Monday, May 4, 2009
Politics / Woods Did Bredesen Mislead Public About Jobless Benefits? He Wouldn't Do That, Would He?
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, May 4, 2009 at 5:19 AM
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Speaking of the federal stimulus money, Gov. Phil Bredesen led the public to believe he'd decided to accept Tennessee's $140 million to expand benefits for laid-off workers. That was after he drew media criticism and even a puzzled call from the White House for initially joining various Republican wingnuts in saying he might turn it down. He complained it comes with too many strings attached, then backpedaled and claimed he was only taking time to read "the fine print."
"The fact I wanted to read the fine print got my picture next to those guys in The New York Times and a call from the White House, wondering what I was doing. That's perfectly fine."Well, it seems the state's not taking all the money, after all. The Tennessean's Bonna Johnson reports:
While state officials have decided to accept stimulus money to bolster the unemployment program to some extent, there is no proposal to adopt the most costly or most expansive changes that would add thousands more to the rolls.That means only about half of the 292,300 unemployed in Tennessee in March collected unemployment pay. Did Bredesen lie to us? Pith feels so used.
