Michael Steele Was for Fish Passage Barrier Removal Before He Was Against It
Brendan Nyhan has more on the brain-dead appeals to ignorance at the heart of Michael Steele’s strident opposition to the inclusion in the stimulus of a small quantity of funds aimed at removing fish passage barriers from the nation’s streams.
For example, Nyhan reveals that back when Steele was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland serving under Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich, the Steele-Ehrlich administration touted removal of fish passage barriers as an important policy priority. They explained that “migration barriers are anything in the stream that significantly interferes with the upstream movement of fish” and “unimpeded fish passage is especially important for anadromous fish which live much of their lives in tidal waters but must move into non-tidal rivers and streams to spawn.” They warn that fish passage barriers, if unaddressed, create a situation in which “the diversity of the fish community in an area will be reduced and the remaining biological community may be out of natural balance.” They even set up a hotline you could call to report a fish passage barrier so that the state could remove it.
Long story short, the economy requires fiscal stimulus. That requires us to identify projects on which to spend money that are (a) short-term in nature, and (b) useful. Barriers to fish migration are a bona fide environmental problem. Removing them is useful. And since removing them is a series of short-term endeavors, it works as stimulus.
39 Responses to “Michael Steele Was for Fish Passage Barrier Removal Before He Was Against It”
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February 8th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Michael Steele: dumber than JTP?
February 8th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Bush and the Republicans turned record surpluses into record deficits, running up trillions and trillions in new debt, destroying this country in the process. They lost big in the last two elections. This country is deep in the toilet and flushing fast thanks to the Republicans, and they want to pour more water on top so we go down faster.
All you lying dittoheads make me sick. And the fact that the ‘reasonable’ Dems are giving you a voice makes me sick, too.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
It’s the same thing about 90% of the spending the Repubs complain about. It sounds a little silly if you don’t know anything about it, but most of the time people wouldn’t be fighting to do these things if they didn’t matter.
It recalls the McCain attacks on studying Grizzly DNA during the campaign, when it turned out it was crucial in determining the population size and whether they should be listed as endangered or not.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Obama just needs to learn how to sell political agendas. He should go on TV and argue:
“As the Bible says, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Show him how to tear down fish barriers and you feed him for life”
The religious right goes “Ooooh. Good point.”
February 8th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Also point out that several of Jesus’s disciples were fisherman who would have thought this was a good idea. Segue into God’s injunction that we be husbandmen of his creation and ask why the Republicans are opposing God.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Because a Lieutenant Governor never dissents what the Governor proclaims is state policy? I missed the part in that link where Steele is quoted as being for fish barrier removal.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
It’s unmanly to try to make life easy for fish; in order to truly encourage the spirit of struggle, self-respect, and entrepreneurship among our piscine-Americans, we should leave the fish barriers in place, but add other, less effective barriers in front, so that after having learned to conquer the less effective barriers, an entrepreneurial minority may leap to the real challenge.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
the Steele-Ehrlich administration
Ooh, what a burn.
OTP, but why has Robert Ehrlich’s career faded out, while Michael Steele is now the leader of the Republican party? My people in Maryland refer to Ehrlich as “the kind of Republican even I could vote for.” Shouldn’t somebody like that be in charge of leading his party back to respectability, not this know-nothing douchebag?
February 8th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
“why has Robert Ehrlich’s career faded out, while Michael Steele is now the leader of the Republican party?”
Because he’s black? Seriously, I have no idea why someone who by all indications is a failed politician best known for pretending to be a Democrat is supposed to be a good leader.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
The good thing about jobs like this from the DemMexicanGovernment perspective is that they’re low-skill, and can be done by “willing workers”. Plus, breaking down those barriers is really going to help us compete against our chief competitor, which is also the same country to whom we’ll be sending billions of dollars in interest. So, from the DemMexicanGovernment perspective it’s a win-win.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Not sure I get the point here. Or, I guess i get it. But it doesn’t appear to make much sense.
Just because someone is for something, I am not sure why they MUST agree that it should be part of a bill aimed specifically at “stimulus.”
I think that if you take this logic to its extreme, we would end up with a stimulus bill called “the federal budget.” because any spending would qualify.
Isn’t it clear that some spending programs will be more “stimulative” than others? Let’s say I develop a program that calls for burning $100 bills in order to heat an outhouse on the outskirts of Topeka. I propose a hundred thousand hundred dollar bills for this purpose. The program will require one man to shovel the bills into the furnace.
Even if I support this program on some grounds, would it be clear that I ought to support it as part of a stimulus bill?
This all goes back to the question of empiricism. And i think the fact that a liberal is speaking in these terms goes a long way towards illustrating whether liberals are actually more empirical. The argument being that if you were for a program in the past, you MUST support it as part of a stimulus. Without any discussion of its stimulative potential.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I think AssForAHeadDotCom thought the “fish barriers” in question were in regards to trade in fish with Mexico.
