USA TODAY

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The violent threats are not what bother Michael Mann the most. He's used to them.

Instead, it's the fact that his life's work — the effort to stop global warming — has been under siege since last fall. That's when Mann suddenly found himself in the middle of the so-called "climategate" scandal, in which more than 1,000 e-mails among top climate scientists — including Mann — were obtained illegally by hackers and published on the Internet.

The e-mails showed some of the scientists sharing doubts about just how fast the Earth's temperature is rising, questioning the work of other researchers and refusing to share data with the public. Critics, including Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., have seized on the e-mails as proof that Mann and his colleagues deliberately exaggerated the scientific case behind global warming.

In a rare extended interview, Mann acknowledges "minor" errors but says he has been bewildered by the criticism — including a deluge of correspondence sent to his Pennsylvania State University office that, he says, occasionally has turned ugly.

"I've developed a thick skin," Mann says. "Frankly, I'm more worried that these people are succeeding in creating doubt in the minds of the public, when there really shouldn't be any."

MORE: Climate research e-mail controversy simmers
CLIMATE DEBATE: Religious groups get involved
CHICKEN MANURE: Could it help curb climate change?

Indeed, the controversy has contributed to a fundamental shift in efforts to stop global warming, forcing environmentalists to scale down long-held ambitions and try to win back an increasingly skeptical American public. Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, says recent events may be causing "the death of the global warming movement as we know it."

Others don't go quite that far, but there have been setbacks:

• Citing doubts raised by the "climategate" e-mails, state governments in Texas, Virginia and Alabama filed legal challenges last month to stop the federal government from regulating carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The challenges could force the Obama administration to modify or abandon its plans to regulate carbon emissions from factories and vehicles.

• Senate Democrats including John Kerry of Massachusetts have set aside House legislation that would limit greenhouse gas emissions from factories and other businesses nationwide. They are pursuing a new bill that may instead focus on utility companies, Kerry says.

• After more than a decade of fruitless efforts to negotiate a binding global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions, culminating in last December's summit in Copenhagen, the USA may now pursue a more narrow strategy, State Department climate change envoy Todd Stern said last month. He said future talks might be limited to a smaller group of major polluters such as the USA and China — and leave out small countries that blocked a deal at Copenhagen, such as Sudan.

• The United Nations announced Wednesday that it would bring in an outside panel of scientists to help review an occasional study put together by a U.N. body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The study was regarded as the gold standard of climate science until several errors came to light this year.

It has been a dramatic reversal of fortune for a movement that, just a few years ago, thought it was "invincible," says Leighton Steward, a geologist and global warming skeptic. "We've all been kind of giggling as we watch this thing fall apart," he says.

An inconvenient error

In Mann's office at Penn State, the most prominently displayed object is a framed certificate from the IPCC thanking him for his contribution to the Nobel Peace Prize, which the body shared with former vice president Al Gore in 2007.

Mann's research, which used tree rings, coral and other historical indicators to estimate how temperatures have risen in recent centuries, has been used by the IPCC in its reports.

Mann's work also was featured in Gore's 2006 book, An Inconvenient Truth, which accompanied the documentary film of the same name.

In retrospect, Mann says the movie contributed to a "premature elation" among some scientists that they had won the battle for public opinion on global warming. He also says his colleagues and policymakers were too eager to present certain scientific conclusions as "settled" — particularly with regard to possible consequences from climate change, which he says need further study.

In the most notorious error, the IPCC report said global warming could cause glaciers in the Himalayas to melt by 2035. The purportedly impending disaster was cited repeatedly by environmental groups and politicians at the Copenhagen summit — including Bangladesh's environment minister, Hassan Mamud — as a reason to take urgent action.

About a month after the summit concluded, the IPCC admitted the date was incorrect. It said the information was improperly taken from a report by an outside environmental group, the World Wildlife Fund, and not subjected to usual standards of vigorous scrutiny by other scientists.

Despite the mistakes, Mann says the core argument — that the Earth is warming, humans are at least partly responsible, and disaster may wait unless action is taken — remains intact.

"I look at it like this: Let's say that you're in your car, you open up the owner's manual, and you discover a typo on page 225. Does that mean you stop driving the car? Of course not. Those are the kind of errors we're talking about here," Mann says. "Nothing has fundamentally changed."

Growing public skepticism

On that point, the Obama administration agrees with him. So do most governments around the world.

Carol Browner, the White House's director on climate and energy policy, says there are "thousands and thousands" of scientists whose work provides evidence of global warming. She told USA TODAY that, based on her frequent visits to Capitol Hill, recent questions over science have not changed a single vote in Congress on climate change legislation.

"It's easy to misuse these isolated reports of problems to suggest that the science behind global warming is somehow wrong," Browner says.

However, even the White House has tried to respond to rising public doubts. During his State of the Union Address in January, Obama called for Congress to support climate change legislation for job-creation purposes "even if you doubt the evidence."

Several polls indicate that the setbacks have contributed to a growing skepticism of climate science in the USA. In a national poll of 1,000 likely voters released last month by Rasmussen Reports, just 35% of respondents said they believed human activity was primarily responsible for global warming, down from 47% in April 2008.

Mead says the backlash has been especially strong because many politicians in the USA and elsewhere had said the content of the IPCC report was "unequivocal" and used it to support legislation that could dramatically alter the way the world produces and consumes energy.

"The fundamental problem is that these scientists are asking people to change the way the entire world's economy works based on what they're telling us. If you're going to do that, you had better come to the table with a certain amount of competence," Mead says.

Tim Wirth, a former U.S. senator who is now president of the United Nations Foundation, defends the IPCC, stating it has an annual budget of "only" about $3 million and relies almost entirely on volunteers to produce and fact-check its content.

Wirth says the organization would be aided by adding more scientists to its full-time staff. Yet he also criticizes what he called "K Street (Washington) PR firms … who are hired to examine every (detail) of the IPCC report and find problems and then get them out into the public domain."

"It's not a fair fight," Wirth says. "The IPCC is just a tiny secretariat next to this giant denier machine."

Mann says the controversy will probably result in "closer scrutiny of what scientists do. As long as that's done in good faith, that's a positive."

Dispute among scientists

Others say the long-term damage to the movement will be more substantial.

Inhofe says public opinion is shifting so dramatically that even the scaled-down climate legislation proposed by Kerry and others will not pass Congress.

"People are waking up to how all these scandals have shot holes through the global warming propaganda," says Inhofe, one of Congress' most vocal critics of climate change science.

Inhofe's Senate website lists more than 700 scientists who disagree with the IPCC report. Many of them agree that the Earth is warming but argue that other factors, such as solar flares or ocean temperatures, play a bigger role than human activity.

Browner and Obama have said the EPA may try to regulate carbon emissions if legislation fails. Yet Inhofe says energy companies and others may use the scientific controversies as a basis for legal action to try to stop such efforts.

Meanwhile, the stalemate has allowed countries such as China to race ahead of the USA in clean technology and other "green" sectors, says Stern, the State Department envoy.

"They've passed us," Stern says. He notes that more than 100 nations have signed the non-binding deal to cut emissions that came out of Copenhagen, signaling intent to take the threat from global warming seriously.

Browner says the White House will keep trying to marshal support for climate legislation because of its importance to job creation and national security. She says Obama's recent decision to provide more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees for nuclear power plants was aimed partly at winning over moderate legislators in Congress.

Asked about politics, Mann shrugs.

He says he has been exasperated by the way some politicians, including Inhofe, have portrayed this winter's snowstorms on the East Coast as undermining the case for global warming, while largely ignoring a recent announcement from NASA that the previous decade was the warmest on record.

Citing climate data, Mann says "there's a better than 50-50 chance" that 2010 will be the hottest year ever. That, more than any political statement, could refocus the debate, he says.

"If we don't act on this, it's not a failure of science," Mann says. "It's our failure as a civilization to deal with the problem."
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/320/ USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Is President Obama losing his base?

Liberal and progressive organizations that helped propel him to the White House are turning on him now, little more than a year after he took office. Their collective discontent, on issues from health care to nuclear energy to the handling of terrorism suspects, could mean bad news for Democrats during this fall's congressional elections.

Polls show that liberals and blacks still approve of the job Obama's doing. That approval, however, doesn't necessarily mean they will make the effort to vote, and many of the activists and groups that worked to get people to the polls in 2008 say they're not inclined right now to help Democrats in the fall.

"The energized base which transformed the nation and elected our first black president (is) now disengaged," Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile says. "If this was September, I would hit the panic button."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs routinely brushes off questions about whether Obama and the Democrats are losing key constituencies, but he says the notion that the president is taking liberals for granted is "silly."

Still, signs of trouble for the Democratic majority in Congress are springing up in:

•Virginia, where a host of liberal groups are rallying supporters and students to protest the upcoming University of Virginia appearance of former Bush administration top Justice Department official John Yoo.

Yoo, who wrote the legal memos authorizing the use of controversial interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects, will speak at the school in Charlottesville on March 19. He will be greeted by protesters, from groups such as Veterans for Peace and the National Accountability Network, who are angry that the Obama administration has declined to prosecute him for the so-called torture memos.

Organizer David Swanson calls the administration's positions on protecting state secrets and war crimes "a disaster."

The American Civil Liberties Union concurs. The group recently warned the White House not to reverse its decision to try terror suspects in civilian courts.

If Obama has suspects tried before military commissions, "he will betray his campaign promise to restore the rule of law, demonstrate that his principles are up for grabs and lose all credibility with Americans who care about justice and the rule of law," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero says.

•Georgia and South Carolina, where the environmental group Friends of the Earth (FOE) this month ran TV ads denouncing the Obama administration's decision to approve $55 billion in private industry loan guarantees for what would be the first nuclear reactors built in the United States in three decades.

The group also was alarmed when Obama talked in his State of the Union Address about investing in "clean coal" and opening new offshore oil drilling, spokesman Nick Berning says.

FOE's political arm endorsed candidate Obama, but "we've been disappointed so far with President Obama," Berning says.

•Arkansas, where liberal groups are backing Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in a primary challenge to two-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who is backed by Obama.

In three days earlier this month, the liberal group MoveOn.org raised $1 million for Halter, in average donations of $30. He also nabbed the endorsement of the Arkansas AFL-CIO. "This overwhelming response to Bill Halter's candidacy shows the depth of voters' anger towards corporate politicians," MoveOn Director Justin Ruben says.

A chief complaint against Lincoln: She opposed including a government-run health care program, known as the public option, in legislation that passed the Senate in December.

She's unapologetic. "I don't answer to my party," she says in TV ads. "I answer to Arkansas."

Polls show those who represent a significant chunk of Obama's base still back him. Although the samples are small and the margins of error high, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll in January found that nearly nine in 10 blacks approve of the job Obama's doing, as do more than seven in 10 liberals.

Regardless, a growing number of liberal groups and activists say they've had enough of Democrats who break their promises or cater to conservatives.

"The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now in shock," says longtime Democratic activist-turned-blogger Chris Bowland, 52, of Santa Rosa, Calif. "It's very clear the party hates us and has no respect for its base."

Bowland, who this month changed his party registration to the Green Party, says the Democrats are going to pay for it at the polls in November.

"Who is it that shows up to man your phone banks and who goes knocking on your doors? Unions and left-wing activists like me," he says. But Obama has broken his campaign promises and now, "we've had it. I'm done."

Republican pollster Frank Luntz says the angst on Obama's left is sure to benefit the GOP.

"It's the perfect storm" for Obama, he says. "All the conservative groups are coalescing out of anger and all the liberal groups are disappearing out of anger. If he moves to satisfy one, he destroys himself with the other. ... He's in a really tough spot."

Brazile says there's time to repair the damage and re-energize liberal activists. "Will it be a tough spin? You betcha," she says. "But I do think President Obama and the party will be up to the task."
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/319/ New York Times

The Obama administration and Democrats in general are in trouble because they are not urgently and effectively addressing the issue that most Americans want them to: the frightening economic insecurity that has put a chokehold on millions of American families.

The economy shed 36,000 jobs last month, and that was trumpeted in the press as good news. Well, after your house has burned down I suppose it’s good news that the flames may finally be flickering out. But once you realize that it will take 11 million or more new jobs to get us back to where we were when the recession began, you begin to understand that we’re not really making any headway at all.

It’s also widely known by now that the official employment statistics drastically understate the problem. Once we take off the statistical rose-colored glasses, we’re left with the awful reality of millions upon millions of Americans who have lost — or are losing — their jobs, their homes, their small businesses, and their hopes for a brighter future.

Instead of focusing with unwavering intensity on this increasingly tragic situation, making it their top domestic priority, President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill have spent astonishing amounts of time and energy, and most of their political capital, on an obsessive quest to pass a health care bill.

Health care reform is important. But what the public has wanted and still badly needs above all else from Mr. Obama and the Democrats are bold efforts to put people back to work. A major employment rebound is the only real way to alleviate the deep economic anxiety that has gripped so many Americans. Unaddressed, that anxiety inevitably evolves into dread and then anger.

But while the nation is desperate for jobs, jobs, jobs, the Democrats have spent most of the Obama era chanting health care, health care, health care.

The talk inside the Beltway, that super-incestuous, egomaniacal, reality-free zone, is that President Obama and the Democrats have a messaging or public relations problem. We’re being told — and even worse, Mr. Obama and the Democrats are being told — that their narrative is not getting through. In other words, the wonderfulness of all that they’ve done is somehow not being recognized by the slow-to-catch-on masses.

That’s just silly. People are upset because they are mired in economic distress and are losing faith that their elected representatives are looking out for their best interests. They’ve watched with increasing anger as their government has been hijacked by the economic elite. They know that the big banks that were bailed out by taxpayers can borrow money at an interest rate of near zero while at the same time charging credit-card holders usurious rates of 20 to 30 percent.

They know that the financial fat cats are fighting the creation of a truly independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency. They know that while ordinary Americans are kept out of the corridors of power, the elites with their lobbyists and lawyers and campaign contributions have a voice in every important decision that is made.

It’s not the message that’s a problem for Mr. Obama and the Democrats, it’s the all-too-clear reality. People know that the government that is supposed to be looking out for ordinary people — for working people and the poor — is not doing nearly enough about an employment crisis that is lowering standards of living and hollowing out the American dream.

This is not just a short-term crisis. There are many communities across the country in which the effective jobless rate is higher than 50 percent. Many state and local governments are grappling with disastrous revenue shortfalls that are forcing cuts in services and layoffs, and threatening the viability of even a modest national economic recovery.

A University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment in February found that 60 percent of American consumers expect to receive no income gains at all in the year ahead, the worst finding in that category in the history of the surveys.

The Republican Party has nothing in the way of solutions to Americans’ economic plight. It is committed only to the demented policy of trying to ensure that President Obama and the Democrats fail.

But the fact that the Republicans are pathetic and destructive is no reason for the Democrats to shirk their obligation to fight powerfully and relentlessly for the economic well-being of all Americans. There are now six people in the employment market for every available job. There is a staggering backlog of discouraged workers who would show up tomorrow if there were a job to be had.

The many millions of new jobs needed to make a real dent in the employment crisis are not going to materialize by themselves. Mr. Obama and the Democrats don’t seem to understand that.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/318/ The Weekly Standard

Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak said yesterday at a town hall meeting in his home state, "I'm more optimistic than I was a week ago" that a deal could be reached to pass a health care bill that bans public funding of abortion. Some speculated that this meant Stupak was ready to cave. "Obviously they don’t know me," Stupak said in an interview this afternoon with THE WEEKLY STANDARD. "If I didn’t" cave in November, "why would I do it now after all the crap I’ve been through?"

"Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise—there’s no such thing," Stupak said. What's changed between this week and last, Stupak went on, is that he had his first real conversation with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressman Henry Waxman about fixing the bill.

But Stupak made one thing very clear: While he's optimistic, there's a lot of confusion about how the House would structure a bill that he could vote for. Stupak says "the majority party can get it done. Where there’s a will there’s a way." But: "No one has said here's how you do it, here's the legislative scheme."

Stupak affirmed that he will not settle for an agreement to pass the bill now and fix the bill's problems on abortion later: "If they say 'we’ll give you a letter saying we'll take care of this later,' that’s not acceptable because later never comes."

Stupak highlighted other problems with the bill: The president's proposal has not been translated into legislative language and it still leaves some special deals in place. "If you look at the President’s proposal," Stupak said, "it says that the Cornhusker agreement is out, but the Louisiana Purchase is in."

"Members don’t have a whole lot of appetite to vote for the Senate bill as a stand alone bill--that’s for sure," Stupak said. "If you're going to correct these inequities in the Senate bill, you better tie bar it to something. No one wants to vote for a freestanding bill so they can be accused of voting for a special deal for Nebraska on Medicaid."

Stupak added:

The president still hasn’t put forth his proposal. I mean, other than the 11 pages [of changes], we’ve seen nothing in writing. It’s different than what the Senate did. So do they take three [measures] and merge it into one and stick it in a bill called reconciliation, or just do the Senate bill as a stand alone?

“You have to tie-bar it or substitute it or something," Stupak said of the legislation. By "tie-bar," Stupak means that all the fixes, including his amendment on abortion, would pass or fail all at the same time. Stupak says that congressional leaders are "going back and forth in different ways" to find a compromise. But again, "it is so confusing," he said, "on what the parliamentary procedures are going to be" to make the fixes.
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WASHINGTON - With Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama making their last-ditch push for their unpopular health care agenda, it’s time for Congressional Democrats to take a stand. As majority leadership attempts to usher a health care bill through the House with Democrats' seal of approval, they have a dirty secret: In order to run their end-around on the American people, Democrats will first have to approve the current health care bill – and all of the shady backroom deals that come along with it.

The last front in the health care fight is in the House of Representatives and Pelosi is scraping by to achieve a razor-thin majority. If Democrats vote for the bill currently being pushed by Democrat leaders, they are voting in support of the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase and every other backroom deal cut to sneak the legislation through Congress.

• “In his weekly address, released Saturday, President Obama said he's asked ‘leaders in both of Houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks.’”

• “It's not clear the president has the votes. He needs 216 votes in the House, where some Democrats are saying no. In the Senate, Democrats are expected to try to pass the latest version with a bare majority of 51, instead of the 60 votes it usually takes to move legislation, through a controversial tactic called reconciliation. Republicans called that a recipe for partisan warfare.” (John Hendren, “New Deadline Set to Pass Health Care Bill,” ABC News, 3/7/2010)

• “Then there's the perception of payoffs to states represented by senators who hesitated on supporting the Senate's health care bill, part of the overhaul that Obama had named his top legislative priority.

• “Dubbed the ‘Cornhusker kickback’ and the ‘Louisiana purchase,’ the deals with Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana drew derision for the perception of sneakiness they created.” (Laurie Kellman and Larry Margasak, Associated Press, “Democrats mired in swamp they vowed to drain,” 3/4/2010)

“The only thing transparent about the Democrats’ shady backroom deals is their utter disregard for the intelligence of American taxpayers and voters,” said NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain. “President Obama and Nancy Pelosi vowed repeatedly to keep their Congress ‘honest’ and keep congressional dealings open to the American public. But now they are asking Democrats to go on the record with their support for these unpopular closed-door deals so they can sneak their runaway health care agenda through Congress while no one is looking. Will they stand up for the hard-working middle-class American families that have already rejected this bill or will they sit quietly while Democrat leaders attempt to pull the wool over the American public’s eyes?”

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/316/ The Hill

A handful of House committee chairmen are either undecided about or plan to reject the healthcare reform bill that is expected to be voted on as early as next week.

The prospect of several panel chairmen voting against the healthcare bill comes as the White House and Democratic leaders are ramping up their efforts to attract the necessary votes to move the Senate-passed bill. The White House wants the House to clear the bill by March 18 and then have the upper chamber amend the measure through reconciliation.

Click Here
A survey conducted by The Hill of more than 100 possible Democratic defectors shows that President Barack Obama and House Democrats have a lot of persuading to do over the next week and a half.

Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) are firm “no”s on the bill, according to their offices.

Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.), Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) are undecided.

Meanwhile, Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), who supports Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) anti-abortion rights language, is leaning yes, according to his spokesman.

The Stupak abortion language is unlikely to be included in the final measure, leading some House committee chairmen to hold back their votes.

In November, eight committee chairmen voted for the Stupak language: Peterson, Skelton, Spratt, Gordon, Rahall, Oberstar, Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (Texas) and Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.).

All but Peterson and Skelton voted for the House bill that passed, 220-215, in November.

Skelton, Spratt, Rahall and Obey are in competitive reelection races, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which lists Skelton’s and Spratt’s seats in the “lean Democratic” category and Rahall and Obey as “likely” to stay in Democratic hands. Neither Rahall nor Obey were on Cook’s list last fall.

Obey’s office did not return a phone call on Monday. He is expected to vote for healthcare reform.

Gordon, meanwhile, is retiring in a seat that is likely to be won by the GOP.

According to the survey conducted by The Hill (see chart), there are already 11 firm “no” votes.

The good news for Democratic leaders, most notably Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), is that each of the 11 rejected the measure in November. The bad news is that in order to pass the bill, Pelosi will need to change some “no” votes to yes if the Stupak language is not in the final measure.

Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.), who voted yes in November, is leaning no, according to his press secretary Jay Biba.

Biba stated that “from the beginning, Congressman Arcuri has been opposed to the Senate bill. If there are so called ‘guaranteed fixes’ from the Senate through the reconciliation process, Congressman Arcuri would carefully review these changes … and would need some way to ensure that their ‘guarantees’ would absolutely be included in a final bill.”

Some Democrats who voted “no” in November appear to be more adamant “no”s this time around.

Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who opposed the House version of the healthcare reform bill last year, will break from his campaign for governor to travel to Washington to vote against the final version of the bill.

 Lawmakers seeking higher office are prone to missing roll call votes as they hit the campaign trail, but Davis’s office told The Hill on Monday that the congressman intends to make the trek north from Alabama to cast his vote against the legislation.

