Apr 02 2009
Biden Visits NC; Dozens Treated for Toxic Exposure
Biden and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced a new wave of $10.4 billion in federal stimulus money for home loans across the country, and billions more for essential services in rural communities such as Pikeville, which is getting money for a new fire station. Biden used the outdated, current station as a backdrop. Pikeville is just north of Goldsboro in Wayne County.
“We’re investing in places like this all across the country,” Biden said, “to demonstrate the vital role towns like this play in the recovery.”
State Sen. David Rouzer, a Republican who represents Pikeville and worked in the Agriculture Department under President Bush, said he helped secure the fire department money last year out of the federal agency’s regular programs.
“They’re coming in and cherry picking the best projects and switching out the money, saying it’s stimulus money,” Rouzer said. “But it was already approved and in the pipeline. It’s totally disingenuous to come down here and say this is stimulus money, when regardless of whether a stimulus bill passed, they were getting the money.”
Here’s a question: Even supposing that Pikeville needs a new fire station, how does building one qualify as “stimulus”? Further, if Pikeville needs a fire station so much, why can’t you fine Pikevillians build one yourself?
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