Is the argument by the immigration hysterics that Mexican fish are trying to sneak up here to breed in our anadromous fish populations?
No, that’s okay, don’t answer. Really. Don’t.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
The Republican strategy has been obvious from the start. There has been no effort by them to make an economic argument, instead they are simply playing the middle school game of mocking anything that can be made to sound funny or play to their stereotypes of liberalism.
A commenter on one of my Angry Bear ‘Pick your Pork’ posts asked we what I though about a list of spending mocked by the chuckleheads at NRO. Per them liberals are pushing urban redevelopment because ACORN might get a piece. That is they don’t even deploy the half rational (if factually untrue) claim that liberals just like urban blacks more than rural rights which would allow us to examine the actual flow of tax dollars between cities and rural areas and between Blue and Red states. Nope they just jump right to the Hot Button. Plus everybody knows that funding programs to address violence against women are just pork. Pointing out that domestic violence goes up in times of economic trouble doesn’t phase them. It is all just more proof that Democrats have been captured by the Emasculating Feminazis
It is not like these guys don’t understand that community organization is how things get done at local levels, they certainly don’t mock the local Chamber of Commerce or the Rotary Club. But you can use it to play right into their pre-existing ‘Race Peddling Poverty Pimp’ narrative. I suspect Steele could explain exactly why fish barriers are an economic threat to almost any state that relies on fisheries. My state relies a lot on Salmon fishing and a single blockage point in a stream can mean cutting of hundreds of miles of upstream habitat. Clearing it could result in huge multipliers in the form of recreational and commercial fishing. But you can make it sound like ‘Tree Hugging’.
It is all just game playing and mugging for the audience. Last week the Senate released a list of what they called ‘wasteful’ spending. Not only was not much of it actually ineffective, much of what they included would have been stimulative, but added all together it only came out to 2.15% of the bill. Ruben Navarrette came out with a column calling for killing the bill based on three programs totalling 0.1% of the proposed total. The Columbus dispatch argued that they should just ‘Start over’ based on a list of programs adding up to 0.4% . These people are not fundamentally stupid and treating them as if you just had to use reason and numbers to counter their arguments may be a useful way of educating readers. Just don’t fool yourself that any of this is being driven by the actual economics. Instead Republicans are just using smoke and mirrors, flashing lights and blaring sirens hoping against hope that people won’t realize that the Great and Mighty Wizard of GOP Oz is just a pathetic man behind the curtain manipulating the levers.
The first step in ensuring that you don’t get taken advantage by a Con Man is realizing that you are in a Con Game. And we are.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I don’t have a problem with people who say that something shouldn’t be in the stimulus because it’s a stupid expenditure–they may be wrong and usually are, but the objection is fine. But when we hear people like Collins and others, of both parties, say that an expenditure is fine but just doesn’t belong in the stimulus, that’s stupid by definition. They’re saying that they would vote for it in one context but just not in this one–an esthetic objection. What in the world could that possible be about?
February 8th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
“The argument being that if you were for a program in the past, you MUST support it as part of a stimulus. Without any discussion of its stimulative potential.”
I wouldn’t waste calories worrying about what is, or is not, in the “stimulus” bill. Trying to “stimulate” an economy back to a level that was unsustainable has epic fail written all over it, akin to pumping air into a tire full of holes. In the fullness of time…..
February 8th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Beyond the discussion of whether or not it is a good thing to remove the barriers (which it is), I don’t understand why there is any question about it being a valid program to stimulate job creation. I can’t imagine a more labor intensive task. Do people like Vitter and Steele and Sam M think computers are going to dig up dams?
February 8th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The big sword looming over all of us , of course, is a run on the dollar, capital flight and hyperinflation. That is why I think the Stimulus needs emphasis on investment for production. Investors will lend to a productive citizen producing value — but not to a drunken spendthrift. As I’ve noted earlier, we’re up shit’s creek because George Bush has already been running an ill-advised Stimulus Plan for the last 8 years.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I think the bigger deal is that Steele said he doesn’t know what the f he is talking about:
So the issue isn’t that he was for something before he was against it, its that he was either lying in his campaign material that he approved that platform and message, or he is lying now in saying he doesn’t know what a fish passage barrier is.
Either that or we can assume that Mike Steele doesn’t know anything about anything (hint hint – business tax lein, hint hint failed business, hint hint)
February 8th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
MattY’s interest in throwing everything into the “stimulus” has already been noted before:
archives/2009/01/what_belongs_in_the_stimulus.php
The good thing is that if it passes many of its supporters will be discredited after everyone realizes how much of a scam it was. MattY should be about thirty at that time.