 “Congressman Davis will be present for the HC vote and he is a no,” Davis’s communications director, Addie Whisenant, wrote in an e-mail.

 Davis was the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the first Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee to call for Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to step down as chairman of the powerful panel.

 Davis is one of 23 House Democrats to vote against healthcare reform and climate change.

Announcing his “no” vote last year on healthcare, Davis said, “We risk a disaster if we get this wrong.” That announcement was made less than a week before the Nov. 7 vote.

In a bad sign for Democratic leaders, a couple of the 11 firm “no”s in The Hill survey were on the fence days before the Nov. 7, 2009 vote, including Reps. Frank Kratovil (Md.) and Walt Minnick (Idaho).
 
Jared Allen, Molly K. Hooper, John Owre, Jennifer Swift and Drew Wheatley contributed to this article.

The Hill survey: House Democrats' positions on healthcare reform

FIRM 'NO'
Dan Boren (Okla.) *
Bobby Bright (Ala.) *
Artur Davis (Ala.) *
Larry Kissell (N.C.)
Dennis Kucinich (Ohio)
Frank Kratovil (Md.)
Walt Minnick (Idaho)
Collin Peterson (Minn.) *
Mike Ross (Ark.) *
Ike Skelton (Mo.) *
Gene Taylor (Miss.) *

LEANING 'NO'
Michael Arcuri (N.Y.) (Y)

UNDECIDED
Brian Baird (Wash.)
Marion Berry (Ark.) * (Y)
John Boccieri (Ohio) *
Dennis Cardoza (Calif.) * (Y)
Kathleen Dahlkemper (Pa.) * (Y)
Steve Driehaus (Ohio) * (Y)
Bart Gordon (Tenn.) *
Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio) (Y)
Ron Kind (Wis.) (Y)
Dan Maffei (N.Y.) (Y)
Scott Murphy (N.Y.)
Solomon Ortiz (Texas) * (Y)
Tom Perriello (Va.) * (Y)
Nick Rahall (W.Va.) * (Y)
John Spratt (S.C.) * (Y)
Bart Stupak (Mich.) * (Y)
John Tanner (Tenn.) *

LEANING 'YES'
Russ Carnahan (Mo.) (Y)
Jim Oberstar (Minn.) * (Y)

NO COMMENT
Mike Doyle (Pa.) * (Y)

* — Voted for Stupak amendment in Nov.
(Y) — Voted yes in November

Note:  Spokesmen for Berry, Driehaus and Stupak on Monday said their bosses will vote against the bill unless the Stupak language is adopted. Stupak has said a dozen lawmakers who voted for the House measure could change their votes based on the abortion provisions.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/315/ FOXNews.com, 3/4/10)

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE: “All of the talk about ‘reconciliation’ seems to have distracted people — like a red herring — from a simple but crucial fact: If the House goes first, as now appears to be the plan, and passes the Senate health care overhaul, the president would then have a bill in hand that had passed both houses of Congress, and — whether reconciliation subsequently succeeded or failed in the Senate — we would have Obamacare. Reconciliation would then be like the exhibition ice skating in the Olympics after the medals have been awarded: interesting to some, but wholly irrelevant to anything that really matters. The attention is on the Senate, but the battle is in the House.” (Jeffery H. Anderson, “Don’t Leave the House Unattended,” National Review Online, 3/4/10)

GRACE-MARIE TURNER: “Only one thing matters. And that is convincing the House to pass the Senate bill. Everything else is a side show at best. Once House members take the vote on the Senate bill, they have absolutely no control over what the Senate does next. The Senate may or may not be able to get a second bill passed to address concerns of the House. And that means House Democrats will be on the hook this fall for a vote for:

• The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, and every other vote-buying deal buried in the Senate bill.
• Abortion language that clearly allows federal funding for abortion and which the U.S. Conference of Bishops solidly opposes.
• The Cadillac tax on high-cost health insurance policies that labor unions hate.
• Weak enforcement provisions for the individual mandate that health insurers say will cause pools to disintegrate, causing premiums to skyrocket for those still buying policies.

“And that's just for starters. It would be the dupe of all time if House members were to be convinced that they must go first to keep the process moving forward, only to find that ObamaCare passes the finish line in the form of the Senate bill.  It will be interesting to watch them this fall trying to explain to constituents, who already have told them in no uncertain terms that they hate this legislation, that they were promised that they would have a second chance to take a vote to fix it.  In this game, there will be no second chances.” (Grace-Marie Turner, “One Simple Agenda,” Galen Institute, 3/4/10)

WEEKLY STANDARD: “House members would be left holding the bag. Target squarely on their chests, they would now get to face their fuming constituents after having passed a $2.5 trillion bill that would allow public funding of abortion, would send $100 million to Nebraska, $300 million to Louisiana, $100 million to Connecticut, would exempt South Florida's Medicare Advantage enrollees from annual $2,100 cuts in Medicare Advantage benefits, would raise taxes, raise deficits, raise health costs, empower Washington, reduce liberty, politicize medicine, and jeopardize the quality of health care.  Most of all, they would feel the citizenry's wrath for having voted to pass a bill that only 25 percent of Americans support. Right now, the House holds all the power over ObamaCare.  Nothing can happen unless it acts.  But if its members are foolish enough to expect promises not made in writing to be followed through on at a future date, they deserve every bit of backlash the voters would have in store for them.” (Jeffrey H. Anderson, “Twenty-One Key Democrats – and Three Things for Them to Consider,” Weekly Standard, 3/3/10)


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SPIN CYCLE: Pelosi Once Promised to ‘Drain the Swamp’ and Sweep Corruption out of Washington

“‘Drain the swamp’ means to turn this Congress into the most honest and open Congress in history. That's my pledge — that is what I intend to do,’ Pelosi stated in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams.” (Brian Williams, “Rep. Pelosi poised to make history”, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, 11/08/2006)

"Our goal is to restore accountability, honesty and openness at all levels of government. To do so, we will create and enforce rules that demand the highest ethics from every public servant, sever unethical ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, and establish clear standards that prevent the trading of official business for gifts." (Nancy Pelosi’s “A New Direction for America,” Page 21)

RINSE CYLCE: Massa Resigns With ‘A Profound Sense of Failure’ Amid Harassment Allegations

Click here to watch video of CBS news coverage.

Click here to watch video of ABC news coverage.


]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/313/ Washington Post

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) has warned that he and other pro-life Democrats are ready to kill health-care legislation unless the pro-abortion provisions enacted by the Senate are removed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must win their votes to pass her bill. To do so she will have to promise two things: first, to fix the provisions they oppose in a reconciliation bill; and second to get an iron-clad commitment from Senate Democrats they will vote to sustain whatever deal she makes.

The problem for Stupak and his allies is that such a guarantee is not enough to ensure their position prevails -- because Senate Republicans are gearing up to use something called the “Byrd rule” to blow up any deal Pelosi cuts to pass health care in the House. And in the end, that would be just fine with Pelosi. She wins either way. Here is how:

In order to get a reconciliation bill with the fixes they demand to the Senate floor, Stupak and his pro-life colleagues must first vote to pass the original Senate health care bill -- including the abortion language they oppose. Only after this bill is passed in the House can the chamber then take up a reconciliation bill and send it to the Senate for its approval.

That’s where the “Byrd rule” comes in. Designed to protect the rights of the minority, the Byrd rule allows any Senator to raise a point of order demanding that “extraneous” (non-budgetary) provisions be removed. According to former Senate parliamentarian Bob Dove, “If a ‘Byrd Rule’ point of order against a provision is sustained, the provision is stricken from the bill….Appealing the rule of the chair requires 3/5 vote of duly elected and sworn Senators (60 votes).” (This process is known colloquially in the Senate as a “Byrd bath” and the dropped provisions are known as “Byrd droppings.”)

Republicans intend to raise points of order against the reconciliation package. They believe it is virtually certain that the Senate parliamentarian would find any abortion deal Pelosi makes with pro-life House Democrats to be “extraneous” (there is no reasonable way to argue the provision is primarily budgetary). So any abortion deal with Stupak and his allies would be struck from the bill.

That might only be the beginning of the bill’s unraveling. To pass health care, Pelosi will have to cut all sorts of deals in a reconciliation bill to bring along conservative “blue dog” Democrats. Using the Byrd rule, Republicans will proceed to pick apart every element of these deals Pelosi makes, piece by piece. It is unclear which provisions would survive scrutiny under the Byrd rule. But each time a point of order is sustained, it requires 60 votes to overturn that ruling -- which means Senate Republicans have the votes necessary block key elements of the reconciliation package.

If this happens, the amended reconciliation bill would go back to the House , where Stupak and others would then likely oppose it. Reconciliation would be dead.

That would be fine -- except for one small problem: Stupak and his allies will have already voted to pass the original Senate bill, which Pelosi could send to the president at any time for his signature. And that would suit President Obama and Speaker Pelosi just fine. Indeed, it might be their preferred outcome. Once the Senate bill is approved, the president and Democratic Congressional leaders have little incentive to pass a reconciliation bill. Think about it: Does Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really care if Senate Republicans stop the House from amending the Senate’s already approved health care bill? He probably hopes they succeed. And if the reconciliation deal is killed in the Senate, Pelosi who would be able to tell Stupak that his complaint is not with her, but with the Senate Republicans. She would send the Senate bill to the president and he would sign it into law.

The bottom line: Stupak and the blue dog Democrats in the House have no leverage if they go along with Pelosi in a reconciliation strategy. The only way they can ensure that the abortion language and other provisions they oppose are eliminated is to reject reconciliation entirely - and demand that the House and Senate start over with clean legislation.

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“‘Drain the swamp’ means to turn this Congress into the most honest and open Congress in history. That's my pledge — that is what I intend to do,’ Pelosi stated in an interview with NBC’s  Brian Williams.” (Brian Williams, “Rep. Pelosi poised to make history”, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, 11/08/2006)

RINSE CYLCE: Democrats Stand Knee-Deep in ‘Culture of Corruption’ Eight Months from Election Day

A rash of ethics lapses has given Democrats an election-year headache: how to convince skeptical voters that they're any cleaner than Republicans they accused of fostering a "culture of corruption" in 2006.

From the conduct of governors in Illinois and New York to back-room deals over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, Democrats are drawing their own criticism when it comes to the ethics of public officials.

The party that pledged to "drain the swamp" if given control of Congress finds itself sinking in the muck nine months from Election Day, when every member of the House and 36 Senate seats will be chosen.

The sword of sanctimony cuts both ways, warns a Republican felled by his own scandal in the weeks before the 2006 elections, as then-Rep. Nancy Pelosi led the campaign cry to end "the culture of corruption that has thrived under this Republican Congress."

--

Between now and November can be several lifetimes in political terms. But there are plenty of scandalous developments that could pop in the interim. The closer to the balloting, the tougher it is to stem the damage.

Democrats say they should get credit—or at least not be punished at the polls—for trying to clean up Capitol Hill with an independent ethics office that didn't exist under Republican rule.

"I think we've come a long way since I became speaker with the outside ethics groups and now we have a functioning ethics committee, bipartisan and independent of the speaker," Pelosi told reporters Thursday.

But because Democrats gained control of the White House and Congress in part by vowing to cleanse the institutions of government, breaches by party members high and low raise questions of hypocrisy.

The list is long.

--

Dark-of-night dealmaking and misbehaving members are traditions as old as government itself, the price of putting ambitious human beings in positions of power and showering them with privileges unknown to most people they govern. "There must be some sort of greed virus that attacks those in power," U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said in November when sentencing former Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana to 13 years in prison for taking bribes. The judge called public corruption "a cancer on the body politic."

And winning seats, not cleansing candidates or the legislature, is the top priority of party leaders.

--

More ethics news is in store for Democrats. Rangel, for example, still faces decisions over his conduct.

Democratic discomfort over that matter was clear in the immediate aftermath of his decision to step aside as chairman. Pelosi and other leaders stayed silent on the automatic promotion of the Democrat next in line: Rep. Pete Stark, the volatile Californian, whose conduct also was the subject of an ethics probe in which he was eventually cleared of wrongdoing. Early Thursday, he stepped aside to allow the congenial Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan to take the gavel. (Laurie Kellman and Larry Margasak, “Democrats mired in swamp they vowed to drain,” Associated Press, 3/04/2010)

To read the full article, click here.

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/311/ Wall Street Journal 

“Every argument has been made. Everything that there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everybody has said it," President Obama declared yesterday as he urged Democrats to steamroll his plan through Congress. What hasn't been heard, however, is even a shred of White House honesty about the true costs of ObamaCare, or its fiscal consequences.

Nearby, we reprint Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan's remarks at the health summit last week, which methodically dismantle the falsehoods—there is no other way of putting it—that Mr. Obama has used to sell "reform" and repeated again yesterday. No one in the political class has even tried to refute Mr. Ryan's arguments, though he made them directly to the President and his allies, no doubt because they are irrefutable. If Democrats are willing to ignore overwhelming public opposition to ObamaCare and pass it anyway, then what's a trifling dispute over a couple of trillion dollars?

At his press conference yesterday, Mr. Obama claimed that "my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions—families, businesses and the federal government." He said it is "fully paid for" and "brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades." Never before has a vast new entitlement been sold on the basis of fiscal responsibility, and one reason ObamaCare is so unpopular is that Americans understand the contradiction between untold new government subsidies and claims of spending restraint. They know a Big Con when they hear one.

Mr. Obama's fiscal assertions are possible only because of the fraudulent accounting and budget gimmicks that Democrats spent months calibrating. Readers can find the gory details in Mr. Ryan's pre-emptive rebuttal nearby, though one of the most egregious deceptions is that the bill counts 10 years of taxes but only six years of spending.

The real cost over a decade is about $2.3 trillion on paper, Mr. Ryan estimates, and even that is a lowball estimate considering how many people will flood to "free" health care and how many businesses will be induced to drop coverage. Mr. Obama claimed yesterday that the plan will cost "about $100 billion per year," but in fact the costs ramp up each year the program exists. The far more likely deficits are $460 billion over the first 10 years, and $1.4 trillion over the next 10.

What Mr. Ryan calls "probably the most cynical gimmick" deserves special attention, which is known in Washington as the "doc fix." Next month Medicare physician payments are scheduled to be cut by 22% and deeper thereafter, though Congress is sure to postpone the reductions as it always does. Failing to account for this inevitability takes nearly a quarter-trillion dollars off the ObamaCare books and by itself wipes out the "savings" that the White House continues to take credit for.

Some in the liberal cheering section now claim that this Medicare ruse isn't Mr. Obama's problem because it was first promised by Republicans and Bill Clinton in 1997. But then why did Democrats include the "doc fix" in all early versions of the bill to buy the support of the American Medical Association, only to dump this pricey item later when hiding it would make it easier to fake-reduce the deficit?

The President was (miraculously) struck dumb by Mr. Ryan's critique, and in his response drifted off into an irrelevant tangent about Medicare Advantage, while California Democrat Xavier Becerra claimed "you essentially said you can't trust the Congressional Budget Office." But Mr. Ryan was careful to note that he didn't doubt the professionalism of CBO, only the truthfulness of the Democratic gimmicks that the budget gnomes are asked to score.

Yesterday Mr. Obama again invoked the "nonpartisan, independent" authority of CBO, which misses the reality that if you feed the agency phony premises, you are going to get phony results at the other end.

The President also claimed the reason his plan is in trouble, and the reason Democrats must abuse the Senate's rules to ram this plan into law, is that "many Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies." So most of Mr. Obama's first year in office has been paralyzed over nothing more than minor regulatory hair-splitting. This is so preposterous that the President can't possibly believe it.

Congress's spring break begins on March 29, and Democratic leaders plan on jamming this monster through Congress before then. Americans have to hope that enough rank-and-file Democrats aren't as deaf to fiscal honesty as this President.

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/310/ Investor's Business Daily

Fiscal Crisis: Tea Partyers have made it clear they don't trust politicians — Democrat or Republican. Their historic uprising may now have a surefire way to stop politicians from spending us into the abyss.

In what promises to be a consequential election year, Republican leaders are eager to get the masses who make up the Tea Party movement on their side. But Tea Partyers remember that the GOP Congress and GOP president themselves spent way too much — even expanding the fiscally doomed Medicare entitlement program. Some Tea Party leaders even accuse Republican spendthrifts of practicing socialism.

GOP Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana and John Campbell of California may have just hit on a way of focusing the energy of a movement that's been accused by Democrats such as former Senate aide and Forbes columnist Dan Gerstein of being "incoherent, indiscriminate" and "all over the place" in its complaints.

The three have proposed a Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution that would restrain the federal government to the average expenditures of the post-World War II era — 20% of the U.S. economy. It would take a declaration of war or a two-thirds vote by Congress to waive the spending constraints.

Tea Partyers will no doubt be impressed by the fact that the idea comes from no less than Thomas Jefferson. In 1798, the Declaration's author wrote: "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government."

There really is no credible argument against the idea. In common-sense fashion, the constraint would be suspended during a declared war, and any other real emergency would surely be recognized as such by two-thirds of lawmakers.

Other attempts to save Americans from the drunken sailors they send to Washington have failed. The automatic cuts of the Gramm-Rudman "sequester" of the 1980s worked, but the Supreme Court judged much of the law to be an unconstitutional restriction on presidential powers, and Congress defanged it. Gramm-Rudman's successor, Paygo, didn't use fixed targets, and expired in 2002. The line-item veto was famously ruled unconstitutional by the high court.

The Hensarling-Pence-Campbell Spending Limit Amendment is actually preferable to the line-item veto because it doesn't discriminate between big-spending Congresses and profligate presidents. It snaps the public purse closed on every Washington politician's fingers.

The SLA couldn't come at a more opportune time. The president and Congress want to add to our current $12 trillion in national debt a $2-trillion-plus big government health overhaul. Medicare, in the meantime, is less than a decade from bankruptcy, Social Security less than three decades away. As the plan points out, "if the SLA is not adopted, all of these programs are doomed on their current auto-pilot glide path as these three entitlement programs alone — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — are set to consume the entirety of the federal budget by 2036."

Investor's Business Daily on Wednesday asked Hensarling and Pence about the difficulties of getting three-quarters of the states to approve an amendment when so many amendment attempts by both sides of the aisle — from equal rights for women to abortion to flag desecration — have failed in recent decades.

"We're not naive," Hensarling said, noting that of about 5,000 proposed amendments only 27 have been ratified. But both men said that based on attending town halls and other venues, they have never seen the American people so incensed about runaway spending. The SLA "might be one of those simple ideas," Pence said, whose time has finally come.

If the Tea Party movement embraces this simple idea, with Thomas Jefferson as the SLA's avatar, there's no telling how big the political tsunami to strike Washington could end up becoming.

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CLAIM: “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
FACT: If this line sounds familiar, it’s because it was a staple of the President’s rhetoric on health care last year.  We haven’t heard it in a while because it’s not true.  Media outlets, including the Associated Press and ABC News debunked the claim thoroughly, noting that even White House officials acknowledged the president’s rhetoric shouldn’t be taken “literally.”  Eventually, the White House press office took it out of the President’s speeches.  Why is it coming back now?

CLAIM: “Finally, my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for … the federal government.”
FACT:  Non-partisan experts at the Congressional Budget Office and within the Obama Administration have each respectively said that the Senate bill will raise premium costs for families on the individual market by an average $2,100 and raise national health spending overall.  What’s more, a majority of Americans think “the new system would end up costing more than the current health care system – the opposite of its intended effect.  Fifty-three percent think their own health care costs would be higher.”

CLAIM: “I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats … more control over health care in America.”
FACT:  The President’s 2,000-page government takeover of health care creates a massive Washington bureaucracy -- nearly 160 new boards, commissions, and programs in all – that would siphon off billions in wasteful spending.

CLAIM:  “Now, it’s true that all of this will cost money – about $100 billion per year.”
FACT:  “About” $100 billion per year adds up to “about” $1 trillion over ten years.  The President’s health care plan has actually gotten more expensive in the six months since he addressed a joint session of Congress and pledged that his proposal would “cost around $900 billion over 10 years.”

CLAIM: “My proposal also gets rid of many of the provisions that had no place in health care reform…”
FACT:  The plan the President proposed last week left in place several “controversial special provisions of the Senate health reform bill” including the “Louisiana Purchase.”

CLAIM: “The bottom line is: our proposal is paid for.”
FACT: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has stated that it lacks sufficient details to evaluate the President’s plan, so this claim cannot be independently verified.  As for the Senate bill that the President’s plan is based on, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf has stated in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) that “a detailed year-by-year projection for years beyond 2019, like those that CBO prepares for the 10-year budget window, would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.” The Washington Post stated in an editorial today that many Democrats reluctant to support a massive government takeover of health care “are justly worried -- as are many of their constituents -- about enacting an expensive new entitlement at a time of rising federal debt.”

CLAIM: “But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.”
FACT:  The Democrats’ plan slashes seniors’ Medicare benefits by roughly $500 billion and it shortens, rather than extends, the financial life of the program.  CBO Director Doug Elmendorf told the Senate Finance Committee last fall that “that seniors in Medicare's managed care plans could see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.” As the Associated Press put it last July, “Democrats are pushing for Medicare cuts on a scale not seen in years…”  As for the future fiscal health of the program, the President’s own experts have said that projected Medicare savings are “unrealistic.”  CBO has stated that Democrats are double-counting by claiming that they are improving the balance sheets of both Medicare and the federal government at the same time.
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BUT NEW BLS REPORT RELEASED TODAY SHOWS "ANNUAL AVERAGE UNEMPLOYMENT RATES ROSE IN 2009 IN ALL REGIONS, DIVISIONS, AND STATES ..." (U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Regional And State Unemployment, 2009 Annual Average Summary, 3/3/10)

• 50 Out Of 50: Number Of States That Saw Statistically Significant Unemployment Rate Increases In 2009. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/3/10)
• 4 Out Of 4: Number Of Regions That Saw Statistically Significant Unemployment Rate Increases In 2009. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/3/10)
• 9 Out Of 9: Number Of Geographic Divisions That Saw Statistically Significant Unemployment Rate Increases In 2009. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/3/10)
• 9: Number Of States That Saw Highest Unemployment Rates In 34 Year History Of BLS Reporting. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/3/10)
• 9: Number Of States That Saw Unemployment Rates Increase By At Least 4 Percentage Points In 2009.  (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/3/10)
• 14: Number Of States With Average Unemployment Rates Of 10 Percent Or More In 2009. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/3/10)
• 14: Number Of States That Moved From Single-Digit Unemployment In 2008 To Double-Digit Unemployment In 2009. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 3/3/10)

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/307/ The Wall Street Journal
March 3, 2010

House Minority Leader John Boehner, throwing another wrench in the workings of President Barack Obama’s federal debt commission, will say today he wants all its meetings open to the public and wants members to vote on the panel’s recommendations well before the November elections.

