Pawlenty Craves that Tainted Cash

Countless examples abound of Republican hypocrites, who rail against the spending in Obama’s initiatives, even though it is deficit neutral or better, but are first pigs at the trough at feeding time.  Republican presidential hopeful, Tim Pawlenty, is no exception.

After criticizing Congress for passing a $26 billion aid package to state governments, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has sent a formal request to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for $236 million for Medicaid from the very same funding bill he blasted as a “reckless spending spree.” After pronouncing that “the federal government should not deficit spend to bail out states,” the governor and likely presidential candidate even offered clues that he won’t accept any new money from the federal government (unless that money was for abstinence-only programs).

Pawlenty decided to relent like other “principled” Republican governors before him such as Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford, who proudly disparage government programs and threaten to refuse the federal aid meant to protect the jobs of public employees and salvage state budgets—then agree to accepting stimulus dollars when it’s politically convenient. Similar to the Republican members of Congress who proudly vote against the stimulus and later publicly take credit for providing stimulus dollars in their districts, Pawlenty is attempting to both please the anti-government zealots in the GOP base while also benefiting from Democratic efforts to govern responsibly… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

This demonstrates the the spending in question is desperately needed to help soften the impact on states of this Republican recession.  Were it not, lying hypocrites like Pawlenty would not take it at all to reap the political advantage of refusing it.