Regarding #17, is there anything at all in the plan encouraging the development of new factories to, you know, make stuff? Buying cement from the U.S.’s new owners doesn’t qualify.
My coverage of the plan might be of interest; here are over a dozen posts about it, including the possibility of a hidden welfare scam to the tune of $523 billion and the possibility that billions will be spent employing foreign citizens.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Brain-dead. Ignorant. And we’re proud as hell!
The new Republican slogan. It’s not that they’re just brain-dead and ignorant, it’s that they’re so damned proud of this and eager to prove it at every turn. Sarah Palin. Steele (check out his last appearance on Real Time with Maher). They even had Joe the Plumber leading a Repug congressional staff pep rally the other day. At least, I hope it was just a pep rally… hell, it could have been their legislative strategy session for the term. God knows it would be hard to tell the difference.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
It was political blather. He knew most people know nothing of the work that it takes to keep fish and wildlife from extinction.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Congratulations to the Chines… I mean, to the Democratic Party! Here’s another way stimulus funds will flow from the U.S. to China.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
1) In order to counter Republican Deceit, Obama should present and review a list of the major spending items/categories in
the Stimulus Bill. This will allow him to point out the real value that the bill is providing to the American people. He should contrast that with Republicans heavily favoring the superrich with their proposals — tax cuts,etc.
2) Obama should also point out that Republican propagandists are deliberately trying to deceive the public by focusing on extremely small items in the Bill –things at the margin — and using 1 percent of the bill to mischaracterize the Bill as a whole.
3) I really wish the Democratic leadership would develop a spine — Republicans feel free to lie to the American people because they know Democrats are too cowardly to confront them in the public forums. Those Republican lies have cause great harm to this country.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I also wish that Democratic leaders who think the American public doesn’t swallow Republican lies would run some fucking polls.
Obviously there’s always going to be a small fraction that are hopelessly stupid. But I think the percentage of the American electorate who will continue to blame the Republicans as the economy deterioates is much small and more mallable than Democratic operatives realize.
It is a big blind spot to think that just because you know Bill O’Reilly is a lying shithead to also think that everyone else out there is as perceptive.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
“I can’t imagine a more labor intensive task. Do people like Vitter and Steele and Sam M think computers are going to dig up dams?”
It’s not actually that labor intensive.
But if it’s labor intensity you want, you could increase that quite easily by banning power tools.
Would you be for that?
February 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Sam M-
Your outhouse money-burning idea is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard. That is why it does not belong in the stimulus.
Removing fish barriers from streams appears to be a productive use of government money, which could be implemented quickly and create jobs. Presumably that is why steele supported it in the first place. Also, That is why it does belong in the stimulus package.
The point here is that the entire republican strategy here seems to be denouncing projects because they have funny sounding names. This is irresponsible, but not really suprising.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
It is labor-intensive and it requires the work of specialists also. Removing fish barriers increases a money making resource. Every fish is an increase in income for everyone from the fishers to the store owner to the treasury that makes money from every transaction made from the sale of fish.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
“Removing fish barriers from streams appears to be a productive use of government money, which could be implemented quickly and create jobs.”
It appears that way to whom?
And even if it is the case, reality based people ought to be interested in showing that, empirically, removing fish barriers provides a better stimulus than some alternatives. Or that it is even worth it in the first place. This is not called the “fish health” bill. It’s the stimulus bill.
Remember a while back (it really wasn’t that long ago) when progressives took the GOP to task for being dishonest. The argument went like this: When the economy is doing well, the GOP wants tax cuts for the rich. And when the economy is doing poorly, the GOP wants tax cuts for the rich. HA! GOTCHA! All a LIE! LIARS! All a bunch of ideologues!
But now look at what we have. When the economy was doing really well, progressives said we needed to pay for projects like fish ladders, etc. Now that the economy is in the shits we need… fish ladders.
Fish ladders fish ladders fish ladders. No matter what, we need fish ladders. SOunds kind of like.. tax cuts.
Power. Strange how that works, no?
February 9th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Yeah, Sam. It’s the big fish conspiracy. Fish and Wildlife Services aren’t always working on fish ladders and removing barriers because the nature/development relationship continually creates barriers that destroys habitat, which lowers the fish population and threatens the fishing industry. The fish are just being obnoxious.
February 9th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Sam M-
1) I don’t know anything about fish ladders, but generally speaking construction projects create jobs.
2) Jobs stimulate the economy.
3) Michael Steele used to support fish ladders, until it became politically convenient to denounce them as government waste. His argument that they are government waste might have been plausible had he not previously supported them at a time when spending on this type of project was not desirable as an economic stimulus.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:52 am
As a Maryland resident, I watched Steele’s Senate race against Ben Cardin in 2006 very closely. Bottom line: there is no bigger phony in American politics today than Michael Steele. And, yes, that’s saying a lot.
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