In a letter to the commission’s co-chairmen, former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, Boehner stopped short of saying the conditions would have to be met before he names his members to the panel. But he is turning up the political heat.

White House officials wanted to give the debt panel maximum flexibility to come up with recommendations to curb spending and raise taxes to lower the deficit in the short run and tackle explosive growth in Social Security and Medicare over time. Part of that meant a vote on the panel recommendations after the election, to ensure that the panel’s plans are not politicized.

Boehner wants none of that.

“Considering that a lame-duck Congress could conceivably vote on the Commission’s recommendations shortly after they are reported, would the Commission report its recommendations two months earlier – by October 1, 2010 – in order for the electorate to engage elected officials and candidates for office on the Commission’s report prior to the election?” he asked in the letter.

For its recommendations to be forwarded to Congress, 14 of the commission’s 18 members must approve them. The president has appointed his six members. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has named his. But neither Boehner nor Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) have named any of the six allotted to congressional Republicans. Who they choose will have much to do with whether the panel can produce viable, bipartisan recommendations.


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WASHINGTON – Aside from the problems with using budget reconciliation for their government takeover of health care, Democrat leaders still have to convince enough House Democrats to vote for the Senate bill without any changes. That’s no easy task considering the Senate version contains a number of provisions which many House members have indicated they simply can’t stomach. In order to pass the Senate bill, House Democrats will have to vote in favor of:

• Federal Funding of Abortion – Accounting gimmicks aside, the Senate bill clearly allows for taxpayer funding of abortion. The Senate language is very different from the Stupak language continuing the ban on federal funding of abortion, which was included in the House bill with the support of 64 House Democrats.
• A Tax on Union Cadillac Plans – The Senate bill imposes a $148.9 billion tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans. This tax is vehemently opposed by Big Labor and its Democrat allies in the House.
• The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, etc. – The Senate bill still contains all the unsavory deals Senate Democrats made behind closed doors in order to get their bill passed.
• A Ban on Participation of Illegal Immigrants – Even though the Senate bill has the same insufficient and ineffective verification methods as the House version, it does bar illegal immigrants from purchasing coverage through the Exchange with their own dollars.
• The PhRMA Deal – Many House Democrats decried the deal the White House brokered with PhRMA last year to cap the pharmaceutical industry’s cost concessions at $80 billion. The Senate bill kept that deal intact.
• A Watered-Down Public Option – It’s not just moderate Democrats who have problems with the Senate bill. While it still contains a form of the government-run plan via an exchange and co-ops, that hasn’t satisfied liberals who are still pushing for a “robust” public option.

Are wavering House Democrats really going to swallow all these poison pills and then just hope they’ll find the antidotes via the very uncertain process of budget reconciliation? Talk about a leap of faith…


]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/305/ Chicago Tribune

The House ethics committee slapped Rep. Charles Rangel's wrist Thursday, admonishing the New York Democrat for improperly accepting corporate-funded trips to Caribbean conferences in 2007 and 2008. The committee said it couldn't prove Rangel knew about the corporate money, but said his staff sure knew and Rangel should have known.

You would have thought the signs and materials from Citigroup, Pfizer, American Airlines, AT&T, Verizon, Macy's and IBM plastered around the 2008 conference in St. Maarten would have provided a clue that corporate money was involved. But apparently Rangel was clueless. His response to the ethics committee's admonishment? He criticized the committee and blamed his staff. "Common sense dictates that members of Congress should not be held responsible for what could be the wrongdoing or mistakes or errors of staff," he said. What a stand-up guy.

This is hardly the end of the ethical problems facing the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The ethics committee has been investigating Rangel at a glacial pace for numerous ethical violations, but has yet to rule on other, even more serious, charges. These include his belated financial disclosure of up to $1 million in financial assets, tens of thousands of dollars in municipal bonds and up to $100,000 in rent from a New York apartment building; using his congressional letterhead to solicit money for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York; and illegally turning one of his four rent-controlled apartments in New York into a campaign office.

This ethical cloud has hung over Rangel, who runs one of the most powerful committees in Congress, for 18 months.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who promised to preside over the "most honest and open Congress in history," knows an ethics violation when she sees one. He's "ethically unfit to lead", she said.

Oh, wait, she didn't say that about Rangel. She said that about former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay when the House ethics committee admonished the Texas Republican in 2004. Thanks to politico.com for reprising her comments, we have this memorable Pelosi quote: "Republicans must answer: Do they want an ethically unfit person to be the majority leader or do they want to remove the ethical cloud that hangs over the Capitol?"

Good question that Democrats must answer, Madam Speaker. Her response Friday to the ethical cloud hanging over Rangel? "We'll just have to see what happens next." Really? What ought to happen next is Rangel relinquishes his gavel. Common sense dictates it.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/304/ Politico

For a few hours Thursday night, the House of Representatives was in chaos.

Shortly after dinnertime, New York Democrat Charlie Rangel emerged from his private hideaway after news broke that he would be admonished by the House ethics committee.

Yet reporters in the Capitol rushed right past Rangel to ask House Democratic leaders about a critical intelligence bill that had just been pulled over a torture provision. The language had been inserted in defiance of leadership by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.).

At the same time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was slated to meet with leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus to try to salvage a routine, $15 billion jobs bill that turned into a piñata for progressives, the moderate Blue Dog Coalition and members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Any of these three issues – a floundering jobs bill, a hastily scotched intelligence authorization or an ethics committee admonishment of the powerful chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee – would qualify as mid-level crises.

Together, these incidents illustrated a chamber in a mini-meltdown near week's end.

“It’s a mystery how that language got in there,” Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said of the controversial intelligence bill provision backed by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). “I think there are a lot of issues about the drafting of the McDermott amendment.”

House leaders huddled on the floor to figure out what to do next when they realized the language – adopted by Slaughter’s panel the day before – could kill the bill. The spot they chose was only 15 feet or so from the one in the well of the House where Rangel had just lit into ethics Chairman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) in full view of their colleagues and the galleries above the chamber.

As the intelligence bill was melting down, word began circulating that House leaders might bypass the Rules Committee altogether on a jobs bill because members from multiple factions were threatening to vote against a rule that would allow for its consideration.

Black lawmakers say the package is skimpy and Blue Dogs are upset that it would take a waiver of deficit-reduction rules to pass the House. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) objected to the apportionment of a small tranche of highway dollars in the measure.

But House leaders are nearly convinced that rank-and-file lawmakers won’t quash a jobs bill if they are faced with a vote on it. So, they began discussing whether to bring it up under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds vote for passage but eliminates the sticky trick of getting the votes to allow it to be considered.

Meanwhile, Rangel dragged Lofgren and Bonner into two meetings in his private office just off the House floor. The ethics admonishment, leveled because of actions taken by Rangel’s aides, was accompanied by one for the ethics committee’s own former counsel, opening the door to the question of who is to blame if ethics rules are broken by the ethics committee itself.

After consulting with the ethics leaders, Rangel finally emerged to face the cameras, only to find print reporters sprinting past him to get the scoop on other legislative matters.

Amazingly, Rangel’s latest scandal was playing second fiddle even in his own home state, where a brouhaha continued over whether Gov. David Paterson’s administration improperly used state resources to intimidate a woman who accused a gubernatorial aide of domestic violence.

House leaders seemed likely to have at least the intelligence bill – and perhaps the jobs bill – in better position by Friday.

But for a few hours Thursday, nothing seemed to be going right.

“Can’t anybody here play this game?” joked a Democratic aide whose sense of humor remained in tact.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/303/ here to view the video.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/302/ Politico

If President Barack Obama really wanted to show he’s serious about winning over Republicans on health care reform, he could offer up some key concessions at Thursday’s summit, like caps on malpractice awards or allowing insurers to sell across state lines.

And if Republicans wanted to reciprocate, they could at least acknowledge the congressional scorekeepers are right – the Democratic plans cut the deficit in the long term and rein in health care costs.

But that would assume either side is willing to do this.

Heading into Thursday’s summit, there’s been a lot of talk on both sides about how they’re the reasonable ones, willing to meet in the middle – and it’s the other side that’s to blame.

But the reality is, both sides have been responding to the overwhelming incentives to play to the home team, and to tailor their positions to seek partisan advantage and political gain.

So in the end, the health care summit seems most likely to clarify what has been an obvious reality lurking just below the surface at almost every turn in this episode, which is that neither side is really on the level when they say they were committed to bipartisanship.

Nor do they really want to split the difference – to do something in six hours at Blair House that they wouldn’t do all year.

The parties have become so entrenched in their positions that Republicans say they will never accept the Democratic comprehensive reform bill, and Democrats say they will never start over and adopt the GOP’s scaled-back, market-driven approach.

But the opportunities will be there, to be sure. Republicans will push a six-step plan for enacting health care reform, which includes many ideas that have already been embraced to a lesser degree in the Democratic bills.

And a central element of the Democratic strategy – hashed out on a conference call with President Barack Obama himself Wednesday — will involve pointing that out at every turn, to essentially shame the GOP to get on board.

Yet neither side showed any sign of cooling off ahead of the summit.

"If they are coming in and saying start over, there is nothing to talk about,” said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) shot back: "Why not start over? The overwhelming majority of the American people want us to start over."

The tit-for-tat continued until hours before the summit convened. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pushed to expand the invite list to include governors, but the White House denied the request.
So Boehner offered a spot to Rep. Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan who crafted an anti-abortion provision in the House bill that infuriated liberals. But Stupak later said the minority leader never consulted him.

The White House, on the other hand, extended a last-minute invite to Sen. Olympia Snowe, the moderate Maine Republican who negotiated for months with Democrats but was left off Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s list. She declined.

While Republicans huddled among themselves, Obama dialed into a meeting of top Democrats in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to map out a strategy. Democrats view the summit as a confidence-building exercise – it will be a success if Obama shows up the Republicans and, in turn, gives Democrats the political will to take the next step of reconciliation, a senior congressional aide said.

It took a year to get to this point.

Democrats believe congressional Republican leaders were determined, almost from Day One, to kill health care reform at any cost – and McConnell (R-Ky.) acknowledged as much during a POLITICO interview in November.

He said he embarked on a “very systematic and persistent” campaign since Memorial Day -- well before the House or Senate bills were even released -- to undermine support for the president’s reform push.

“For the public to understand there was a genuine debate about policy here, it was important for it not to become ‘bipartisan,’” McConnell said. “On the merits, this was a proposal that didn’t deserve, in my view, bipartisan support.”

“It deserved bipartisan defeat,” McConnell said.

In response, Republicans argue that Obama should have reworked his approach, knowing their objections. Instead, Obama embraced a strategy of limited engagement. He targeted Snowe and met with her repeatedly, once for more than 90 minutes in the Oval Office, hoping to put bipartisan sheen on the bill and provide some wiggle room in the Senate.

“Their attitude towards bipartisanship has been kind of like a shooting gallery, we can pick off two or three Republicans to pass the bill,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said. “That is not the way it is done. The way we do bipartisanship is we sit down at the beginning and agree with each other on how to move forward.”

In fact, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) tried the bipartisan route. He spent almost nine months trying to bring a handful of Republicans onto the bill, and had the support of Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in doing it – to an extent. The theory was that if Baucus could convince Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to come on board, other Republicans in both chambers would follow.

Until July, the approach looked promising. But a cascade of decisions threw it off course.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) told conservative activists that they needed to make health care Obama’s Waterloo, infuriating Democrats who saw the remarks as the first public sign that Republicans had no plans to support the bill.

It was around this time that Baucus faced increased pressure from Reid and the White House to wrap up the Gang of Six negotiations, angering Republicans who didn’t want to be rushed.

Yet the Republicans involved in talks – Snowe, Grassley and Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming – were also being squeezed. When it appeared that the group was nearing a compromise, McConnell reined them in, extracting guarantees from Grassley and Enzi that they would not sign off on a deal without consent from the caucus, according to congressional aides.

Along the way, Republicans grew more frustrated with Democrats. Obama would say at public events that he would sit down with any lawmaker, only to ignore repeated requests from conservatives. He told the American Medical Association that he was open to reducing medical malpractice costs, on ly to never make a serious push for the reforms that Republicans cared about. Democrats portrayed the Senate Health committee bill as bipartisan because 160 Republican amendments were accepted, only to have their staff later write some of them out of the measure, Republicans have said.

Grassley went to the White House in early August and asked Obama to drop the public insurance option in a bid for bipartisan support. Obama refused, Grassley has said. Democrats, who no longer trusted Republicans, understood the president’s strategy – if he had disavowed the public option, Republicans would have targeted the next major element of the bill.

That was their last interaction before the tumultuous August recess, when Grassley returned home to Iowa and pushed some of the most extreme charges leveled against Democratic health care plan.

By early September, top Democrats were convinced bipartisanship would never happen. And in October, Reid made a decision to cut the cord – initially against the advice of the White House, which was still wooing Snowe – by introducing a Senate bill with a public option that allowed states to opt-out, rather than Snowe’s public option “trigger.”

Snowe, who has said Reid assured her in September that he would go with the trigger, was lost for good. So was any hope of bipartisanship.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/301/ Wall Street Journal

The congressional Republicans at today's televised health-care "summit" at the White House naturally want to prevent the president from turning it into a PR stunt. This is no easy task. They'll not only have to point out problems with his plan and offer their own ideas, but correct the president when he makes statements that are not true.

The GOP participants appear ready for the first two tasks. In an unusual approach, House and Senate members prepped together the way a candidate preps for a presidential debates—by pulling together debate books and conducting mock sessions. But the third task is the most critical and the most difficult.

President Obama has a habit of making false statements, and getting away with them. At a Republican conference in Baltimore last month, for example, he denied that his budget nearly triples the national debt over 10 years. He got away with it because he didn't face follow-up questions or objections.

It's not easy to criticize a president face to face. During my White House years, congressmen and senators would sit in my office, pound the table, and vow to tell the president he mishandled an issue. Then we'd walk the 15 steps to the Oval Office, and they would instantly turn soft. The presidency commands respect. Americans expect the president to be treated with dignity and deference, making criticizing him to his face politically risky.

But it's necessary, because Mr. Obama is basing his health-care pitch on the false premise that he can drive down health-care prices by creating a pricey new entitlement. He also maintains that he can do this without creating a mountain of federal debt or a bureaucracy that will determine when Americans can receive care.
Read other columns by Karl Rove here.

Americans intuitively know these things cannot be true, and they have therefore responded to the promise of ObamaCare with tea parties and by voting for Republican candidates in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts. Now voters are likely to support congressional Republicans if they can take Mr. Obama head on in a calm, respectful and factual way.

If the president says his health-care plan "would reduce costs and premiums for millions of families and businesses," as he did in his State of the Union, Republicans must point out that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says premiums under ObamaCare would be higher than if nothing were done.

If Mr. Obama repeats his frequent claim that his proposal "won't add a penny to the deficit," Republicans can point out that to do so means 10 years of Medicare cuts and tax increases to pay for just four full years of the expensive insurance subsidies at the heart of his plan. This gimmick foreshadows a huge flood of red ink in the coming decades.
About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is the author of the forthcoming book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).

Email the author atKarl@Rove.comor visit him on the web atRove.com. Or, you can send a Tweet to @karlrove.

Mr. Obama will probably say that his proposal would give 30 million additional Americans health coverage. Republicans can counter that claim by noting his plan dumps about half of those people into Medicaid, a program even Mr. Obama admits is driving state budgets into the red.

Mr. Obama might say that only wealthy individuals, or insurance, drug and medical-device companies will pay higher taxes under his plan. Republicans can point out that tens of billions in new taxes will be passed on to families paying insurance premiums and patients in need of those drugs and medical devices.

Today's event should be treated as a debate. Facts, humor, and using the president's own words to refute his assertions could carry the day. Republicans need to be mindful of winning over those who are watching.

Mr. Obama last met with Republicans specifically on health care nearly a year ago—March 5, 2009—so it's easy to understand GOP concerns about attending today's event. After all, the White House seems intent on painting the GOP as obstructionist or stiffening Democratic spines by showcasing a tough-minded president.

But that doesn't change the fact that the president is somewhat on the defensive. His health reform is stuck because he can't get a bill that's already passed the Democratic Senate through the House, notwithstanding a 255 to 178 Democratic majority there. By respectfully refuting the president, Republicans can help establish themselves as reasonable advocates of common-sense politics and even restore a healthier give-and-take between the executive and legislative branches.

A year ago, Mr. Obama stood astride the political world. Today, he is a weaker and smaller leader because his signature domestic issue is unpopular, he misread his own election victory, and he overreached.

Having won the battle for public opinion on this issue, Republicans are on the rise. They should act like it. Mr. Obama may have a home court advantage, but Republicans have facts, ideas, and most of the American people on their side.

Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of the forthcoming book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/300/ here.

“Earlier this week President Obama rolled out a health care proposal which is nothing more than a rehashed version of the Democrat Senate bill, something already soundly rejected by the American people.  Instead of listening to the majority of Americans and starting over on health care, the president decided to go forward with a recycled government-run plan that will still cost over $2.5 trillion, puts government in control of personal health decisions, and empowers the government to set prices in the private market.  Just days before a supposed bipartisan summit, it is the height of political hypocrisy to lecture Republicans on one hand and on the other hand unveil a health care bill with plans to push it through Congress via reconciliation.  If President Obama is truly interested in a bipartisan approach, then he can start by shelving his hand-me-down health care proposal, and start working with Republicans to put together a health care bill with common-sense incremental reforms that Americans are demanding and our country desperately needs.” – RNC Chairman Michael Steele    

“SCRAP IT” SCRIPT

Time: 01:18

Voice: “President Obama, you owe the American people answers.”

Voice: “Because you’ve spent the year behind closed doors concocting a government takeover of health care.”

Chyron: CONCOCTING A GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF HEALTHCARE

Voice: “And the American people have spoken out and rejected it.”

Voice: “They told you…”

Chyron: THEY TOLD YOU

Voice: “Time...”

Chyron: TIME

Voice: “And time again.”

Chyron: AND TIME AGAIN

Voice: “At town hall…”

Chyron: AT TOWNHALL

Voice: “After town hall.”

Chyron: AFTER TOWNHALL

Voice: “Election…”

Chyron: NEW JERSEY

Voice:  “After election…”

Chyron: VIRGINIA

Voice: “After election.”

Chyron: MASSACHUSETTS

Voice: “But Mr. President,”

Chyron: BUT MR. PRESIDENT

Voice: “You aren’t listening.”

Chyron: YOU AREN’T LISTENING

Voice: “You say you are holding a bipartisan health care summit.”

Voice: “But at the same time you’re trying to force the health care bill through Congress using a partisan parliamentary trick…”

Chyron: PARTISAN TRICKS

Voice: “Called reconciliation.”

Chyron: RECONCILIATION

Voice: “You’re sticking with the Senate Democrats’ health care bill that’s already been rejected.”

Chyron: REJECTED

Voice: “You say you want bipartisan reform.”

Voice: “So prove it.”

Chyron: SO PROVE IT                                                        

Voice:  “Will you say no to reconciliation?”

Chyron: WILL YOU SAY NO TO RECONCILIATION?

Voice: “Will you scrap the government takeover of health care crafted behind closed doors?”

Chyron: WILL YOU SCRAP THE GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF HEALTHCARE CRAFTED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?

Voice: “Will you actually listen to the American people…”

Chyron: WILL YOU ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Voice: “Listen TO THEM…”

Chyron: LISTEN TO THEM

Voice:  “Start over on health care.”

Chyron: START OVER ON HEALTHCARE

Voice: “Take action. Go to GOP.com.”

Chyron: TAKE ACTION AT: GOP.COM

Onscreen Disclaimer: PAID FOR BY THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE NOT PAID FOR BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE’S COMMITTEE WWW.GOP.COM


]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/299/ THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Don't buy into President Obama's rhetoric about bipartisanship. He invited congressional Republicans to a summit tomorrow but continues to castigate them for being unwilling to meet him halfway. Some argue that reaching out to the opposition is wise politics aimed at the November elections, but the fix is in. Mr. Obama has no intention of making any deal with Republicans, and Republicans understand it's a bad idea to meet the president halfway on his political death spiral. So what's the point of the charade?

After the Massachusetts earthquake, Democrats have a difficult public relations problem. Voters in one of the most liberal states in the country decisively rejected Mr. Obama's health care plans. Sen. Scott Brown won the late Teddy Kennedy's seat based primarily on one issue: promising to deliver the necessary vote to kill the government takeover of health care. If Democrats ignore public opinion and force through government care anyway, an already tough election season will turn into a rout. Democrat solution: Pretend they are open to compromise.

Mr. Obama's plan is clearly to make Republicans look like obstructionists. No matter what he says, the reality is it's the Democrats who can't get their act together. For six months, Democrats had total and complete control of Congress with an 80-seat majority in the House and filibuster-proof control of the Senate. Even after the loss of Kennedy's seat, Democrats enjoy the largest majorities in the House and Senate by either party in more than 30 years.

If Mr. Obama is transparent about anything, it's that his interest in bipartisanship is purely political theater. Before the summit even occurs, Democratic leaders have agreed to a plan to pass the health care takeover whereby the House will pass the Senate bill and thus avoid the difficult conference process. "The trick in all of this is that the president would have to sign the Senate bill first, then the reconciliation bill second, and the reconciliation bill would trump the Senate bill," said Wendell Primus, a top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at an AcademyHealth and Health Affairs conference, according to Congress Daily.

