In Walz votes for children's health care, the Mankato Free Press's Mark Fischenich reports on Walz's recent activity in Congress. Mostly, it's acronym soup concocted from S-CHIP and TARP:
“President Obama has pledged to sign it [S-CHIP],” Walz said Thursday, saying the bill will provide health care coverage for an additional 30,000 Minnesota children. “... We think it’s a moral responsibility to take care of our children in this country and also an investment in our future.”
While Walz was happy to do his part in sending the SCHIP bill to Obama, he said he’s very unlikely to support another request of the new president — that Congress give his administration access to the unspent $350 billion from the $700 billion financial bail-out package passed last fall.
The funding is part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
“Or, in my vernacular, ‘the boondoggle,’” Walz said.
Read the details in the Free Press; as we noted yesterday, the Sunlight Foundation wrote up the Good TARP Transparency Amendment to the TARP bill under consideration by the House. CQ Politics says the chamber will finish work on the bill next--when the Walz Amendment will by debated. The Free Press article notes that Walz is looking for a stimulus package that spurs job creation:
He’s much more supportive of Obama’s proposal for a large economic stimulus bill that could be as high as $850 billion for tax cuts and infrastructure spending ranging from road projects to renewable energy programs.
Residents of the 1st District will have an opportunity to provide input on the economic stimulus plan during round-table discussions Walz plans to hold in coming weeks. Walz said he wants the vast majority of the dollars to go into construction projects that directly attack the rising unemployment rate.
“If it’s in this package and it doesn’t prove that it creates a job, it’s going to be a hard sell for me,” he said.
Over at the Winona Daily News, Mark Sommerhauser looks at the projects Winona city and county officials think are suitable in City makes wish list for federal stimulus dollars:
Local officials hope a Winona County office-building expansion and an extension of Louisa Street in Winona may find new life in the stimulus proposal, unveiled by House Democrats on Thursday. Both proposals were sidetracked in recent years by funding shortages.
Winona area leaders have contacted state officials, lobbyists and Rep. Tim Walz, DFL-Minn., in the past month to promote the projects, and city leaders forwarded Walz a wish list of 16 infrastructure proposals totaling more than $23 million. . . .
Read the details at the WDN.
Photo: Walz talks to constituents in a grocery store.
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