Return to Denver

By Al Giordano

It's been almost six months - my, how time flies, even when so much history has been jam-packed into it - since then-candidate Obama's nomination and historic speech in Denver.

Today he returns to the Mile High City, this time with the presidential pen in hand, to sign the $787 billion dollar Stimulus Bill - read our breakdown of how the money will be spent, here - into law.

As some chatter that the Stimulus "should have been larger," let's have some perspective. It's already the single largest government expenditure from a sole piece of legislation ever. And it squeaked through the US Senate with the necessary 60 votes without even one vote to spare (US Senator Sherrod Brown had to come back to DC from his mother's wake in Ohio to cast the deciding vote, while US Senator Ted Kennedy, combatting brain cancer, was not well enough to make it). Had a single one of the three Republicans that favored the bill bolted, nobody would be signing anything today. And US Senator Susan Collins of Maine stated emphatically that had the bill gone above $800 billion she w ould have turned around and voted against it.

In other words, given reality, this Stimulus is right up against the ceiling of what it could have been with the votes available at hand.

The right wing knows it, even if some sectors of the Eeyore left apparently wouldn't be happy about winning the world's largest lottery ticket, either. Check out the screeching planned for tonight on Fox News:

All day long Fox has paraded guests in and out and if you had to down a shot for every time they worried aloud about the supposed "socialism" they claim this bill creates, you'd be getting your stomach pumped in the emergency room already.

Truth is, the vast majority of the public could care less if the complainers call it "socialism." The Cold War has been over for a generation. The doom-and-gloom heard on the right, including at Fox, is a mere re-run of their gamble that Obama's mild association with radical intellectual Bill Ayers would somehow turn the electorate against him. Most people view it this way: If saving my job or creating one for my kid is "socialism," then what's wrong with that?

You'll hear Obama this afternoon, from Denver, use the word "jobs" a lot. The White House is already promoting the Stimulus package online, with details about how many jobs it will "save or create" in each state, and even in every Congressional District. (And if you haven't checked recovery.gov lately, the White House web site to track each dollar spent in the Stimulus has come out of the gate sprinting: it will offer an unprecedented look behind the curtain of government spending to the public.)

According to the White House, the Stimulus will create or save 59,000 jobs in Colorado (an average of 8,428 per Congressional District), where the President signs the bill, and 70,000 jobs in Arizona (an average of 8,750 per CD), where he'll be tonight and tomorrow to announce his plans to confront the home foreclosure crisis. (Indeed, keeping the housing matter out of the Stimulus Bill made room for bigger expenditures on other urgent needs, while also likely assuring that more will be able to be spent on saving the American family home through separate legislation.)

I took a look at the number of jobs estimated to be saved or created by the Stimulus in the ten biggest and ten smallest states, and then computed the average number of jobs per Congressional District, and found something fascinating.

In the biggest states:

California: 396,000 jobs (an average of 7,471 per Congressional District)

Texas: 269,000 (8,406 per CD)

New York:  215,000 (7,413 per CD)

Florida: 206,000 (8,240)

Illinois: 148,000 (7,789)

Pennsylvania: 143,000 (7,526)

Ohio: 133,000 (7,944)

Michigan: 109,000 (7,266)

Georgia: 106,000 (8,153)

North Carolina: 105,000 (8,076)

And here are the job numbers from the ten smallest states (the first eight with just one CD, Rhode Island and Hawaii with two apiece):

Wyoming: 8,000

Washington DC: 12,000

Vermont: 8,000

North Dakota: 8,000

Alaska: 8,000

South Dakota: 10,000

Delaware: 11,000

Montana: 11,000

Rhode Island: 12,000 (6,000 average for each CD)

Hawaii: 15,000 (7,500)

There's your New York Congressional Delegation - Schumer & Gillibrand, LLC - at work: The Empire State got less of the pie per capita than any of the seven largest or eight smallest states. (We've noted before that the New York delegation is dominated by bump-on-a-log backbenchers, and Governor David Paterson sure didn't help his state when he appointed one of them to the US Senate instead of you-know-who. Of course, Paterson and Gillibrand's tanking poll numbers reveal that New Yorkers are hip to this fact. ‘Nuff said.)

The President will sign the Stimulus at 12:40 p.m. Mountain Time (2:40 ET) and will surely be live-cast by the Cable News channels and their Internet sites. The Vice President will speak there, too (a sure draw for those that look for any words to stray off script!)

I doubt today's event will match last August's speech in Denver for sheer emotion, but in terms of the lives and jobs of 59,000 Coloradans and everyone in their communities that depend on their neighbors' economic health and continued spending, this is in fact a far more momentous occasion.

Update: New York Daily News reporter Ken Bazinet picks up on this report:

The Field blog, a favorite of many of the information superhighway's citizen journalists and the mainstream media alike, reports today that the feds are not doling out as much money on a per capita basis to New York State as they are to other large states.

Update II: Chris D'Amico (TheWurx at DKos) has written a reported diary on the goings on over at Nova M radio in the wake of the exit of Randi Rhodes. Very interesting stuff he's found out.