Republicans pretty much had to agree at least to meet to pretend to discuss options for a health care compromise, but that doesn't mean there is any real pretense to work together on either side of the aisle. Mr. Obama announced the summit on national TV, not in private consultations with Republicans, and he instructed them as to where, what time and under what rules the summit would occur. And the entire charade will take place after Democrats have agreed to a policy and how to ram it through Congress. Despite Mr. Obama's promise to have all negotiations on C-SPAN, none of the internal negotiations between Mr. Obama and the Democratic House and Senate leaders was televised. This is brazen humbug even by cynical Washington standards.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/298/ Washington Post

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

FOR ALL THE happy talk about Thursday's "bipartisan" health-care summit, President Obama's "opening bid" on health reform is not designed to entice Republicans to join the game. Neither is the framework, based on the relatively centrist Senate version of the bill, aimed at pleasing liberals; it contains no public option or national insurance exchange. But just because both flanks are unhappy doesn't mean Mr. Obama has found the right mix. The changes the administration suggests to the Senate-passed measure heap more dessert on an already calorie-laden plate; the 10-year cost would be $950 billion, the White House says, about $70 billion more than the Senate's approach. Meanwhile, the time for eating spinach would be pushed off even further.

Mr. Obama, following the advice of nearly every economist who has examined the issue, identified a tax on high-cost insurance plans as a key mechanism for curbing the growth of health-care costs. He was right. Unfortunately, in the legislative process the tax already was whittled down several times. Now the president proposes delaying it until 2018 -- long after he leaves office -- and raising the threshold at which it applies. Meanwhile, to recoup the $120 billion lost by the delay, Mr. Obama would apply the Medicare payroll tax to unearned income for the wealthiest taxpayers -- money that should be used to shore up Medicare's shaky finances rather than subsidizing cushy insurance.

The president also would give the government power to block increases in health-care premiums. Given public concerns about a federal takeover of the health-care system, letting the government essentially dictate premiums hardly seems like a step in the right direction. More than half the states already require their insurance commissioners to approve rate increases in the individual or small-group markets; the House- and Senate-passed bills provide authority to review increases for insurers participating in the newly created exchanges. The White House argues that this power will help shield consumers in the four years before the exchanges are up and running, but its recent use of the insurance industry as a political scapegoat does not bode well for its responsible use of such authority.

Mr. Obama has scant operating room between Republicans interested in inflicting political damage and House Democrats disdainful of the more centrist Senate bill. He did improve that bill in some respects: The repugnant special treatment for Nebraska is dropped; states get additional money to help with increased Medicaid costs; subsidies for those who cannot afford to purchase plans on their own are increased. The proposal wisely prohibits makers of brand-name drugs from paying competitors to keep cheaper, generic versions off the market. And it retains an independent commission that could recommend savings in Medicare that would take effect unless Congress intervened.

Overall, though, the president has proposed a plan whose uncertain savings are made even less certain, and whose known costs are increased. Already a trillion-dollar plan was "paid for" with hundreds of billions of dollars in promised "savings" from Medicare; already it ignored a known cost of well over $200 billion in Medicare payments to physicians; already it relegated too many reforms to pilot programs with long horizons.

Now it postpones the key savings mechanism. Administration officials argue that Mr. Obama deserves credit for not dropping the tax altogether. But when did he stand up and fight for the better approach? And what credit or credibility is due a president who endorses a tax but leaves to his successor the unpleasant task of collecting it?
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/297/ The Daily Caller  

President Obama’s attempt to press ahead with a comprehensive health-care bill on Monday prompted one reaction in Washington more than any other: confusion.

“I was actually surprised that they’re pushing it again. The most important thing is jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. We need to focus on jobs,” said Rep. Heath Shuler, North Carolina Democrat and a leader of the 54-member Blue Dog coalition of conservative Democrats.

Shuler, speaking to The Daily Caller on his way out of a meeting of the Democratic caucus on Monday evening at the Capitol, expressed the sentiment that is increasingly common in Washington, the reason so many are scratching their heads at Obama’s insistence on trying to pass a catch-all piece of legislation.

“I don’t think a comprehensive bill can pass,” he said.

“I hate to use a football analogy,” said the former Washington Redskins quarterback, “but first downs are a lot better than throwing the bomb route or the Hail Mary.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, gave a sharp rebuttal to Shuler’s remark.

“You know what? With all due respect to everyone, we just saw the president’s proposal today. I don’t know that anybody in our caucus is saying we’re not going to pass a bill,” she told The Daily Caller as she left the caucus meeting.

“We will pass a bill. We will pass a bill,” she said.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, knocked down the idea that the president’s proposal represented a product that all Democrats were supporting unquestionably, undermining the White House argument that Republicans must unite behind one proposal before Thursday’s meeting at the White House.

“I’m not sure there is a ‘this bill.’ We have a bill. The Senate’s got a bill. The president has put a proposal on the floor. We’re going to talk on Thursday,” Hoyer said in an interview on his way out of the meeting.

Hoyer said Obama’s proposal “represents certainly a lot of things that we wanted to see changed in the Senate bill” but said he was “still concerned about affordability.”

“The president’s bill — he really doesn’t have a bill — but the proposal, we’ve got to see what the dollars are but certainly we think it moves in the right direction and improves upon what the Senate did,” Hoyer said.

Given the severe obstacles in the way of any bill passing through either chamber at this point, especially given the political climate in the country, Republicans were left to guess what the White House strategy might be.

“Far more interesting than the substance of the new proposal … is trying to understand what Team Obama is trying to do with it,” wrote Keith Hennessey, a top economic adviser in the Bush White House, on his blog. “I struggle to understand how the president’s new proposal is relevant to any serious attempts at legislating if he cannot deliver either House or Senate Democrats in support of it.”

For all the talk of pushing a bill through the Senate through reconciliation and with only a 51-vote requirement, the biggest challenge for Democrats may be the House, where Democrats already need to make up one vote to get to their 218-vote threshold, and could face the prospect of conservative Democrats who voted for the bill the first time defecting out of fear for their political future.

“I can’t figure it out. They took a bad bill and made it worse,” said a senior Republican Senate leadership aide.

The Obama proposal – the first actual specific offer by the president in the more than year-long debate – left the Senate bill largely intact but removed a few of the provisions that were most politically unpalatable and added new government powers to regulate health insurance rates.

Obama’s plan does not include a public option, which fails to win over liberal lawmakers who voted against it the first time for that reason.

“I voted against it when it didn’t have a public option. Without a public option there’s nothing to talk about,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, in an interview.

Obama adopted the same language on abortion as the Senate bill, which would alienate another block of pro-life Democrats.

For example, a spokesman for Rep. Daniel Lipinski, Illinois Democrat, who opposed the Senate bill because of its abortion language, said he opposed the president’s plan for the same reason.

Hennesey speculated that the White House, Senate Democrats and House Democrats might each be pushing forward with their own plans so that when reform falls apart they can say they worked as hard as they could but were stymied by a lack of effort from the others in the face of Republican obstructionism.

Even former President Bill Clinton appeared pessimistic about the prospects for health-care reform.

“The health care is hard to do, but I thought it would happen this time because all the trends that prompted me to act are worse,” he said, speaking about health care reform in the past tense during an interview with Fox News. “I thought it would happen, but …”

House leadership aides cautioned against counting them out and said they were even optimistic that the political environment is better now for moderate Democrats on the fence than it was in November when they first passed a bill out of the House.

“It’s too early to look at votes,” said a House Democratic leadership aide. “It’s a question a lot of people are asking but it’s premature to judge the final product and how we’re going to move.”

House Democrats will meet again as a caucus on Tuesday at noon to discuss the president’s proposal in more detail. They have not yet begun to count to see if they have enough votes for a bill, an aide said.

Rep. Charlie Rangel, New York Democrat, said he was trying to remain optimistic, though he indicated that this was the last chance Democrats would have to try to get something passed.

“All I’m thinking is positive thoughts,” Rangel said. “We don’t have as many options as we did before. This is the last time out. This is it. This is it.”

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, made the case that the recent uproar over a proposed 39 percent insurance rate hike in California by Anthem Blue Cross – which has since been postponed due to political pressure – was going to turn an angry electorate back toward Democrats.

“People are going to change their minds when they realize that they may not have liked government intervention in their health care but they’re sure not going to like their HMOs starting to tell them once again how to run their health care and not get anything in return, and there’s no protections for them when they get ill,” Kennedy told The Daily Caller.

“So all of a sudden, what didn’t look so good initially – our efforts to protect them – are going to start to look better and better as time goes on,” he said.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/296/ Wall Street Journal editorial

The backlash against ObamaCare is moving beyond the Tea Parties and has now arrived in state capitals. In more than 30 states, legislators are proceeding to pass statutes or ballot initiatives that would guarantee the right to choose medical services and insurance.

These laws are generally called Health-Care Freedom Acts. If enacted, they will set off a Constitutional 10th Amendment fight over whether there are limitations on the powers of the federal government to regulate health care and override the protections in these state laws.

Almost all these measures would make it illegal for the government at any level to require a citizen of the state to purchase health insurance. This would let Americans opt out of any federal "individual mandate," which makes people buy insurance or pay a tax, a la Massachusetts and both the House and Senate bills in Congress.

Second, the bills would guarantee the right of residents to pay directly for health services without incurring penalties or fines. This means citizens could go outside any government-run system to purchase private treatments from the doctor or hospital of their choice. Often, the federal Medicare program doesn't let doesn't let doctors charge extra for specialized care.

Virginia's legislature has already passed such a law and Republican Governor Bob McDonnell is about to sign it. The house in both Utah and Idaho passed a similar bill last week, and the Tennessee senate did so earlier this week by a vote of 26 to 1. Legislatures in Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee are expected to hold votes in coming weeks. Last June, Arizona's legislature authorized a November 2010 referendum vote on the Arizona Health Freedom Act. A similar ballot initiative failed by a slim margin (0.5%) in 2008 after health insurers spent millions to defeat it.

If Congress passes some version of health legislation, the federal law may pre-empt these state laws. But states do have the right to provide extra protections beyond what federal law guarantees. Many states, for example, have freedom of speech protections that go beyond federal law.

These bills aren't a "nullification" of a federal law. Clint Bolick of the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute notes: "If federal legislation is enacted, individuals would still have the option to participate in federal health insurance programs. This act simply protects a person's right not to participate."

The major constitutional issue is whether Uncle Sam has the right to supercede state laws, based on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and compel Americans to join a federal health system, as they must with Social Security and Medicare.

President Obama and Democrats continue to maintain their legislation is faltering because Americans don't understand the good it would do for the quality of their medical care. But the spectacle of "health-care freedom" legislation emerging in some 30 states suggests that voters and state lawmakers do understand that ObamaCare will alter the delivery of health care in ways that will limit choice and access.

Mr. Obama next week will hold his televised health-care summit, ostensibly to hear the ideas of Congressional Republicans. Maybe he should expand the format to include state legislators who are far out ahead of their Beltway colleagues.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/295/
Washington, D.C. – Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) issued the following statement regarding the health care legislation released today by the Obama administration.

“It’s incredible how out of touch the Obama administration has become,” said Chairman Price. “This plan is just another version of the same government takeover of health care that Americans have already stamped ‘reject.’ The President’s approach to health care is wildly unpopular, not because he hasn’t explained it well enough, but because it tramples on Americans’ ability to make their own health care decisions. Remarkably, this plan is even more intrusive than before, relying on government price fixing, a solution always fraught with unintended consequences. A few empty nods to the Republican goal of clamping down on waste, fraud, and abuse doesn’t change the fact that at its core this plan takes power away from patients and gives it to bureaucrats in Washington. The Obama administration is suffering from political delusions if it thinks this is what the American people want.”

“We want to work with the President to craft reforms that will improve access to affordable, quality health care for all Americans. If President Obama simply listened to his countrymen and agreed to start over from scratch, the patient-centered reforms we need would be within reach. One look at the proposal he released today shows that he’s simply ignoring the American people’s call for a new approach. The President says he called this week’s summit to find a bipartisan solution, but bipartisanship doesn’t mean he gets to double down on a government takeover while we’re forced to abandon our principles.”
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/294/ Politico

House Republicans are taking a page from the president's playbook by challenging Democrats to a televised debate about job creation.

The top two Republicans in the House sent a letter Wednesday daring their counterparts — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — to engage in a public discussion over ways Congress can provide a boost to the economy.

Their call comes as Democrats struggle to find consensus on a job creation package and in advance of the Feb. 25 bipartisan health care summit.

"Clearly, we need a different approach to developing legislation that will get Americans back to work," Republican leader John Boehner and party Whip Eric Cantor wrote to Pelosi and Hoyer. "Therefore, in the interest of complete transparency on the single most important issue of the day for most Americans, we ask that you join us for an open discussion so that we can begin to change a process that has not only polarized this Capitol building but this country as well."

Democrats didn’t outright dismiss the Republican idea, but they didn’t exactly embrace it.

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said: “In her most recent meeting with Leader Boehner earlier this month, the speaker raised the subject of jobs but did not receive a positive response. The speaker welcomes the change in the Republican leadership and looks forward to a productive discussion on promoting jobs and economic recovery.”

Their call for an open discussion echoes President Barack Obama's invitation to congressional leaders to hold a health care debate next week at Blair House. That event stems from a recent back and forth between Obama and House Republicans. The president earned praise from the left and the right for his lengthy, candid exchange with Republicans during their annual issues conference in Baltimore late last month.

The White House caught Republicans off guard by asking the GOP to open the normally closed-door question-and-answer session to television cameras and reporters who are normally ushered from the room after the president speaks.

The two parties have been at loggerheads over the economy — and everything else — since Obama took the oath of office, when Republicans refused to support his almost $800 billion economic stimulus package, arguing it was too expensive and would prove ineffective. On Wednesday — the anniversary of its enactment — Democrats and Republicans engaged in yet another public relations blitz about whether the massive package actually spurred job growth.

"There are no doubt significant differences between our respective approaches to create jobs, as was evident during the stimulus debate last year," Boehner and Cantor said in their letter.

"Though we had different philosophical approaches, it is unfortunate that there was neither a public discussion nor an opportunity for the American people — especially small-business owners — to become more engaged," the Republicans wrote. "Had there been such a discussion, perhaps Congress would have produced a bill that more directly addressed our nation’s economic problems."

House Democrats passed a $154 billion jobs bill in December that used $75 billion from the Wall Street bailout package to improve highways and help cash-strapped communities pay for teachers, police officers and firefighters. Republicans say that that package "continued the failed policies of the first stimulus" because it "was drafted without Republican input." As a result, every Republican voted against it, along with 38 Democrats.

Senate Democrats offered a competing measure last week, but Majority Leader Harry Reid immediately scaled it back, setting the stage for yet another policy fight between Democrats in the two chambers.

With the letter from Boehner and Cantor, House Republicans are trying to insert themselves into that debate.

The Republican leaders also took a veiled shot at members of the majority by reminding them that Obama held open debates with the House GOP and Senate Democrats but not the Democratic Caucus.

"As you are no doubt aware, President Obama has recently held public forums with both House Republicans and Senate Democrats," the leaders wrote. "Though House Democrats have yet to participate in such a forum, we write to ask that you follow this precedent and agree to participate in an open meeting focused on job creation and economic growth between leaders of both parties in the House."
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/293/
Remember, it was Speaker Pelosi who declared in December that Democrats should be judged by “jobs, jobs, jobs.”  Look here: a new CNN survey shows that more than eight in 10 Americans say Congress has not done enough to create jobs.  What’s more, a CBS News/New York Times survey released last week found that just six percent of Americans believe the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ has created jobs.  And it was a Democratic senator, Evan Bayh, who said, “If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.”

The New York Times highlights Republicans’ efforts to hold Washington Democrats accountable on the one-year anniversary of their trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’: 

• “…[T]he House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, issued a report titled ’Where are the Jobs? A Look Back at One Year of So-Called ‘Stimulus.’ 
• “The report argues that the measure is ‘chockfull of wasteful government spending’ and presents a list of what Republicans regard as questionable projects, singling out, for example, ‘$10,000 to purchase a liquid nitrogen cryo freezer to store pallid sturgeon sperm’ and $1.25 million for a Northwestern University professor ‘to use electric fish from the Amazon to study how animals take in sensory information to move quickly in any direction.’
• “In interviews and e-mail messages, Mr. Boehner and other leading Republicans, including Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, Representative Mike Pence of Indiana and the Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, argued that Mr. Obama could hardly claim credit for improvements in the economy with three million jobs lost over the past year, unemployment at nearly 10 percent and a deficit at $1.6 trillion.”

YEAR TWO OF TRILLION-DOLLAR ‘STIMULUS’ SHAPING UP A LOT LIKE THE FIRST:

• “Report: Stimulus Weatherization Program Bogged Down by Red Tape. A $5 billion federal weatherization program intended to save energy and create jobs has done little of either, according to a new report obtained by ABC News on the one-year anniversary of President Obama's American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.  Only 9,100 homes had been weatherized nationwide as of Dec. 31, according to the new report by the Government Accountability Office, to be released Thursday. … The problem is red tape, according to the GAO. Local governments and contractors have to jump through several hoops before getting full funding.” (ABC News, 2/17/10)
• “CNN poll: Congress falling down on jobs.  The vast majority of Americans believe Congress is not tackling the nation's jobs problem, according to a new national poll.  A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Thursday found that 84 percent of Americans think Congress has not done enough to create jobs, and only 14 percent said they are satisfied with lawmakers' efforts so far.” (CNN, 2/18/10)
• “Growth hasn't hit payrolls a year into the stimulus effort. … The Obama administration is acknowledging that its program of spending cuts and tax breaks has yet to ease joblessness, and White House officials are increasingly engaged in shaping the details of new legislation to boost job creation.” (The Washington Post, 2/18/10)

Instead of taking more for itself and sticking future generations with the tab, Washington should be focused on unleashing the hard work and entrepreneurship of the American people for a change.  Republicans are listening to the American people and offering better solutions to help small businesses create jobs and get our economy moving again.  So thank you, Madam Speaker, for reminding the American people that Republicans stood on principle and fought Democrats’ trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ tooth and nail.

Source: House Republican Leader Press Office
 
 

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/292/
Democrats to Taxpayers: Trust Us, We’ll Spend Your Money Wisely

• “We cannot overstate the importance of this effort. We are asking the American people to trust their government with an unprecedented level of funding to address the economic emergency. In return, we must prove to them that their dollars are being invested in initiatives and strategies that make a difference in their communities and across the country.” (Memorandum to Head of Departments and Agencies, www.Recovery.gov, February 9, 2009)

Credibility Crash: Stimulus Funds Going to ‘Inefficient,’ ‘Duplicate’ Programs Set for Elimination

More than $3.5 billion in economic stimulus funds are going to programs that President Obama wants to eliminate or trim in his new budget.

The president's budget released this month recommends getting rid of Army Corps of Engineers' drinking-water projects, which got $200 million in stimulus funds, and a U.S. Department of Agriculture flood-prevention program, which received $290 million from the stimulus, a USA TODAY review of stimulus spending reports show.

The administration's budget plan says the corps and USDA programs are inefficient and duplicate similar, more effective work by other agencies. The proposed cuts indicate the programs shouldn't have gotten money from the $862 billion stimulus package, said Tom Schatz of the non-partisan budget watchdog Citizens Against Government Waste.

---

Obama's proposed budget also includes $334 million in cuts to programs that got more than $3 billion in stimulus money. They include:

• A $100 million cut in funding for maintenance and construction in national forests. The Forest Service got $650 million for such projects in the stimulus package, of which $55.6 million has been spent, according to USDA reports. The White House budget says the Forest Service doesn't need as much money because it is building fewer roads.

• A $44 million decrease in funding for an Interior Department program to thin trees and brush on federal land to mitigate wildfires. The stimulus provided $15 million for the program. The administration says it is reorganizing the program, which has been less effective than it should be because it didn't focus on preventing the fires most likely to threaten homes. (Matt Kelley, “Stimulus Funds Going to Slashed Programs,” USA Today, 2/17/10)

To read the full article, click here.

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/291/ here.
 
“Today marks the one year anniversary of President Obama’s failure to stimulate our economy with $862 billion of the people’s money and unsurprisingly, the only people celebrating this disastrous milestone are Democrats in Washington. For an entire year, America has been forced to watch over 2.8 million people lose their jobs and unemployment climb into the double digits, while the President and his liberal allies continue to ignore economic reality and spread their made-up “saved or created” talking points. Republicans have offered proven alternative solutions for economic growth but these ideas have been routinely shot down by Democrats, who insist that bipartisanship is one party monopoly rule.  The American people are tired of politicians who don’t admit when their policies don’t work.  The president and the Democrat Party can either admit their policies failed and change course now or continue their binge spending agenda and face certain defeat at the polls in November.”    

“BROKEN PROMISE” SCRIPT

Time: 01:19

Voice:  “Barack Obama made big promises.”

Chyron: BARACK OBAMA

Chyron: MADE BIG PROMISES

Chyron: 1-9-09

Barack Obama:  “An American recovery and re-investment plan that will immediately jump start job creation and long term growth.

Voice:  “Over”

Chyron: OVER

Chyron: 2-11-09

Barack Obama: “Plan to create or save more than 3 million jobs in the next few years.”

Voice:  “And over again.”

Chyron: AND OVER

Chyron: AGAIN

Barack Obama: “It will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.”

Chyron: 2-17-09

Voice: “His advisors promised the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8% and warned without it unemployment would hit double digits.”

Voice: “But his $862 billion stimulus plan has failed to deliver.”

Chyron: $862 BILLION STIMULUS PLAN

Chyron: FAILED TO DELIVER

Voice: “2.8 million jobs lost since it was signed into law.”

Chyron: 2.8 BILLION JOBS LOST SINCE IT WAS SIGNED INTO LAW

Voice: “20,000 jobs lost just last month.”

