsibility. “You can’t borrow your way to prosperity,” Shelby said. “We’re the largest debtor in the world. We’re stealing from our grandchildren.” Shelby discussed President Barack Obama’s stimulus package and answered questions from the public at All Steak Restaurant during his annual meeting in Cullman County. In front of a packed room, Shelby explained how he was a staunch proponent of fiscal responsibility and that he had opposed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed into law earlier this week. “If we (republicans) were in control, I would have been chairman of the banking committee ... and I would have killed some bills,” Shelby said with a laugh. Shelby said he opposed the bill mainly because it requires the country to borrow billions for what he considers to be wasteful spending. In addition, he said he opposed the bill because nobody really knows yet where all the money will be going. “Nobody’s read it yet,” Shelby said. Shelby said to bring the country out of the current recession, Congress should not spend taxpayer dollars but instead straighten out the banking system that brought the economy to this point in the first place. “I’m for more regulation of banks,” Shelby said. “The federal reserve is the regulator of big banks and they did a poor job.” Shelby added that the larger banks, which the federal government bailed out last year, should have been allowed to fail. “What I don’t want to see is a huge transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to banks that brought this problem on themselves,” Shelby said. “We’ll just have to prop them up again in the long run.” After noting that since previous administrations have already placed the country more than $10 trillion in debt, local resident Matthew Glover asked Shelby what would be the problem with another $1 trillion debt from Obama’s stimulus package. “He said some stuff about dividends ... but he never really answered my question,” Glover said. Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof. “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.” According to the Associated Press, state officials in Hawaii checked health department records during the campaign and determined there was no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii. The nonpartisan Web site Factcheck.org examined the original document and said it does have a raised seal and the usual evidence of a genuine document. In addition, Factcheck.org reproduced an announcement of Obama's birth, including his parents' address in Honolulu, that was published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Aug. 13, 1961. Hanceville Mayor Kenneth Nail told Shelby he and other local mayors were concerned if municipalities would ever see any of the money in the stimulus package. “Nobody has given the mayors a clear answer on how to get this money,” Nail said. Shelby said the reason mayors are in the dark about the stimulus package is because most of Congress is in the dark as well. “They don’t know what is in the bill yet,” he said. “No criteria has been set to distribute the money.” Shelby noted that once he knew all the details, he would do everything he could to ensure Alabama and local municipalities get the stimulus money they deserve. “Since you’re (taxpayers) going to be paying for it, I’ll make sure as much as I can that it’s fairly distributed,” Shelby said. “I don’t want to wake up and see it all go to New York and Chicago.”