Sunday, April 29, 2007

Congressional Democrats Come Through for NC's 8th District


It's a well-known Robin Hayes campaign stunt, going from town to town carrying a giant blank check that he can fill in and erase at will to show his audience how much pork he plans to deliver to their county. This past campaign cycle, Hayes made more campaign promises than he and his fellow Republicans were prepared to deliver.

After the November elections while they still held the majority, the Republicans intentionally chose to leave Washington without passing the final spending bills. The very bills that would have allowed Robin Hayes to keep all those giant promises to his constituents.

Instead, Hayes let those giant checks turn into failed giant promises. He and his fellow Republicans intentionally didn't deliver. At first Republicans in the two houses of Congress blamed each other.
Kingston (R-Ga) said the blame rested with the Senate. The House had passed all 11 appropriations bills by last July and sent them to the Senate, which then passed its own versions, on which House leaders say senators were unwilling to compromise.

"The Senate got into a trap of inactivity,'' said Kingston.

Senators say they passed the money bills by August and blame the House.
Not long into the new year, Robin Hayes decided to blame the new Democratic majority. In an article from The Charlotte Observer [Sun. Feb. 4, '07]:
The biggest insult of all is that the new congressional leadership cut our local projects while boosting foreign aid," Hayes said in a statement. "I think that was a display of bad priorities.
Blaming someone else for his failures is not something we'd expect from a wealthy, powerful man, but that's what we have in Robin Hayes. So much for personal responsibility.

After the CAFTA debacle, you'd think Hayes would be shy about making promises he wasn't flat-out, completely, horizontally prepared to keep. Heh. You would be wrong.

Who didn't get what was promised? Stanly County was a double loser. According to the Stanly County Press:
The Albemarle-Stanly County Airport and Stanly County Water Authority will not be receiving funds thought to be earmarked by Congress.

The airport will not have $1 million set aside in an appropriations bill passed last June. The new water authority will lose $500,000.
Cabarrus County was another big loser with money missing that was critical to the development surrounding the new North Carolina Research Campus. According to the Independent Tribune the total amount of promised funds that fell through for Cabarrus was $3 million.

All is not lost, though. The new Democratic leadership in Washington is coming through with critical funding for county water infrastructure for both Cabarrus and Union Counties.

Robin Hayes' mouthpiece, Carolyn Hern, says it's just business as usual, no big deal, something congress does every two years.

I almost believed her until I saw how hard Julia Oliver of the Charlotte Observer worked to show that Robin Hayes should get credit for requesting this from the Democratic leadership. It turns out the Union County manager has been talking with Hayes about water infrastructure needs since 2000.
The designation came out of discussions that have been going on since 2000 between Hayes, the county manager's office and the county's Public Works Department, Hern said.

Putnam refuses to speak with the media by telephone and only answers questions in writing. She said in an e-mail Wednesday that she has discussed the county's water and sewer needs with Hayes' staff in recent months, but not specific projects.

Former County Manager Mike Shalati, whom the commissioners fired in January, said he had spoken with Hayes over the past few years about water and sewer infrastructure needs.
In other words, for the past six years Robin Hayes has been completely ineffective at getting any help for his counties while his Republican party controlled the purse strings even though Hern describes this legislation as "not controversial". Pa.the.tic.

I keep looking for good in this man and I keep coming up empty.

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