Chyron: 20,000 JOBS LOST JUST LAST MONTH

Voice: “A year ago…”

Chyron: A YEAR AGO

Voice: “Barack Obama promised jobs.”

Chyron: BARACK OBAMA PROMISED JOBS

Chyron: 2-9-09

Barack Obama: “That's why I hope it passes as soon as possible, so we can start creating jobs!”

Voice: “But his plan has failed to deliver.”

Chyron: 9.7% UNEMPLOYMENT

Voice: “Democrats might be breaking out the champagne to celebrate the stimulus’ one year anniversary, but Americans are still losing their jobs while being saddled with debt to pay for Obama’s binge spending and broken promises.”

Chyron: BINGE SPENDING AND BROKEN PROMISES

Voice:  Take action at GOP.com

Chyron: TAKE ACTION: GOP.COM

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/290/ Wall Street Journal

MCLEAN, Va.—When Charles E. Haldeman Jr. became Freddie Mac's chief executive officer in August, the ailing housing-finance giant had already consumed $51 billion of government money to stay afloat. It's likely to need even more.

Freddie's federal overseers nevertheless have instructed Mr. Haldeman to focus on something that isn't likely to make the bleak balance sheet look any better: carrying out the Obama administration plan to allow defaulted borrowers to hang onto their homes.

On a recent afternoon, employees at Freddie's headquarters here peppered Mr. Haldeman with concerns about the company's future. He responded that they were "fortunate" to have such a clear mission—the government's foreclosure-prevention drive. "We're doing what's best for the country," he told them.

Freddie and its larger rival, Fannie Mae, were among the first big financial institutions to receive massive federal bailouts after the financial crisis hit in 2008. Government officials have been racing to fix bailed-out car makers and banks and are pushing to reshape the financial-services industry. But Fannie and Freddie remain troubled wards of the state, with no blueprints for the future and no clear exit strategy for the government.

Nearly a year and a half after the outbreak of the global economic crisis, many of the problems that contributed to it haven't yet been tamed. The U.S. has no system in place to tackle a failure of its largest financial institutions. Derivatives contracts of the kind that crippled American International Group Inc. still trade in the shadows. And investors remain heavily reliant on the same credit-ratings firms that gave AAA ratings to lousy mortgage securities.

Fannie and Freddie, for their part, remain at the core of a housing-finance system that inflated a dangerous housing bubble. After prices collapsed, sending shock waves around the world, the federal government put America's housing-finance system on life support. It has yet to decide how that troubled system should be rebuilt.

On Dec. 24, Treasury said there would be no limit to the taxpayer money it was willing to deploy over the next three years to keep the two companies afloat, doing away with the previous limit of $200 billion per company. So far, the government has handed the two companies a total of about $111 billion.

The government is willing to tolerate such open-ended exposure for two reasons. First, it sees the companies as essential cogs in the fragile housing market. Fannie and Freddie buy mortgages originated by others, holding some as investments and repackaging others for sale to investors as securities. Together with the Federal Housing Administration, they fund nine in 10 American mortgages. Worries about potential insolvency would cripple their ability to fund home loans, which would hamstring the market.

Second, the companies are a convenient tool for the administration to use in its campaign to clean up the housing mess.

"We're making decisions on [loan modifications] and other issues, without being guided solely by profitability, that no purely private bank ever could," Mr. Haldeman said in late January in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club.

Besides playing a key role in the loan-modification program, Fannie and Freddie have jump-started lending by state and local housing-finance agencies by helping to guarantee $24 billion in debt. They also are lending support to the apartment sector by becoming the main funders of loans to builders and buyers of apartment buildings.

By using Fannie and Freddie for such initiatives, the White House doesn't have to go to Congress for funding. The Treasury and White House can simply issue instructions to Fannie and Freddie via their federal regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA.

The government is "running Fannie and Freddie as an instrument of national economic policy, not as a business," says Daniel Mudd, who was forced out as Fannie Mae's chief executive in September 2008 when the government took control.

Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr says that because Fannie and Freddie are "owned by the taxpayers in the middle of the biggest housing crisis in 80 years," it would be unrealistic to expect the companies wouldn't be used to help stabilize the market. He says the administration's actions have been "prudent" and "consistent with taxpayer protection."

The companies are political lightning rods. The government's decision to absorb unlimited losses followed the Treasury's approval of multimillion-dollar pay packages for senior executives at each company. Republican critics have blasted those decisions, demanding investigations and pay cuts.

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, a longtime supporter of the companies, said last month that ultimately they should be abolished and replaced with an entirely new housing-finance system. Last Thursday, he said he would convene a hearing next month to review the future of housing finance and the federal government's role in it

Some housing experts contend that prolonged government intervention will make it more difficult and costly to eventually wean the companies off government support. "The more aggressively we continue kicking the can down the road, the larger the losses become and the harder it becomes" to address the companies' future, says Joshua Rosner, managing director at investment-research firm Graham Fisher & Co.

Edward DeMarco, acting director of Fannie and Freddie's regulator, the FHFA, says efforts to modify loans and to stabilize the housing market ultimately will help the two companies' bottom lines. "The businesses are trying to mitigate the losses and remediate the problems that led to conservatorship in the first place," he says.

As mortgage delinquencies rise, Fannie and Freddie are required to set aside more capital to cover anticipated losses. Each quarter, if their revenues are insufficient to meet those financial needs, the Treasury has to kick in more money.

With delinquencies still rising, the outlook is grim. At Freddie, 3.87% of single-family mortgages were at least 90 days past due at the end of December, up from 1.72% a year earlier. Fannie is worse: 5.29% were 90 days past due in November, up from 2.13% a year earlier.

For decades, both Fannie and Freddie were highly profitable. The housing bust hit both hard, sharply reducing the values of the mortgages they guaranteed, along with their investment portfolios, which were stuffed with riskier loans.

By September 2008, their capital reserves were so depleted that the government seized control of both companies, using a legal process known as conservatorship. In exchange for injecting money, the government has received preferred shares that pay a 10% dividend, along with warrants to purchase up to 79.9% of the common stock of each company.

The Obama administration had said it would weigh in on how to revamp the companies when it released its proposed budget earlier this month. Instead, the budget contained only a single line about the companies' future, promising to "monitor the situation" and to "provide updates…as appropriate." That stance reflects policy makers' uncertainty about how to proceed and a lack of urgency about resolving the problem.

Lawrence Summers, the president's chief economic adviser, has said the companies shouldn't be run permanently by the U.S. or be allowed to "return to the failed model of the past, where Fannie and Freddie relied on an implicit government [debt] guarantee to borrow cheaply."

Some Republicans have said the government should play no role whatsoever in the companies in the future, meaning no implied debt guarantee and no government directives to support affordable housing. The other end of the spectrum would be to turn the companies into government agencies.

Many housing-industry leaders believe the eventual plan will fall somewhere in between. Housing-policy experts assembled by the Center for American Progress, a think tank that has provided the White House input on past policy and personnel decisions, recently proposed that Fannie and Freddie be transformed into two or more companies whose profits would be capped like those of public utilities. There would be explicit federal guarantees on certain mortgage-backed securities. The new entities would be required to ensure that mortgages are available to low-income borrowers.

Others have proposed turning the companies into cooperatives owned by lenders, but subject to strict regulation.

With the fate of the two companies now largely in the hands of the government, employees have shifted their attention to the administration's loan-modification effort, called Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP. It provides financial incentives for banks and other owners of mortgages to reduce monthly loan payments for at-risk borrowers. Fannie and Freddie's job is to oversee how loan servicers—the firms that collect monthly payments on mortgages—are working with homeowners on the front lines.

The program is off to a slow start. The administration said it would offer three million to four million borrowers the chance to modify loans. Through December, loan servicers have signed up 903,000 borrowers for trial modifications. Just 66,000 have received a permanent fix so far.

Both Fannie and Freddie have struggled at times to adjust to the new marching orders. Fannie has warned in financial filings that the modification program had shifted "significant levels of internal resources and management attention" from other parts of the business, which could lead to a "material adverse effect" on the business.

At Freddie, David Moffett, the chief executive who took over when the federal government assumed control, left last March after only six months, partly because it became clear that regulators would be calling the shots.

He says he and others warned administration officials that the loan-modification goals were unrealistic, that borrowers whose homes weren't worth what they owed were unlikely to take part, and that many participants would be likely to re-default within months. "They really didn't want our views," Mr. Moffett says.

Treasury's Mr. Barr says that isn't true. The Fannie and Freddie officials he worked with, he says, "were quite supportive of the program, of the structure and the basic design," and "were integral to the formulation."

Since then, Freddie has taken some heat for problems with part of the loan-modification drive. In an October report, the government said Freddie failed in its job as the program's auditor. Its task is to make sure loan servicers deal correctly with applications from borrowers for payment relief. Freddie says it has reassigned the vice president responsible for the effort.

Freddie's current chief executive, Mr. Haldeman, 61 years old, says it was immediately "very clear" to him that the loan-modification program was a top priority of the Obama administration. But the program isn't his only headache. As foreclosures mount, Freddie finds itself with title to more and more homes. The company wants to price them to sell, but doesn't want to put downward pressure on overall housing prices.

"Imagine having to keep the lawns mowed, the lights on, and the property secured for one house, let alone more than 40,000 homes all over the country," says Mr. Haldeman. "It's not an easy process."

John A. Koskinen, a turnaround specialist who became chairman of Freddie's board when the government stepped in, says that in all his years working for government agencies and troubled companies, "I've never been in one with as many challenges."

Last spring and summer, as interim CEO, he had to recruit executives to fill the top three jobs. Filling those jobs has put the company on firmer ground, he says, and having a clear mission—even a government-mandated one—is helping morale. "At least the getting yelled at by your neighbor in the grocery store is behind us," he says.

Loan standards today are tighter than they have been in decades. That means the default risk on loans guaranteed recently by Fannie and Freddie is much lower than it was a few years ago. But their mistakes during the housing boom are expected to continue burning holes in their balance sheets.

The Mortgage Bankers Association estimates that mortgage delinquencies won't peak any sooner than the middle of this year. At the current pace, around 6% of Fannie's loans and 4.9% of Freddie's are expected to go into default over the next 18 to 24 months, producing losses that would raise the price tag on Treasury's bailout to $175 billion, according to October estimates by investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. The bank has since said that even that dire forecast is too optimistic.

Former FHFA head James Lockhart, the companies' top regulator until last August, says the U.S. is unlikely to ever fully recoup its investment in the two companies.


]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/289/ The Washington Times

Last week's new unemployment numbers were bittersweet. At the same time the Bureau of Labor Statistics was declaring that the unemployment rate had declined slightly, to 9.7 percent, the government also was announcing that the economy had lost about 824,000 more jobs during the recession from April 2008 to March 2009 than Americans previously had been told. If this sounds like bureaucratic doublespeak, it is.

The government doesn't really know the exact number of people with or without jobs. The number reported each month is based on surveys, and surveys often can have methodology issues. As it turns out, the surveys estimating the number of people with jobs reported over the past couple of years suffered from some really big problems. That's where government falsely claiming 824,000 more jobs than actually existed comes into play. Unfortunately, those adjustments have so far been made only through March 2009, and there are strong reasons to believe the survey data since then also need to be adjusted downward.

Economists measure the number of jobs two different ways: the establishment survey that asks about 370,000 employers how many people they are employing and the household survey that asks about 110,000 people each month whether they are working. The establishment survey is often given more weight because about 40 million Americans work for the companies surveyed, a lot more than the 110,000 people interviewed in the other survey. But 110,000 people still make up a huge sample (a large survey for a presidential election might involve 2,000 to 3,000 people), and it is hard to ignore the results. The household survey is also what is used to calculate the unemployment rate.

The problem is that the two surveys have reached different estimates, with the household survey showing a significantly greater drop in the number of jobs than the establishment survey. It turns out that there might be a simple reason for that. For the survey of firms, the list of firms surveyed doesn't change very often. Thus, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which puts these numbers together, can only guess at the number of jobs created by new firms because it doesn't even know how many new firms have been created each month. To get around this gap in the data, the bureau makes an assumption that the jobs created at new companies are about equal to the jobs lost at companies that go out of business.

That assumption hasn't come close to being right during the current recession. The error in estimating the number of jobs from April 2008 to March 2009 was 10 times greater than the average error over the preceding eight years. Typically, the government error would underestimate the number of new jobs by 80,000, but this time, it overestimated the number of jobs by more than 800,000.

No one will know what the error rate has been with the establishment survey from April to December 2009 until the numbers are revised again in February 2011, three months after the 2010 midterm elections. But a great deal of skepticism seems warranted. The establishment survey assumes that new firms generated almost a million new jobs over those nine months. At the same time, the household survey just happens to show that about a million more jobs were lost than the survey of firms indicates.

The Obama administration has focused continually on the establishment survey in making its claims about changes in the jobs numbers, but this data can be quite misleading. The bottom line is that job losses are likely to be worse than reported, not better. Future jobs claims from the White House should be taken with a grain of salt.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/288/ Politico

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced Monday evening that he will support a Republican-led filibuster over President Barack Obama's nominee to serve on the National Labor Relations Board.

The move is likely to infuriate labor groups who have fought hard for Craig Becker's nomination to serve on the five-member NLRB - and will likely give Republicans enough support to sustain a filibuster Tuesday.

“Mr. Becker’s previous statements strongly indicate that he would take an aggressive personal agenda to the NLRB, and that he would pursue a personal agenda there, rather than that of the administration,” Nelson said in a statement. “This is of great concern, considering that the board’s main responsibility is to resolve labor disputes with an even and impartial hand."

Nelson, a conservative Democrat up for reelection in 2012, has seen his approval ratings drop sharply since he lent his support for Obama's health care bill in December and secured deals for Nebraska's Medicaid payments.

His latest decision could help him tout his independent credentials back home, but will likely generate anger from the left, which says Becker is a well-qualified nominee who has been denigrated by his opponents.

Republicans have tried to make Becker's nomination a referendum on the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier to unionize. In his statement, Nelson said Becker has made several statements that "fly in the face of Nebraska’s Right to Work laws."
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/287/ USA Today editorial

Ever since the botched Christmas Day plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, the Obama administration's national security officials have struggled to assure the public that they know exactly what they're doing.

So far, they're achieving the opposite, and they're needlessly adding some jitters in the process:

• CIA Director Leon Panetta and other top officials agreed last week that an attack by al-Qaeda is likely in the next three to six months. The warning is bound to frighten the public, with no obvious benefit beyond the ability to say "I told you so."
• Top administration officials revealed last week that bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was again cooperating with authorities. Great. But the news pretty much negates earlier claims that no intelligence was lost when Abdulmutallab was prematurely read his rights.
• In Senate testimony, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair had a "Duh!" moment as he hit his forehead and acknowledged that authorities fumbled the initial questioning of Abdulmutallab by failing to call in the high-value interrogation group, which was created to question terrorism suspects. Refreshingly candid, yes, but not a statement that inspires confidence. Especially when the same day, at another Senate hearing, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that the high-value unit was still in its "formation stages" and that "there was no time" to get it to Detroit.

All of this follows the string of blunders that allowed Abdulmutallab to carry explosives onto a U.S.- bound plane in the first place. The chaos that followed his arrest now looks just as bad.

According to news accounts, Abdulmutallab was questioned by, and cooperated with, the FBI for a grand total of 50 minutes before going into surgery. When he emerged, he became combative, asked for a lawyer and was read his rights. (At the time, remember, no one knew whether other bombers had been dispatched simultaneously.)

A decision of such magnitude should have involved the top brass in intelligence and law enforcement. But Blair, Mueller and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have all testified they were not consulted. Mueller said the decision to read the suspect his Miranda rights was made by agents in the field.

In television appearances on Sunday, John Brennan, the White House deputy national security adviser, chafed at the criticism the intelligence community is getting. He said it was demoralizing and urged cheerleading instead. But cheerleading doesn't get problems fixed, and it's undeniable that there are plenty to address.

Some problems, such as the post-arrest misjudgments, are of the Obama administration's making. Others, such as the intelligence failures preceding the incident, are institutional. There is, however, a common denominator: slipshod coordination leading to bad judgment.

If Panetta is right about another attack, there's not much time for national security officials to get their act together.

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/286/
Despite Controlling White House And Obama's Fundraising Network, DNC "Only Running Neck And Neck" With RNC In Fundraising. "But, in a criticism that also dogged Howard Dean, some Democrats have questioned Kaine's fundraising. Although, on average, the DNC is outpacing what it raised during the last off-year election, the committee is still only running neck and neck with the RNC, in spite of having access to Obama's fundraising list." (Holly Bailey, "Missing In Action," Newsweek, 10/21/09)

With White House And Congress, DNC Raised $81.1 Million In 2009 Compared To $81.3 Million Raised By The RNC. (Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10; Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10)

• RNC Even Received $16 Million More In "Unitemized" Small Donor Contributions Than DNC. (Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10; Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10)

DNC Ended 2009 With $8.6 Million Cash On Hand, Barely Edging Out RNC With $8.4 Million. (Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10; Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10)

• The DNC Also Ended The Year $4.6 Million In Debt, While The RNC Has None. (Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10; Federal Election Commission Website, www.fec.gov, Accessed 2/1/10)

OBAMA, DEMS' AGENDA ALREADY REBUKED IN MASSACHUSETTS, VIRGINIA AND NEW JERSEY

Obama "Enraged Voters" By First Pushing "Deeply Flawed" Stimulus Bill, Then "Plowed Ahead With Health Care" Instead Of Focusing On Unemployment, Economy. "[B]y opting to push a deeply flawed and insufficiently robust economic stimulus package, one that failed to keep unemployment from rising far higher than the administration expected, Obama committed his first presidential sin. ... The second presidential sin: Instead of immediately pivoting back to the economy when unemployment proved to be worse than anticipated, Obama plowed ahead with health care reform, all but yelling, 'Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!' That enraged voters still more." (Charlie Cook, "Presidential Sins," National Journ al, 1/30/10)

• "Congressional Democrats are hardly blameless on this, but it is the president who sets the agenda and largely runs the show." (Charlie Cook, "Presidential Sins," National Journal, 1/30/10)

And In Massachusetts, Scott Brown Rode That "Wave Of Voter Anger" To Victory In "Stunning Embarrassment" Of Obama. "In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to win the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy for nearly half a century, leaving President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marring the end of his first year in office. The loss by the once-favored Democrat Martha Coakley in the Democratic stronghold was a stunning embarrassment for the White House after Obama rushed to Boston on Sunday to try to save the foundering candidate." ("GOP wins Senate seat in Mass.," The Associated Pre ss, 1/20/10)

• "'I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading,' said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg." ("GOP wins Senate seat in Mass.," The Associated Press, 1/20/10)

Last Year, Virginia Was "Laboratory" For Obama Campaign Strategy, "Test Of This President And His Policies." "Governor's races tend to be determined by the quality of the candidates and local issues rather than national politics; overcrowded highways are the biggest topic this year in Virginia. Nevertheless, Virginia has been a laboratory for many of the ways Mr. Obama tried to change the ideological appeal and tactics of his party, and it is looming as an early if imprecise test of this president and his policies." (Adam Nagourney, "2 State Races May Put Lens On President," The New York Times, 10/11/09)

• DNC Chairman Tim Kaine Even Called Virginia "The Perfect Bellwether State." "'Chuck Todd [chief political analyst for NBC News] has said Virginia is the perfect bellwether state, and I really believe that,' Kaine said."  (Ray Reed, "Kaine Sees Tougher Fight, More Negative Tone In Governor's Race," The News & Advance, 9/30/09)

And Gov. Corzine's Loss Was Also "Embarrassment" For White House. "A Democratic loss there would be an embarrassment for this White House and provide a jolt of energy to a Republican Party at a crucial time as it recruits candidates and raises money for the elections next year. Republicans won the governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia in 1993 and went on to capture Congress in 1994." (Adam Nagourney, "2 State Races May Put Lens On President," The New York Times, 10/11/09)

• Because Obama's Aides Said Corzine Loss Would Be Seen "As A Rebuke Of Mr. Obama." "The state is one of only two nationwide holding governor's contests this year. And Mr. Obama's aides acknowledge that a loss in this deep-blue state would be interpreted as a rebuke of Mr. Obama, affecting his ability to pass major legislation and the public's perceptions of his party's power." (David M. Halbfinger & David Kocieniewski, "Meanwhile, Next Door, It's Team Obama For Corzine Sign In To Recommend," The New York Times, 9/24/09)

NOW DEMOCRATS ARE SEEKING DISTANCE FROM OBAMA ...

Democrats Using Budget To Find Ways "To Establish Their Distance" From Obama. "Heading into an election season in which Republicans are trying to tie Democrats to Obama's unpopular policies, Obama's budget gives his fellow Democrats an unlikely campaign tool -- a catalogue of ways to establish their distance from controversial aspects of his administration." (Janet Hook & Christi Parsons, "Congressional Democrats Are Nay-Saying Obama's Budget," Los Angeles Times, 2/3/10)

• There's A Growing "Gap Between Obama's Governing Agenda And Congressional Democrats' Political Interest." "All that underscores a potential gap between Obama's governing agenda and congressional Democrats' political interest in the election. While Democrats on the ballot encounter stiff headwinds, Obama is asking them look at the big picture on the budget, take on tough issues, and let the politics take care of themselves." (Janet Hook & Christi Parsons, "Congressional Democrats Are Nay-Saying Obama's Budget," Los Angeles Times, 2/3/10)

OR JUST CALLING IT QUITS ...

