Is it another gaffe, or is it an outright lie?
Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack visited a small town in Eastern North Carolina and preached the bailout gospel. They wanted the people there to know that federal stimulus money wasn’t just for big banks and corporations. Small towns would get a cut. Biden then claimed that a fire station in the small town was funded by federal stimulus money. Only thing is, it wasn’t:
Most of the money for the station that was announced Wednesday, however, had been secured last year under the Bush administration, according to fire department officials.
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."
So again I ask: is it another gaffe, or is it an outright lie? I find it hard to believe they didn’t know the fire station wasn’t funded by stimulus money, but at the same time, Joe Biden isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Either way, our options are bleak. Either they are incompetent or they are deceitful.
If there is another choice, please let me know in the comments.
