More Republican hypocrisy

Today's column by Derrick Z Jackson is a must-read:

[Massachusetts Senator Scott] Brown is one of a host of prominent Republicans who has trashed the stimulus and fanned a toxic anti-government fervor among Americans and groups such as the Tea Party. Yet they made it their private business to net jobs out of the stimulus.

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative journalism organization, reported this week that it has obtained about 2,000 letters from members of Congress supporting stimulus grant applications, primarily for the departments of transportation, energy, and commerce. One was from Brown in support of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute's effort to expand broadband access, particularly in Western Massachusetts. Despite his declarations that stimulus funds create no new jobs, Brown wrote, "Broadband coverage is essential to the economic well-being and recovery of Western Massachusetts... Broadband coverage is also crucial in bringing together educators and students at our community colleges in order to help prepare our next generation of entrepreneurs and job creators."

This was repeated all over the nation by stimulus naysayers. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said the stimulus was going to "squander an enormous amount of money on things that won’t make much of a difference." Yet he wrote five letters to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood supporting various projects that sounded downright Democrat, including bike paths in the Bowling Green area. In a letter supporting funding to rehab rail lines, McConnell wrote, "supporting Appalachian railroads has the potential to attract industry, create jobs and move goods through areas underserved by national highways."