"'My message to my clients? Jump ship now,' said one Democratic operative who advises a number of targeted Members of Congress. 'Obama can't help you.'" (Chris Cillizza, "Scott Brown Wins Massachusetts Senate Special Election Race," The Washington Post, 1/19/10)

Six House Democrats From Competitive Districts Have Announced They Will Retire. "[Arkansas Rep. Marion] Berry will become the sixth Democrat in a competitive seat to leave in the last two months but the first to announce his retirement since the party's special election loss in Massachusetts last Tuesday. ... Arkansas will be a huge focus of Republican efforts in the fall with Berry and Rep. Vic Snyder (D) retiring and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) in deep trouble as she seek re-election. ...Berry joins Snyder as well as Reps. Dennis Moore (Kans.), John Tanner (Tenn.), Brian Baird (Wash.) and Bart Gordon (Tenn.) as Members sitting in districts either won by McCain or carried narrowly by President Obama to step aside between the end of November and today." (Chris Cillizza, "Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry To Retire," The Washington Post's The Fix Blog, 1/24/10)

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-SD) And Chris Dodd (D-CT), Gov. Bill Ritter (D-CO), And Lt. Gov. John Cherry (D-MI) All Announced In January They Were No Longer Running For Office. "Dorgan's announcement was accompanied Tuesday by Michigan Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry's decision to end his floundering bid for governor, and by the revelation that both Dodd and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter would announce Wednesday that they would not seek reelection." (Manu Raju & Josh Kraushaar, "Top Democrats Head For The Exits," Politico, 1/6/10)

Apparently Obama's Assurance That He Will Be Difference Between This Year And 1994 GOP Wave Has Not Been Comforting. "'Obama advisers dismissed warnings that they were repeating the same mistakes on health care that were made by the Clinton administration in 1993-94, Berry suggested. They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. ... We're going to see how much difference that makes now.' In the 2008 general election - in which Berry ran unopposed - Obama captured just over 38 percent of the vote in the 1st Congressional District, losing to Sen. John McCain, RAriz., by more than 20 points." (Charlie Frago "Sources: Berry To Retire In 2011 7th Term Called Democrat's Last," Ark ansas Democrat-Gazette, 1/25/10)

• Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR) "The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, 'Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me.'" (Charlie Frago "Sources: Berry To Retire In 2011 7th Term Called Democrat's Last," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1/25/10)

... BECAUSE THEY SEE WAVE COMING

Democrats Now Trail Republicans By 7 Percent In Generic Ballot Polling; A 14 Percent Swing Since Obama Took Office. (3,500 LVs, MoE +/- 2, 1/4-1/10/10; "Generic Congressional Ballot," Rasmussen Reports, 1/25-31/10)

• "Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on nine out of 10 key issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports." ("Trust on Issues," Rasmussen Reports, 2/5/10)

GALLUP: Voters Leaving Democratic Party For GOP As Democrats Party Identification Lead Over GOP Only 5 Points (48-43), Compared To One Year Ago When Democrats Led GOP By 15 Percent (53-38). ("Party Affiliation," Gallup, 1/8-10/10; "Party Affiliation," Gallup, 1/30-2/1/09)

"[I]f Democrats stay on their current downward trajectory, their majority will be history. The retirements that are likely to result from almost any deterioration in the House Democrats' current situation would reduce their chances of maintaining control to 50-50." (Charlie Cook, "Presidential Sins," National Journal, 1/30/10)

"[R]ecent retirements, worrisome poll numbers for several incumbents and the entrance of some strong GOP challengers have prompted a wave of concern amongst Senate Dems." (Jay Newton-Small, "How the Democrats Could Lose the Senate," Time, 2/4/10)

• Once Thought Inconceivable, There Are Now Enough Democrat-Held Senate Seats Considered "Competitive" For GOP To Potentially Take Control. "With the developments in Illinois and Indiana over the past 24 hours, the Cook Political Report now carries 10 Democratic-held seats in their most competitive categories -- meaning, theoretically, that if Republicans ran the table (and lost none of their own toss up seats in Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio) they could get to 51 seats and the Senate majority. Is it a longshot? Absolutely. But, remember that recent history has shown that in a national political landscape tipped in favor of one party a strong majority of toss up contests tend to fall that party's way." (Chris Cillizza, "Is The Senate Majority Now In Play?" The Washington Post's The Fix Blog, 2/3/10)

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Including 20,000 Jobs Lost Last Month. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/8/10)

"Democratic Proposals Have Been All Over The Map, Ranging From Small-Business-Hiring Tax Credits To Using Billions In Leftover Money From The Wall Street Bailout To Pay For Jobs Programs And Infrastructure Spending." (Meredith Shiner, "Democrats Coy About Jobs Bill Costs," Politico, 2/4/10)

Democrats "Far From Consensus" On How Stimulus II Will Be Funded, What Final Bill "Will Look Like." "The Democrats' refusal to answer about specifics of the legislation's funding -- Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said repeatedly that those questions will be sorted out by  Montana Sen. Max Baucus and the Finance Committee he chairs -- underscores the pressure they feel to move on the new top priority. Yet it also shows Democrats are far from consensus within their own caucus on exactly what a jobs package will look like." (Meredith Shiner, "Democrats Coy About Jobs Bill Costs," Politico, 2/4/10)

• Dems Even Still Differ On Size Of Stimulus II.  "Dorgan and Durbin have advocated an $82 billion plan. According to memos circulated about the plan, $75 billion would be paid for by the banks that are returning funds they received through the Troubled Asset Relief Program ... Baucus advocated a more scaled-back plan, and the emerging bill -- which is expected to include provisions outside the Finance Committee's jurisdiction -- now will carry a price tag far less than $80 billion, several sources said Friday." (Manu Raju & Meredith Shiner, "Democra ts Squabble Over Jobs Bill," Politico, 2/1/10)

Sens. Max Baucus And Chuck Schumer Led Coup, Took Bill Away From Sens. Byron Dorgan And Dick Durbin. "Baucus and Schumer wrested the lead on the package from Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who were originally tasked by Reid late last summer to craft a jobs bill. Dorgan and Durbin spent months gathering 121 policy proposals grouped in broad categories like small-business job creation, green technology, infrastructure development and the protection of public sector jobs." (Lisa Lerer & Manu Raju, "Dems Race To Meet Jobs Bill Deadline," Politico, 2/5/10)

But Dorgan Is Digging In, Saying "This Jobs Agenda Is Not Going To End Monday." "Dorgan said he still plans to push for other pieces of his proposal... 'This jobs agenda is not going to end Monday,' said Dorgan." (Lisa Lerer and Manu Raju, "Dems Race To Meet Jobs Bill Deadline," Politico, 2/5/10)

Senators Growing "Frustrated" As "No Consensus [Has Been] Reached." "In the meeting, two attendees later said, Durbin seemed skeptical about going Baucus's route, questioning why money for states, firefighters and police should be left out of the first package... No consensus was reached, and Reid told the senators -- some of whom were clearly frustrated -- to think it over and come up with a revised strategy, sources later said." (Manu Raju & Meredith Shiner, "Democrats Squabble Over Jobs Bill," Politico, 2/1/10)

GIVEN UPCOMING ELECTION, SOME DEMS CONCERNED ABOUT PRICE OF STIMULUS II

Nervous Dems Worried About Passing Stimulus II Bill "Heavy In Spending" After Losing Massachusetts Special Election. "A draft circulated last week put a price tag at roughly $80 billion... But after the Republicans won the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat -- and lost their 60th vote -- Democratic strategists urged leadership to avoid producing a bill that could be seen as heavy on spending... 'There was a second thought given to whether a package heavy in spending that could easily be branded as a second stimulus was the right thing to do,' said a Democratic aide." (Lisa Lerer & Manu Raju, "Dems Race To Meet Jobs Bill Deadline," Politico, 2/5/10)

Jake Thompson, Spokesman For Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE): "Senator Nelson Is Very Concerned About The Level Of Federal Spending And The Deficit... He Would Look At A Jobs Package, But Those Factors Would Weigh Heavily In His Mind." (Andrew Taylor, "Senate Prospects Weak On Bill To Fight Job Crisis," The Associated Press, 1/19/10)

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN): "It's Hard To Answer In A Vacuum Without Knowing What's In It, But If It's Just A Wish-List Of Spenders' Favorite Items, That's Not Going To Go Through..." (Andrew Taylor, "Senate Prospects Weak On Bill To Fight Job Crisis," The Associated Press, 1/19/10)

DEMS NOT HAPPY WITH OBAMA'S "JIMMY CARTER THROWBACK" TAX CREDITS

Obama: "Today, I'm Proposing What I Believe Is The Best Way To Cut Taxes While Promoting Hiring By Small Businesses:  Through A Tax Credit For Companies That Add Workers Or Increase Salaries This Year." (President Barack Obama, Remarks By The President On A Jobs Tax Credit, Baltimore, MD, 1/29/10)

• Economist David Rosenberg Says Obama's Jobs Plan Out Of "Jimmy Carter's Economic Playbook." "As for this new job-focused fiscal plan out of Washington, there's really nothing quite like using the quick fixes from Jimmy Carter's economic playbook in the late 1970s -- after all, they worked so well. We have a record of over 6 million Americans who have been unemployed and looking for work without success for at least six months and another 9 million working part-time because they have no choice, and over 6 folks who are jobless competing for every job opening out there and somehow a $33 billion tax credit is the solution to the jobs crisis." (David Rosenberg, "Breakfast With Dave," Gluskin Sheff, 2/1/10)

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA): "Convince Me That Your Balance Of Putting Money On The Side Of Hopeful Small-Business Job Creation [Will Work], Because If People Don't Have Money, They Don't Go To Small Businesses To Buy From Them." (Peter Cohn, "New Jobs Credit Gets Cool Response," Congress Daily, 2/3/10)

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) Said The Tax Credit "Is A Stinker" That "Distorts The Market." "'The general consensus among tax experts is that the credit is a stinker because it simply encourages people to do what they would have done anyway,' he said. Doggett added that it 'distorts the market' by providing no new benefit to firms that have kept their workers on despite great financial pressures, adding that CBO has said this provision will be the 'least-felt where there's greatest need.'" (Peter Cohn, "New Jobs Credit Gets Cool Response," Congress Daily, 2/3/10)

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) Said Businesses Hire Because They Have Work, Not Because They'll Get A Tax Credit. "'I don't know anybody in business who hires an employee because they're going to get a tax credit. They hire an employee because they have work to do.' He added, 'At the same time, this budget cuts the Army Corps of Engineers,' citing it as an example of neglected infrastructure investment." (Peter Cohn, "New Jobs Credit Gets Cool Response," Congress Daily, 2/3/10)< /SPAN>

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) Said The Credit Would Be "About The Fiscal Headroom That Would Be Actually Necessary To Fund A Transportation Bill." "Another Democrat, Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, said the cost set-aside for business tax breaks in the budget, such as the new-hires credit, would provide 'about the fiscal headroom that would be actually necessary to fund a transportation bill.' Blumenauer is among those Democrats lobbying for a robust multiyear surface transportation reauthorization bill, which would require additional revenues that the White House has been reluctant to propose." (Peter Cohn, "New Jobs Credit Gets Cool Response," Congress Daily, 2/3/10)

Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) Said The Credit Would Be An Example Of History Repeating Itself. "Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., got into the act as well, saying that a similar hiring credit enacted in the 1970s basically fell flat. 'I guess this fits into the category of "We don't do anything new around here except the history we repeat,"' he said." (Peter Cohn, "New Jobs Credit Gets Cool Response," Congress Daily, 2/3/10)

AND HOUSE DEMS NOT HAPPY ABOUT SENATE PLAN TO PASS STIMULUS II PIECEMEAL

House Dems Upset About Senate Breaking Jobs Bill Into Smaller Pieces. "Despite the nascent bipartisanship in the Senate, the jobs bill faces a difficult path. House Democrats openly disdain the Senate's approach of splitting the jobs package into a series of smaller bills, a move designed to avoid the resistance a larger measure would attract. The House would need to find a way to reconcile any Senate bill with the broader $154 billion jobs legislation it approved late last year." (Naftali Bendavid and Gregg Hitt, "Senators Spar Over Jobs Bill," The Wall Street Journal, 2/5/10)

Rep. John Larson (D-CT): "We Just Think The Senate Ought To Step Up To The Plate And Do Something For The American People And Create A Real Jobs Bill."  (Naftali Bendavid & Gregg Hitt, "Senators Spar Over Jobs Bill," The Wall Street Journal, 2/5/10)


]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/284/ http://www.wsbtv.com/news/22463983/detail.html

ATLANTA - Channel 2 Action News has learned that nearly 200 DeKalb County (Ga.) school employees will be boarding flights to Los Angeles this week to attend an education conference that will cost taxpayers nearly $400,000.

The money isn’t coming from local tax dollars but from federal dollars that came to the county as part of the Obama Administration’s 2009 stimulus package.

Stimulus money from Washington is often discussed in terms of “shovel ready” constructions projects that are supposed to create jobs for unemployed Americans. But the DeKalb County School System has decided to use stimulus money to attend a 4-day conference sponsored by America’s Choice, which a schools spokesman calls “a great thing.”

The organization’s website describes it as a “solution provider”….that offers “comprehensive, proven solutions to the complex problems educators face in an era of accountability.” The website also says “America’s Choice has “an unparalleled history as a national thought leader.” (http://www.americaschoice.org/)

School spokesman Dale Davis tells Channel Two Investigative Reporter Richard Belcher that 184 principals, instructional coaches, district staff and teachers are scheduled to attend the conference in Hollywood. We found that the primary conference hotel is the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel and Spa ( http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/laxrh-renaissance-hollywood-hotel-and-spa/?toDate=2/9/10&groupcode=acaacaa&fromdate=1/31/10&app=resvlink).

Davis says the school system will spend $91,500 for conference registrations and another $291,400 for hotels, flights, meals and incidentals. That’s a total of $382,900 in federal tax money.

In an email, Davis wrote, “I am happy that you are expressing interesting in this training opportunity for our employees. We are focused on student improvement. America’s Choice is in partnership with the district to help improve the academic success in 40 of our lowest performing schools.”

DeKalb’s Board of Education recently touched off angry public protests by teachers when it awarded a new contract with a $15,000 raise to Superintendent Dr. Crawford Lewis. The board has defended the raise, even though it came at a time when the system is facing severe budget problems. Dr. Lewis is not attending the America’s Choice conference.

We’re hoping to interview someone from the school system about the $382,000 it is spending on the conference in Hollywood. We’ll post that as soon as possible.
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WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats voted Thursday to hit American families with a double whammy when they voted to raise the country’s debt ceiling by nearly $2 trillion and approved a provision that could force Democrats to hike taxes to pay for their runaway spending agenda. Their vote for the a PAYGO bill triggered a backdoor clause to allow her party to continue to pile up the debt from their government spending bonanza:

• “Under a plan devised by Democratic leaders and approved Wednesday by the Rules Committee, if the ‘self-executing’ procedural rule for floor consideration of the debt limit bill (H J Res 45) is adopted, the debt limit increase would be considered passed without a separate vote on the measure... The rule does, however, provide for a separate vote on the bill’s pay-as-you-go section. The bill would be cleared and sent to the president if the pay-as-you-go section is approved.” (David Clarke, Edward Epstein, and Greg Valdala,” ‘Blue Dogs Laud Plan for Vote on Pay-As-You-Go,” CQ, 2/3/10)

Unfortunately, there’s no end in sight for the taxpayers who are stuck with the bill for Congress's spending binge, as Congressional Democrats continue to rack up the debt:

• “A 1.9 trillion-mile trip is about the same as 8 million trips to the moon.
• “Unfortunately, the $1.9 trillion in new borrowing authority Congress is giving President Barack Obama won't take people quite that far. The additional $1.9 trillion raises the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, but that limit may have to be increased again after the November election.” (“How Big Is $1.9 Trillion? Very,” Associated Press, 2/4/10)

And since Congressional Democrats have shown little appetite for cutting government spending, their PAYGO ploy will likely amount to a massive tax hike to fund their next spending spree:

• “The paygo ruse gives Blue Dog Democrats cover to say they voted for "fiscal discipline," even as they vote to pass the greatest entitlement expansion in modern history. The Blue Dogs always play this double game.
• “The other goal of this new paygo campaign is to make it easier to raise taxes in 2011, and impossible to cut taxes for years after that.” (“The ‘Paygo’ Coverup,” Wall Street Journal, 6/12/10)

“With Democrats sinking the country deep into the red, Congressional Democrats' vote to bring on more debt is simply reckless,” said NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain. “They have embraced a job-killing agenda that spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. Instead of backing away from her party’s runaway spending spree, Congress just handed itself a credit card with a $1.9 trillion line of credit.”

After giving Congress the green light to pile another $1.9 trillion on the backs of American families, will Congressional Democrats ever get the message that enough is enough?

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/282/ Politico

The health care bill is in trouble, but a series of narrow deals — each designed to win over a wavering senator or key interest group — is alive and well, despite voter anger over the parochial horse-trading that marked the rush toward passage before Christmas.

With the exception of Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” which alienated independent voters and came to symbolize an out-of-touch Washington, none of the other narrow provisions that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid inserted into the bill appear to be in any kind of danger as Democrats try to figure out the way ahead.

Not only that, House liberals want to reopen the labor deal struck just days before Democrats lost their 60-vote majority — not to dial it back but to provide more generous protections from the tax on Cadillac insurance plans.

“For those of us who, in principle, are opposed to it, this gives us another chance to push for our basic principle,” said Rep. Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat with strong ties to organized labor who sits on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “It remains unsatisfactory.”

The flurry of last-minute deals helped sour Americans on the entire process, and the Massachusetts Senate election altered the trajectory of reform.

But Washington being Washington, none of that has cooled the appetite of senators and House members to tailor the bill to their specific needs — even though some Democrats worry that it could help destroy any chances of resurrecting reform, if lawmakers seem oblivious to voters’ concerns.

Nelson sacrificed his agreement with Reid to have the federal government forever pick up Nebraska’s share of a proposed Medicaid expansion, bowing to critics that included some in the Senate Democratic Caucus. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has singled it out, saying her members will not consider the bill unless the Nebraska deal is removed.

But there is no visible movement to erase a Medicaid deal with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) that she has said is worth $300 million, three times the amount of Nelson’s agreement.

Or to strike a line item that exempts Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan from a 40 percent tax on insurers that provide expensive health plans. Or to remove a provision that sends an extra $500 million in Medicaid funding to Massachusetts and $600 million to Vermont for being leaders in providing health insurance to their residents.

“It is very clear from the process that took place in the final days of the bill that Americans are disturbed about the process,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). “I believe it would be important for us to take out the egregious items.”

Does that mean he might forfeit the money for Massachusetts?

Not at all. Kerry argued the funding was completely legitimate because Massachusetts has already used significant state resources to extend benefits beyond what the current federal Medicaid rules require.

“I don’t think adjusting for Medicaid costs for states that have already done some things is inappropriate,” Kerry said. “I’m not for a single-state fix. I’m for every state in the country that has taken action, to have that reflected somehow, and that should be part of the fix.”

Kerry’s remark highlights an axiom of Washington: Every deal is egregious except your own.

On the labor deal, Levin said he signed off on it initially “in the context of trying to get the bill passed.”

But now that party leaders have gone back to the drawing board, he said critics want another chance to eliminate the tax completely. Barring that, he said they would like to raise the threshold on plans that would be taxed and exempt additional benefits — under the terms of the labor deal, only basic coverage would be taxed, exempting things like dental and vision coverage.

Democratic aides acknowledged this push in the House to get rid of the tax completely, but they suggested it could cause parliamentary problems moving forward. So most lawmakers are trying to shield more plans from the tax. Such a move would further undermine President Barack Obama’s goal of using the tax to discourage people from buying expensive plans that boost that growth rate in health care spending.

Pelosi and her leadership team have asked Reid to make changes that his own members favor, like stripping the Nebraska deal, according to an aide. House leaders are now waiting to see what Reid can pass with 50 votes.

Renegotiating the labor deal promises to slow things down at a critical time for party leaders.

"Reconciliation would be a tough enough lift," said a senior Senate Democratic aide, referring to the procedural maneuver that leaders are considering using to pass a bill. "Reopening the House-Senate deal to make it more expensive or jerk it further to the left would be playing with fire."

Jim Manley, Reid’s spokesman, declined to comment on the labor deal or the removal of state-specific provisions.

The senior Senate Democratic aide acknowledged that the state-specific provisions were likely safe simply because none had taken on the symbolic weight of the Nebraska deal.

But if that is the case, Democrats may face criticism from within their own party. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill told POLITICO that all of the narrow provisions should be removed.

“That would be my hope,” she said.

Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Landrieu, said the senator has not been approached about giving up the money that she secured while deciding whether to support the bill in November. Saunders pointed to Landrieu’s backing of the provision in a Dec. 22 floor speech, during which she defended it as necessary to dealing with the effects of Hurricane Katrina and supported by the entire congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal.

California Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza said he sought assurances from administration officials that the $500 million he secured in the House health care bill to educate doctors in rural communities would remain intact.

“I’ve had some conversations,” Cardoza said about keeping that money in a final bill. “The White House has already acknowledged the need to fund education programs for doctors in these communities.”

While some lawmakers make no excuses, others have betrayed annoyance at being included in the wave of stories outlining the deal making involved in the Senate bill. The attention surprised longtime Washington hands who realize such horse-trading is a basic ingredient in legislating.

“People lied about this,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had been undecided on the bill before steering $10 billion to fund community health centers. He took pains to point out it would benefit all 50 states — not just Vermont.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he sought an exemption from the insurance tax for all “legitimate” nonprofit insurance companies, but the leaders ended up inserting a more specific provision that narrowly benefitted Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

“I think they wanted to accommodate me,” said Levin, who now wants the leaders to replace it with the general provision he initially pursued.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) inserted an item that allows people who have been exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont., to receive Medicare assistance. It fulfilled the government’s responsibility, first codified in a 1980 law, to provide health care to victims of public health emergencies, said Erin Shields, a Baucus spokeswoman.

But it was also a bid to speed up the bureaucracy. Without the Libby language, the secretary of health and human services would need to write a regulation that requires a comment period that could take up to a year.

“The public health emergency provision is not a deal, so it’s certainly not on the chopping block,” Shields said.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/281/ Pioneer Press

Three years after returning from Iraq, 2,500 Minnesota soldiers are still waiting for bonus pay promised them by the government.

The Minnesota Army National Guard soldiers were deployed to Iraq in 2005 and served 22 months of active duty, 16 in Iraq, with a promise from the federal government that they would receive bonus pay for their long service — the longest deployment of any infantry unit since World War II.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. John Kline confronted Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a budget hearing, demanding to know when the soldiers would get paid. Gates' staff said it would get back to him.

The Minnesota soldiers of the "Red Bull" 34th Infantry Brigade are owed about $10 million. Minnesota's congressional delegation has repeatedly tried to get the Pentagon to pay up.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/280/ Wall Street Journal

The federal budget deficit has long since graduated from nuisance to headache to pressing national concern. Now, however, it has become so large and persistent that it is time to start thinking of it as something else entirely: a national-security threat.

The budget plan released Monday by the Obama administration illustrates why this escalation is warranted. The numbers are mind-numbing: a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined—and that assumes Congress enacts President Barack Obama's proposals to start bringing it down, and that the proposals work.

These numbers are often discussed as an economic and domestic problem. But it's time to start thinking of the ramifications for America's ability to continue playing its traditional global role.

The U.S. government this year will borrow one of every three dollars it spends, with many of those funds coming from foreign countries. That weakens America's standing and its freedom to act; strengthens China and other world powers including cash-rich oil producers; puts long-term defense spending at risk; undermines the power of the American system as a model for developing countries; and reduces the aura of power that has been a great intangible asset for presidents for more than a century.

"We've reached a point now where there's an intimate link between our solvency and our national security," says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior national-security adviser in both the first and second Bush presidencies. "What's so discouraging is that our domestic politics don't seem to be up to the challenge. And the whole world is watching."

In the 21st-century world order, the classic, narrow definition of national-security threats already has expanded in ways that make traditional foreign-policy thinking antiquated. The list of American security concerns now includes dependence on foreign oil and global warming, for example.

Consider just four of the ways that budget deficits also threaten American's national security:

• They make America vulnerable to foreign pressures.

The U.S. has about $7.5 trillion in accumulated debt held by the public, about half of that in the hands of investors abroad.

Aside from the fact that each American next year will chip in more than $800 just to pay interest on this debt, that situation means America's government is dependent on the largesse of foreign creditors and subject to the whims of international financial markets. A foreign government, through the actions of its central bank, could put pressure on the U.S. in a way its military never could. Even under a more benign scenario, a debt-ridden U.S. is vulnerable to a run on the American dollar that begins abroad.

WSJ's Jerry Seib previews his column in tomorrow's Journal in which he writes the federal budget deficit has become so large, it's time consider it a natural-security threat. Plus, the News Hub provides a February market outlook and also discusses the findings of a new autism study.

Either way, Mr. Haass says, "it reduces our independence."

• Chinese power is growing as a result.

A lot of the deficit is being financed by China, which is selling the U.S. many billions of dollars of manufactured goods, then lending the accumulated dollars back to the U.S. The IOUs are stacking up in Beijing.

So far this has been a mutually beneficial arrangement, but it is slowly increasing Chinese leverage over American consumers and the American government. At some point, the U.S. may have to bend its policies before either an implicit or explicit Chinese threat to stop the merry-go-round.

Just this weekend, for example, the U.S. angered China by agreeing to sell Taiwan $6.4 billion in arms. At some point, will the U.S. face economic servitude to China that would make such a policy decision impossible?

• Long-term national-security budgets are put at risk.

This year, thanks in some measure to continuing high costs from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. will spend a once-unthinkable $688 billion on defense. (Before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, by contrast, the figure was closer to $300 billion.)

Staggering as the defense outlays are, the deficit is twice as large. The much smaller budgets for the rest of America's international operations—diplomacy, assistance for friendly nations—are dwarfed even more dramatically by the deficit.

These national-security budgets have been largely sacrosanct in the era of terrorism. But unless the deficit arc changes, at some point they will come under pressure for cuts.

• The American model is being undermined before the rest of the world.

This is the great intangible impact of yawning budget deficits. The image of an invincible America had two large effects over the last century or so. First, it made other countries listen when Washington talked. And second, it often—not always, of course, but often—made other peoples and leaders yearn to be like America.

Sometimes that produced jealousy and resentment among leaders, but often it drew to the top of foreign lands leaders who admired the U.S. and wanted their countries to emulate it. Such leaders are good allies.

The Obama administration has pledged to create a bipartisan commission charged with balancing the budget, except for interest payments, by 2015. The damage deficits can do to America's world standing is a good reason to hope the commission works.
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• Halperin: "I see as much Michael Dukakis in these excerpts." (MSNBC's "Hardball," 1/27/10)

The Plum Line's Greg Sargent: "It's Hard To See How This Speech Isn't Disappointing On Health Care." (Greg Sargent, "The Speech," The Plum Line, 1/27/10)

• Sargent: "It Didn't Come Up Until The 53rd Paragraph Of His Speech. While He Urged Congress Not To Walk Away From Completing Reform, The Speech Was Notably Lacking On Specifics In Terms Of What He'd Like To See Congress To Do Resolve The Current Impasse." (Greg Sargent, "The Speech," The Plum Line, 1/27/10)

CNN's Ed Henry: "[S]peech has lot of meat on bones, there is lot of substance on education, trade, economy -- but doesn't feel like there's a theme." (twitter.com)

• Henry: "[C]olleague notes the 'Viewer's Guide' put out by the WH with sound bytes did NOT mention health care. [I]mpossible to imagine just weeks ago" (twitter.com)
• Henry: "[T]his was an even harder pivot away from health care to jobs than i expected; he fought for health care and is still hopeful of deal but ..." (twitter.com)

"PolitiFact: Obama Incorrect On Lobbyist Policy" (CNN, 1/27/10)

ABC News' Rick Klein: "[O]ne thing to count tonight - how many pledges/promises are really 'call on Congress...'? easier to say later, well, we tried" (twitter.com)

The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny: "Dropping Down the Priority List: If anyone was looking for a sign about the future of health care legislation, perhaps none is clearer than this: After 25 minutes, not a word has been uttered about the signature domestic initiative of Mr. Obama's first year." (Jeff Zeleny, "Live Blogging the President's Address," The New York Times, 1/27/10)

• Zeleny: "The strategy now, aides to the president say, is to let the issue fall below the radar, become less radioactive and hope to resurrect a scaled-back version at some point." (Jeff Zeleny, "Live Blogging the President's Address," The New York Times, 1/27/10)

Time's Karen Tumulty: "[The Supreme Court] gets called out in the [State Of The Union]. Has that ever happened before?" (twitter.com)

• Tumulty: "[I]s obama talking this long so no one will be awake to watch the republican response?" (twitter.com)

NBC's Chuck Todd: "Just crossed the one hour mark: Only Bill Clinton (every SOTU) and LBJ (just one) have given SOTUs longer than 60 minutes." (twitter.com)

• Todd: "President has spent a GOOD deal of time on what's wrong with Washington and what's wrong with our politics." (twitter.com)
• Todd: " Wow, talk about a passing mention, his call for dealing with immigration was not exactly a 'must do' for Congress this year." (twitter.com)

CNN's Candy Crowley: "Wow. President Obama takes on the Supreme Court, which is seated in the front row. He dissed them for their decision on campaign finance spending." (Candy Crowley, "Crowley: Obama Takes On SCOTUS," CNN, 1/27/10)

CNN's Gloria Borger: "The one missing piece: what he intends to do on healthcare." (Gloria Borger, "Borger: Smart, but missing a piece," CNN, 1/27/10)

Washington Post's Howard Kurtz: "Is this the first time the media have been called out in a SOTU? Should pundits demand a response after Bob McDonnell?" (twitter.com)

The Wall Street Journal: "[M]r. Obama reserved some of the harshest criticism for the Washington that he was expected to lead but which often has confounded him." (Laura Meckler And Jonathan Weisman, "Obama Calls for New Jobs Bill," The Wall Street Journal, 1/27/09)

• WSJ: "The circumstances surrounding Wednesday's speech contrasted sharply with Mr. Obama's first address to Congress last February." (Laura Meckler And Jonathan Weisman, "Obama Calls for New Jobs Bill," The Wall Street Journal, 1/27/09)

"The president hadn't even left the chamber, and at least one liberal House member was ready to let loose. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) first faulted Obama for endorsing nuclear power in his speech. ... And he joked about Obama's commitment to double exports." (James Hohmann, "Liberal Discontent Comes Quick," Politico's Politico Live, 1/27/10)

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "Of course, the blame game is a dangerous one to play as it can always boomerang back at you. Whether it's later this year, 2011 or even 2012, a majority of the American people will view this as Obama's economy." (Chris Cillizza, "First Thoughts On President Obama's State Of The Union Address," The Washington Post's The Fix Blog, 1/27/10)

• Cillizza: "Obama waited more than thirty minutes before raising the touchy topic of health care." (Chris Cillizza, "First Thoughts On President Obama's State Of The Union Address," The Washington Post's The Fix Blog, 1/27/10)
  
• Cillizza: "Obama's message to his own party as more surprising. ... The question: Does Obama still have credibility with this group of wavering Democrats after what has happened in the past year?" (Chris Cillizza, "First Thoughts On President Obama's State Of The Union Address," The Washington Post's The Fix Blog, 1/27/10)

Paul Begala: "I'm getting the sense he's trying to downplay healthcare here." (CNN, 1/27/10)

The Washington Post's Alec MacGillis: "Tonight, in seeking to rebut Republican claims that he is a big spender, Obama is playing up the role of earmarks, without the perspective he offered against McCain." (Alec MacGillis, "44: Politics And Policy SOTU Liveblog" The Washington Post, 1/27/10)

WaPo's Michael Fletcher: "The president's sentiments ... imply that the Republicans have been obstructionists and they have stood in almost unanimous opposition to the president's major initiatives. But that view obscures a basic fact: Democrats run Washington." (Michael Fletcher, "44: Politics and Policy SOTU Liveblog" The Washington Post 1/27/10)

• Fletcher: "Intense partisanship is not a new feature in Congress, and it is a president's job to break through it, particularly when he has such a huge advantage." (Michael Fletcher, "44: Politics and Policy SOTU Liveblog" The Washington Post 1/27/10)
• Fletcher: "Consequently, it is fair to say that the congressional Democrats are also to blame for the president? legislative problems." (Michael Fletcher, "44: Politics and Policy SOTU Liveblog" The Washington Post 1/27/10)

WaPo's Lori Montgomery: "Obama refers here to his plan to raise taxes on international corporations by more than $200 billion over the next decade, a proposal that went nowhere in Congress after he laid it out last year." (Lori Montgomery, "44: Politics and Policy SOTU Liveblog" The Washington Post 1/27/10)

• Montgomery: "The idea is unlikely to win approval in an election year, either, and even some of the most liberal Democrats ... say they would only consider such a big tax hike on business in the context of comprehensive tax reform." (Lori Montgomery, "44: Politics and Policy SOTU Liveblog" The Washington Post 1/27/10)

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/278/
The Associated Press's Jennifer Loven: "[I]n the Republican response, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia showed no sign of his party capitulating to Obama." (Jennifer Loven, "Obama: Government Faces 'Deficit Of Trust'," The Associated Press, 1/27/10)

• Loven: "In fact, the choice of McDonnell to represent Republicans was symbolic, meant to showcase recent GOP election victories by him and others." (Jennifer Loven, "Obama: Government Faces 'Deficit Of Trust'," The Associated Press, 1/27/10)
• Loven: "McDonnell reflected the anti-big government sentiment that helped lead to their wins, saying in excerpts from his own post-speech remarks that Americans want good health care they can afford, just not by turning over 'the best medical care system in the world to the federal government.'" (Jennifer Loven, "Obama: Government Faces 'Deficit Of Trust'," The Associated Press, 1/27/10)

AP's Stephen Ohlemacher: "McDonnell told a cheering crowd of supporters in Richmond, Va., that Democratic policies are resulting in an unsustainable level of debt. He said Americans want affordable health care, but they don't want the government to run it." (Stephen Ohlemacher, "Republicans Say Nation Can't Afford Dem Policies," The Associated Press, 1/27/10)

• Ohlemacher: "McDonnell said that all Americans want affordable, high-quality health care. But, he added, 'Most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government.'" (Stephen Ohlemacher, "Republicans Say Nation Can't Afford Dem Policies," The Associated Press, 1/27/10)

Los Angeles Times: McDonnell hit efforts by Democrats to jump start the economy -- efforts he called lacking..." ("Republican Response: Gov. Bob Mcdonnell Invokes Jefferson," Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" Blog, 1/27/10)

• LAT: "The staging allowed for applause and, in some instances, humor." ("Republican Response: Gov. Bob Mcdonnell Invokes Jefferson," Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" Blog, 1/27/10)

The [Hampton Roads] Daily Press: "[T]he Republican took substantive shots at Obama and Democratic initiatives, including the $787 billion federal stimulus, defense priorities, energy policy and health-care reform ..." (Kimball Payne, "Gov. Bob Mcdonnell: Democrats 'Trying To Do Too Much'," The Daily Press, 1/27/10)

• DP: "The national spotlight allowed McDonnell to introduce himself to millions of voters unfamiliar with Virginia politics." (Kimball Payne, "Gov. Bob Mcdonnell: Democrats 'Trying To Do Too Much'," The Daily Press, 1/27/10)
• DP: McDonnell gave "the Republican Party a merry, pro-business face and staying true to the focal point of his campaign pitch -- job creation." (Kimball Payne, "Gov. Bob Mcdonnell: Democrats 'Trying To Do Too Much'," The Daily Press, 1/27/10)
• DP: "McDonnell criticized ballooning federal debt and said it's vital to cultivate entrepreneurship." (Kimball Payne, "Gov. Bob Mcdonnell: Democrats 'Trying To Do Too Much'," The Daily Press, 1/27/10)
• DP: "McDonnell said it is counterproductive to extend the legal rights of a U.S. citizen to the bomber who attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day..." (Kimball Payne, "Gov. Bob Mcdonnell: Democrats 'Trying To Do Too Much'," The Daily Press, 1/27/10)

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/277/ Politico

January 26, 2010

More Senate Democrats are pressuring the Obama administration to move Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial out of New York City and into a military commission.

Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Jim Webb of Virginia signed on to a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder condemning the administration’s November announcement of a criminal trial in Manhattan.

“Your decision to prosecute enemy combatants captured on foreign battlefields like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is without precedent in our nation’s history,” the senators wrote. “Given the risks and costs, it is far more logical, cost-effective, and strategically wise to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the military commissions.”
 
The letter “shows that there is growing support, especially on the Democratic side, against this decision. Going on the record in a letter to the [attorney general] is a big step for both Webb and Lincoln,” a Senate aide said.

The letter is also signed by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.)

In November, Holder officially announced the Justice Department’s decision to try Mohammed and four other suspects in the southern district of New York. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said it will cost the city approximately $200 million per year to provide the necessary security and infrastructure for the trial — a point the senators criticized.

The senators also argued holding the trial in a location so close to the World Trade Center site would provide Al Qaeda with little more than a recruiting opportunity.

“You will be providing them one of the most visible platforms in the world to exalt their past acts and to rally others in support of further terrorism. Such a trial would almost certainly become a recruitment and radicalization tool for those who wish us harm,” they wrote.

The Department of Defense officially withdrew the military commission’s charges against the five men last week — though they did so “without prejudice,” allowing officials room to bring charges again if necessary.


]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/276/ CNN

Washington (CNN) – Only three in ten Americans say they want Congress to pass legislation similar to the health care reform bills that have already been approved by the House and Senate, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey also indicates that nearly half the public, 48 percent, would like federal lawmakers to start work on an entirely new bill, and 21 percent feel Congress should stop working an any bills that would change the country's health care system.

The survey's Tuesday release comes one week after Republican Scott Brown's victory in a special senate election in Massachusetts. The GOP win means once Brown is sworn in as a senator, the Democrats will lose their 60-seat supermajority in the chamber, making their chances of passing the current health care reform legislation extremely difficult.

"Opposition to health care legislation is highest among senior citizens," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Twenty-nine percent of people over 65 want Congress to stop working on health care completely, compared to 20 percent of people under the age of 50."

According to the poll, Americans are equally divided on whether Congress will pass a health care bill by the end of the year.

Fifty-eight percent of people questioned in the survey oppose the bills previously passed by the House and Senate, with 38 percent supporting that legislation.

Would a stripped-down version win more support from the public?

"Yes, but a majority would still oppose a bill that would increase regulations on health insurance companies but not increase the number of Americans with health coverage," says Holland. "Support for a bill that only deals with insurance companies rises to 47 percent, but 51 percent would oppose a bill like that."

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted January 22-24, with 1,009 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/275/
White House advisers appearing on the Sunday talk shows gave three different estimates of how many jobs could be credited to President Obama’s Recovery Act.

The discrepancy was pointed out by a Republican official in an email to reporters noting that “Three presidential advisers on three different programs [gave] three different descriptions of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill.”

Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

Their remarks in context:

Axelrod, on CNN’s State of the Union: “But understand that, in this recession that began at the beginning of 2007, we've lost 7 million jobs. Now, the Recovery Act the president passed has created more than — or saved more than 2 million jobs. But against 7 million, you know, that — that is — it is cold comfort to those who still are looking.”

Jarrett, on NBC’s Meet the Press: “The Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs. There are schoolteachers and firemen and— and— teachers all across our country, policemen, who have jobs today because of that recovery act. We're investing in infrastructure. We're investing in public education so that our kids can compete going forth into the next— generation.”

Gibbs, on “Fox News Sunday”: “Well, Chris, let's take for instance the example you just used of the stimulus package. We had four quarters of economic regression in terms of growth, right? Just last quarter, we finally saw the first positive economic job growth in more than a year. Largely as a result of the recovery plan that's put money back into our economy, that saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/274/ interview with President Obama Monday, she asked him if going forward all the conversations should be on C-SPAN.

"I think your question points out to a legitimate mistake that I made during the course of the year," the president said, "and that is that we had to make so many decisions quickly in a very difficult set of circumstances that after awhile, we started worrying more about getting the policy right than getting the process right.

"But I had campaigned on process," the president continued. "Part of what I had campaigned on was changing how Washington works, opening up transparency and I think it is -- I think the health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns not just among my opponents, but also amongst supporters that we just don't know what's going on. And it's an ugly process and it looks like there are a bunch of back room deals.

Mr. Obama said, "I think it's my responsibility -- and I'll be speaking to this at the State of the Union -- to own up to the fact that the process didn't run the way I ideally would like it to and that we have to move forward in a way that recaptures that sense of opening things up more."

This was a remarkable admission considering how much others in the White House have acted as if President Obama kept his promise to -- as he pledged as a candidate -- "have the (health care reform) negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."

Diane today said to the president, "a lot of people think you must say at the end of the day, this is not who I was in 2008, these deals with Nebraska, with Florida... "

"Let's hold on a second, Diane," the president cut in. "I mean, I think that this gets into a big mush. So let's just clarify. I didn't make a bunch of deals. There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked."

In a way, the president's admission today that he campaigned on process, and didn't live up to his words from the campaign trail, were the only honest answer he could give. Politifact had labeled it a broken promise, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seemed to take a jab at the president earlier this month, joking, "there are a number of things that he swore on the campaign trail."

Still, in December, when I asked if the president would keep his campaign promise and have the last round of negotiations televised by C-SPAN, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said "this is a process legislatively that has played out over the course of nine months.  There have been a countless number of public hearings.  The Senate did a lot of their voting at 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning on C-SPAN.  A lot of this debate -- I think what the president promised and pledged was so that you could see who was fighting for their constituents and who was fighting for drug and insurance companies…"

But he was talking about negotiations, not voting, I interrupted. About the bill being put together.

"Well, but the bill gets put together on the floor of the Senate," Gibbs said. "That's where the bill got augmented."

Gibbs was asked about this earlier this month -- on January 5 and January 6 -- once other details of the negotiations were made public after hours and hours of closed door negotiations in the West Wing. Gibbs argued that since the media had written and broadcast many stories on the subject, obviously there were no serious transparency issues.

"We've filled your newspaper and many others with the back-and-forth and the details of what's in these bills," Gibbs told a reporter. "I don't want to keep that from continuing to happen.  I don't think there's anybody that would say that we haven't had a thorough, robust, now spanning two calendar years' debate on health care."
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/273/
After spending most of the last year focused on their costly government takeover of health care, the White House and congressional Democrats again claim they are pivoting to the issue of jobs – even as they remain committed to their job-killing agenda.  But Republicans have been demanding that Democrats focus on the economy and jobs for months.  Americans are asking “Where are the jobs?” And for the last year Republicans have focused their attention on how the economy is impacting families and small businesses, as well as common-sense solutions to help small businesses create jobs.  Here is just a sampling of media reports on Republicans’ determined focus on jobs:

• “‘Where are the jobs?’ House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, asks in news release after another, as the GOP lashes out at Obama’s policies and basks in the Massachusetts victory.” (Associated Press, 1/24/10)
• “In Washington, House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who has long hammered Obama with a repeating refrain of ‘Where are the Jobs,’ said today that the president has failed to deliver on a promise of jobs that he has made before in the Buckeye State.” (The Baltimore Sun, January 22, 2010)
• “House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio ridiculed Obama’s effort to rotate back to the economy.  ‘Instead of wildly pivoting from one issue to the next, the Obama administration needs to listen to American families asking ‘where are the jobs?’ and employers calling on Washington to scrap... policies that are already costing jobs,’ Boehner said.” (Associated Press, 10/9/10)
• “The argument that Democrats’ ambitions are unnerving business is one that Republicans have been making lately, and it was prominent Thursday when House Republican leaders held a competing round table on jobs with conservative economists.  ‘The American people are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’ but all they are getting from Washington Democrats is more spending, more debt and more policies that hurt small businesses,’ said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader.” (The New York Times, 12/4/09)
• “House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, hosted his own ‘Where Are The Jobs’ roundtable, where conservative economists called for lower taxes and fewer regulations, and criticized the way the Obama administration put together its $787 billion stimulus package.” (USA Today, 12/3/09)
• “Many are asking, ‘when will things get better?’ Many more are asking, ‘where are the jobs?’” (Rep. Mike Pence, CNN, 11/26/09)
• “The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, questioned what had happened to the many private-sector jobs that the administration had promised to create. ‘While Washington keeps spending and piling more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren,’ he said in a statement Friday, ‘out-of-work families keep asking, ‘where are the jobs?’’” (The New York Times, 10/31/09)
• “[Rep. Buck] McKeon to Administration: ‘Where are the Jobs?’” (My Santa Clarita, 10/29/09)
• “As families in my communities and across the country watch the national unemployment rate close to topping double digits -- with very few real signs of relief ahead -- they have one question for the White House: ‘Mr. President, where are the jobs?’” (Rep. Kevin Brady, Southeast Texas Record, 10/17/09) 
• “Small businesses are bearing the brunt of these losses. According to the ADP National Employment Report released September 30, employment among small businesses (those with fewer than 50 workers) declined by 100,000 from August to September, while employment declined by 61,000 among large businesses and by 93,000 among medium-sized businesses during the same period. The American people are right to ask: where are the jobs?”  (House GOP Letter to President Obama, 10/7/09)
• “Last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner asked, ‘I’ve been asking the question over the past three or four months, ‘where are the jobs?’’’” (Speaker Pelosi’s blog The Gavel, 10/19/09)
• “Where are the jobs? That’s the question that Republican congressional leaders, and millions of Americans, are asking these days. So far, the answer from President Obama is: They are coming, but not very quickly.” (US News & World Report, 10/14/09)
• “‘It is now evident that the massive ‘stimulus’ spending bill enacted months ago has been unsuccessful,’ GOP leaders wrote to the White House. ‘The American people are right to ask: Where are the jobs?’” (CNN, 10/13/09)
• “In the Republican response to Obama’s radio address, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers said she believed small businesses would pay a steep price under the Democratic plans.  ‘Because the Democrats’ plan is bankrolled by a small business tax, more jobs will evaporate. We’ve lost more than three million jobs since the beginning of the year and Americans have every right to ask, ‘Where are the jobs?’ she said.” (Reuters, 7/25/09)
• “Republicans took to the floor en masse to taunt Democrats on unemployment and health care, using a privilege called ‘one minutes’ (which are a series of one-minute speeches). In what was an apparently coordinated message attack, every Republican who took to the podium asked, ‘Where are the jobs?’” (MSNBC’s First Read, 7/21/09)
• “Weekly remarks: Obama still clearing wreckage; Cantor asks, where are the jobs?” (Los Angeles Times, 7/11/09)
• “‘When we started this discussion it was supposed to be about jobs, jobs and jobs,’ Boehner said. ‘It turned out to be nothing more than spending, spending, spending.’  Boehner’s remarks came one day after the Labor Department reported the jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5 percent.  Those unexpected numbers sent the stock market tumbling over fears the recession had not yet hit bottom. ‘The big question I have been asking is, where are the jobs?’ Boehner said.”  (The Cincinnati Enquirer, 7/4/09)
• “After five months of the so-called stimulus, Americans are left with just one question: ‘Where are the jobs?’ said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) head of the GOP’s Republican Study Committee.” (New York Daily News, 7/3/09)
• “‘Democrats demanded nearly a trillion dollars in so-called economic stimulus spending with a promise that jobs would be created, unemployment would stop rising, and the effects would be immediate,’ said Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee. ‘Nearly five months later, it’s time to ask: Where are the jobs?’” (MarketWatch, 7/2/09)
• “The 9.5 percent unemployment rate and the loss of 467,000 jobs gave Republicans plenty of fodder to blame President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress for failing to resurrect the economy in the six months since the stimulus passed.  ‘Where are the jobs?’ asked a stream of Republican releases.” (Politico, 7/2/09)
• “Republicans concerned about the Obama administration’s big spending on economic stimulus, energy and health care are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’” (Associated Press, 6/27/09)
• “[W]hile Republicans have acknowledged this mistake and offered alternatives to curb spending, create jobs, and control the debt, Democrats have stepped on the accelerator, telling taxpayers that more government spending equals more jobs. We’ve certainly seen plenty of spending, but where are the jobs?” (Boehner op-ed in the Washington Examiner, 6/23/09)
• “Voters are growing increasingly concerned and they want to know one thing: Where are the jobs?  We have yet to start the economic engine of this country, which is small business, not the government.” (Rep. Pete Sessions, The Hill, 06/23/09) 

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/272/ here.

During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends this morning, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said that the recent election results in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts are a ‘clear repudiation’ of Washington Democrats’ job-killing policies.  Whether it’s a government takeover of health care, the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ that isn’t working to create the jobs the Administration promised, or the ‘cap-and-trade’ national energy tax, the American people are saying ‘enough is enough.’  When discussing the President’s jobs package, Boehner noted that it’s more of the same government “stimulus” spending that will do nothing to create jobs and get our economy moving again while red ink as far as the eye can see piles up.  Finally, Boehner said that Republicans will continue to stand on principle and offer common-sense, better solutions for the American people.  Following are video and brief excerpts from Boehner’s appearance:

BOEHNER SAYS MASS., NJ AND VIRGINIA ELECTION RESULTS ARE A ‘CLEAR REPUDIATION” OF WASHINGTON DEMOCRATS’ JOB-KILLING POLICIES:

“Our party is doing better.  Listen, I’ll be the first one to admit we made our fair share of mistakes.  But the election in Massachusetts, the election in New Jersey, and in Virginia is a clear repudiation of the policies coming out of this Administration and this Congress.  Whether it’s health care, whether it’s all the spending, the debt, the bailouts, their national energy tax, the American people are saying, ‘enough is enough.’  And the other thing that the American people are asking is, ‘where are the jobs?’  It’s the issue that the American people want us to focus on.  Not another ‘stimulus’ bill that’s a whole bunch of government spending, but actually putting money back in the hands of American families and small business.”

BOEHNER SAYS DEMS’ “STIMULUS II” WILL DO NOTHING TO CREATE JOBS & GET THE ECONOMY MOVING AGAIN:

“But you listen to what he’s describing – his jobs package – it’s ‘Stimulus II.’  It’s more of the same old nonsense that will do nothing to get our economy moving again.  And that’s what the American people want, they want the economy to begin to improve and they want jobs to come back.”

BOEHNER SAYS REPUBLICANS WILL CONTINUE TO STAND ON PRINCIPLE AND OFFER COMMON-SENSE, BETTER SOLUTIONS:

“But what Republicans have done over the last year  is what we’re going to continue to do this year.  We’ve  stood on principle against all of their spending, all of their nonsense, their health care bill, their stimulus bill.  But each time that we opposed them, we offered what we thought was a better solution.  When we look ahead to this year, you’re going to see us continue to stand on principle against their policies we disagree with, but you’re going to see us continue to offer better solutions to the American people.”
 

]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/271/ GLENN THRUSH & JAKE SHERMAN & LISA LERERPolitico

Congressional Democrats — stunned out of silence by Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts — say they’re done swallowing their anger with President Barack Obama and ready to go public with their gripes.

If the sentiment isn’t quite heads-must-roll, it’s getting there.

Hill Democrats are demanding that Obama’s brain trust — especially senior adviser David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel — shelve their grand legislative ambitions to focus on the economic issues that will determine the fates of shaky Democratic majorities in both houses.

And they want the White House to step up — quickly — to help shape the party’s message and steer it through the wreckage of health care reform.

“The administration has got to be in the forefront now, instead of throwing some meat on the track and seeing what the House can work out,” said New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, expressing the frustrations also voiced by about two dozen Democratic elected officials and aides interviewed by POLITICO.

“I haven’t seen Rahm Emanuel except on television. We used to see him a lot; I’d like him to come out from behind his desk and meet with the common folk,” added Pascrell.

“What happened was they got so caught up in all these other issues like health care and cap and trade and all this other stuff, that because of that they maybe didn’t put enough focus on the economy,” said Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, a moderate who represents a conservative, rural district hard-hit by the economic crisis.

The White House would not comment for this story.

Administration officials say they get it — with Axelrod recently admitting that Obama’s team is recalibrating and refocusing on the economy. Emanuel, for his part, is now pushing for a stripped-down health care bill that could be passed within a few weeks and force Republicans, for a change, to take a few tough votes.

That may mollify some Democratic moderates, but it will further infuriate the liberals, who insist that the lesson of Massachusetts is that Obama has come on too weak, not too strong. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman captured the left’s winter of discontent Thursday with a blog post in which he wrote that he’s “pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.”

Despite the criticism, Obama is still popular on the Hill, and most Democrats acknowledge the enormity of the problems he faced when he took office.

“At this point, the challenge that they have had, and we have had, is that there were so many problems that were dumped in their lap when they took over,” said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow. “They have been moving quickly on a hundred different points, so I think that’s their biggest challenge.”

But the Brown loss has exposed deep resentment about Obama’s all-fronts legislative strategy, his hands-off approach to health care reform for much of the year, the actions of his economic team — especially Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — and his Afghanistan escalation.

But more than anything else, there’s a sense that the party’s greatest communicator isn’t conveying to voters that he understands their worries about the economy.

And that could swamp all Democratic boats, even those carrying incumbents who previously felt they were secure.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who supported Obama’s $787 billion stimulus a year ago, says the president needs to be much more forceful about how, where and why the money was spent if Democrats are going to get credit for attacking the recession in an era of double-digit unemployment.

“I think the administration needs to be much more aggressive, and hopefully the president will outline some of this in his State of the Union address,” she said. “We very much need leadership from the executive on this. You can’t just put money out there — even if we had it to put it out there — unless it’s going to produce an actual new job.”

Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy — whose father’s seat was captured Tuesday night by a Republican who opposes the health care reform bill — says Obama is still popular but needs to harness his “fierce urgency of now” when it comes to improving the economy.

“We’ve done a damn good job at righting this ship. And now it’s starting to move in the right direction. Now what happened?” he said. “We lost the sense of urgency that we’re still doing it every single day, because this isn’t over yet.”

The problem, from the perspective of the White House, is that fractious Democrats provide all the political direction of a nine-needled compass — and often send contradictory messages about how they want him to proceed.

In the House alone, there are nearly as many Democratic positions on health care as there are Democrats, with liberals goading Obama to double-down on reform and ram through a bill using the Senate’s controversial 51-vote “reconciliation” process.

Moderates, embodied by Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, a fiscal hawk, and New York Rep. Eliot Engel, are urging Obama to dispense with the issue as soon as possible before he marches the party off a cliff.

“I think that an effective majority is one that advocates and listens,” Engel said. “I’ve done a lot of advocating; now I’m listening. If the people say, ‘Wait, slow down, you’re going a little bit too fast,’ then we need to slow down.”

At the moment, the whole cacophonous crew seems to be united by the fear that no one is safe if a tea party-backed Republican can win the Senate seat the late Ted Kennedy held for nearly 50 years.

On the day after Brown’s win, panicky House Democrats convened in the Capitol to discuss post-Massachusetts strategy, with some in attendance complaining about what they believed to be continued White House disengagement.

“We all pretty much knew for sure we were going to lose Massachusetts,” one person in attendance told POLITICO on Wednesday. “And yet, last night and this morning, we had absolutely no message guidance from the White House, [the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] or [the Democratic National Committee]. There was no leadership. ... So all of the members today are just opining about what they think it means and whether we should move forward on health care.”

Despite the criticism, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs seemed determined to stay the hands-off course. Gibbs told reporters Thursday that, after Massachusetts, the president wants to let “the dust settle” and look “for the best path forward.”

But House Democrats, already terrified by the wholesale defection of independents to the GOP in Massachusetts, were infuriated when a New York Times article, apparently citing an administration source, suggested Speaker Nancy Pelosi could pass an unamended version of the Senate’s health reform bill.

“The sense was that the Obama folks were trying to say it was inevitable when it wasn’t,” said New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, a supporter of the public option who has clashed with the White House repeatedly about the issue.

“It wasn’t that they were bullying us, but it reinforced the idea that they were a little tone-deaf to what the reality inside the House and Senate really were,” Weiner added.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/270/ The Hill

Two House Democrats in tough reelection races are asking Congress and President Barack Obama to extend the Bush administration tax cuts.

Reps. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.) and Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.) asked members in a “Dear Colleague” letter Thursday to support extending the tax cuts, which passed in 2001 and 2003 and are set to expire this year, for at least another two years. Specifically, Bright and McMahon are asking lawmakers to sign a letter to Obama asking him to include the tax cuts in his budget plans for 2010.

“Allowing these tax rates to expire during this recession runs the risk of curtailing economic expansion just when it begins to pick up and could lead to a ‘double dip’ recession,” says the letter to Obama.

In the letter to the president, the members say the Bush tax cuts should not be allowed to expire. That would put them in opposition to Obama’s stated plan of letting some of the tax cuts meant for the wealthy to expire while keeping breaks in place for the poor and middle class, consistent with his campaign pledge of not raising taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Bright and McMahon’s letter is likely to earn backing from Republican-leaning business associations. For example, in releasing the letter to reporters, Bright’s office included a statement from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) praising the congressman.

“Small businesses are the engine of our economy, generating seven out of ten new jobs and leading our economy out of past recessions. The NFIB thanks Rep. Bright for standing up for small-business owners, our nation's job creators,” said Brad Close, the trade group’s vice president of federal public policy.

Bright is considered a prime target for a Republican takeover. Elected in 2008, the freshman Democrat saw 63 percent of his district vote for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the presidential race.

McMahon’s Staten Island district has traditionally leaned Republican as well. McMahon is another freshman Democrat who saw his district go for McCain last election, though by a smaller margin of 51 percent.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/269/ RNC Chairman

Washington Times

With so much noise constantly being made inside the Beltway by pollsters, pundits and operatives, it's always nice to hear the reality of what's going on outside the Beltway. On Tuesday night, a lifelong Democrat resident of Massachusetts, who voted for President Obama in 2008, explained on television in very clear terms why he voted for Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts' special election to the United States Senate: 'I wanted to send a message ... I think they've been trying to shove this health care bill right down our throats.'

This voter, like many Americans, feels betrayed by President Obama. Why? One year ago, the American people gave the president an enormous amount of trust to enact 'change we can believe in.' But with a weak economy and rising unemployment, this administration decided to take a 'big bang' approach to policy, taking advantage of the economic crisis to push their ultra-liberal agenda, including a government takeover of health care that will increase taxes and raise premiums.

So what were the results of Obama's 'big bang' this past year? Republicans took back the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, both states that Mr. Obama won in 2008. Five House Democrats have announced their retirements, along with two Senate Democrats who were once perceived as 'unbeatable' in their states. One House Democrat got so fed up with Mr. Obama's liberal agenda he decided to become a Republican. Polls show fewer Americans identifying themselves as Democrats and more identifying themselves as Republicans. Republicans are winning against Democrats in generic congressional ballots. And independent voters, who were key to Democrats' victories in 2006 and 2008, are running away from the Democratic Party faster than you can say 'Yes we can.'

It all culminated Tuesday night as the people of Massachusetts sent Scott Brown, who campaigned against Mr. Obama's government takeover of health care in the bluest of blue states, to the U.S. Senate. From the town halls of last August to the GOP gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey last November, the American people spoke clearly in 2009 and now they have spoken again, even more loudly, in the Bay State. However, it doesn't look like Mr. Obama is going to start listening any time soon.

Instead, he and congressional Democrats are drunk on power, arrogantly defying the people's will. They're currently plotting a strategy on how to rush their government-run health care bill to the president's desk. Mr. Obama's top aide, David Axelrod, says stopping their government takeover of health care is 'not an option.' Nancy Pelosi has said that she would do 'almost anything' to pass their bill. And instead of wanting to work with Republicans in 2010, the White House has signaled that they will start employing even more combative tactics, using every political weapon in their arsenal in an attempt to distract Americans from the failures of their administration.

This is exactly why Republicans are in a great position to win in 2010. Not only do voters realize that the only way to check the unbridled power of Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats is to elect more Republicans. They recognize that it is the Republican Party that has consistently provided solutions to grow our economy and create jobs. The Republican Party is listening to the voters, and the Democratic Party is lecturing to them. Right now, as Democrats continue on their arrogant path to push their liberal, big-government agenda, they're also on the path towards losing Congress.

This is my message to Americans who are tired of the change we didn't expect from Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats: If you have ever considered running for office, if you have ever considered donating to a cause, if you have ever considered getting involved, this is the time. Don't wait for instructions from inside the Beltway. Take action now, because we want to contest every single election this fall. If we can win in Massachusetts, we can win anywhere.

Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie and Scott Brown should serve as role models for all Republican candidates: The key to success will involve listening to voters, promoting bottom-up solutions to take our economy out from the depths of this recession, and courting independent and even Democrat voters."



 
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/268/ Politico

The Republican victory in Massachusetts has sent a wave of fear through the halls of the Senate, with moderate and liberal Democrats second-guessing their party’s agenda — and worrying that they’ll be the next victims of voters’ anger.

“If there’s anybody in this building that doesn’t tell you they’re more worried about elections today, you absolutely should slap them,” said Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter discontent to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in the race for Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat. Republicans moved quickly to capitalize Wednesday, with National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) telling POLITICO that he’s approaching possible candidates who passed up his initial entreaties to join the 2010 field.

“People, I think, are going to sense opportunities that they didn’t sense” Tuesday, Cornyn said.

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called the Massachusetts race a “wake-up call” for his party and said his colleagues were in a “reflective” mood at a private lunch Wednesday.

Several Democratic incumbents said later that none of the 19 Democratic seats up this year are safe — and that fundamental parts of the agenda need to be re-examined to win over voters back home.

“Every state is now in play,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who faces the toughest reelection battle of her career — most likely against wealthy Republican Carly Fiorina.

Boxer is pushing a cap-and-trade bill to control greenhouse gases, but her counterpart from California, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said a “large cap-and-trade bill isn’t going to go ahead at this time.”

“In my view, when people are earning, when their home is secure, when their children are going to school and they’re relatively satisfied with their life, then [when] there’s a problem like health care, they want it solved,” Feinstein said. “It doesn’t threaten them. The size of this bill threatens them, and that’s one of the problems that has to be straightened out.”

Asked if red-state Democrats up in 2010 and 2012 should be nervous about the electorate, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told POLITICO, “Oh, yeah.”

“I think part of the problem is the agenda itself,” said Conrad, who doesn’t face voters again until 2012. Instead of spending so much time on health care reform, Conrad said Democrats should have focused first on reducing the national debt and a bipartisan energy bill — and that President Barack Obama should have done a better job of explaining that the economic situation he inherited was “far worse” than he’d originally thought.

Other Democrats argued that they mishandled the health care bill, whose prospects have been seriously diminished with Brown’s victory.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), also up in 2012, said Democrats made a mistake by allowing bipartisan negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee to extend into the fall, saying that the lag time allowed the GOP to mischaracterize Democrats’ attempts to reform the health care system.

“What we didn’t do right in the past, I want to make sure we do right in the future,” said Brown, one of the more liberal members of the Democratic Caucus. “The health care bill should have been passed in September. There was much more public support, and the slow walk of the Finance Committee caused all this opposition by all the mischaracterizations of what the bill was about.”

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the more conservative members of the caucus, said some in the Democratic Party were “overreaching” and “advocating more government” than her constituents want.

She blamed House Democrats for advancing liberal proposals that skewed the public’s perception of more moderate measures moving through the Senate.

“Senators represent broad constituencies,” she said. “With all due respect to members of the House, their constituencies are very narrow views, very homogenous usually. Mine aren’t.”

But Democratic leaders urged calm Wednesday, even as they told candidates to prepare for battle in the next 10 months.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said a January special election in Massachusetts isn’t a “bellwether for everything.”

“We can see how the tide can turn in 10 months,” Menendez said, adding that he plans to have a “forensic exam of all our candidates and campaigns.”

Menendez said the party has already learned one lesson from Coakley’s losing campaign in Massachusetts: Democrats have got to be aggressive, defining both themselves and opponents early on — and frame the debate well before Republicans do.

Menendez also said his party has to “find a way to engage independent voters in a meaningful way,” and he suggested that a focus on Obama’s proposed “financial crisis responsibility fee” might be a way to do that.

And, he said, Democrats “cannot give up that mantle” of change.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who faces voters in the fall, said his state doesn’t take its “cue” from voters in Massachusetts. But he said that all candidates have to take their races seriously.

“Anyone that takes any race for granted shouldn’t be in politics, at any time,” Feingold said. “To me, that’s foreign language — I take every single race very seriously.

Democrats know that independents’ frustration with the economy and the lack of progress on legislative solutions are hardly limited to Massachusetts.

“People in our states want us to deal with the economy, with jobs,” said Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin. “All of us are going to be subject to that type of anger.”

And Republicans may not be protected just because they have an “R” after their names.

“I think everybody has everything to worry about,” said Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is up in 2010 and could face conservative former Rep. J.D. Hayworth in a primary this year.
]]> http://www.klineforcongress.com/news/267/ Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, 1/20/09

AFTER CELEBRATING OBAMA'S 1ST YEAR IN OFFICE, DEMS TO RAISE AMERICA'S CREDIT CARD LIMIT

After Anniversary Of Obama's Inauguration, Senate Dems To Vote On Raising America's Credit Card Limit. "The Senate will immediately consider a longer-term debt limit bill, along with several proposed amendments, on Jan. 20, the day after reconvening. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will offer a substitute that would increase the $13.029 trillion debt ceiling currently included in the bill, alth ough it's unclear how large the increase would be." (Geoff Koss, "Senate Clears Debt Limit Bill," Congressional Quarterly, 12/24/09)

• Senate Democrats Want To Increase Debt Limit By $1.9 Trillion, The Largest One Time Increase In American History, More Than Double The Previous Record. "Senate Democrats have proposed permitting the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion to pay its bills. That would permit the national debt to reach $14.3 trillion." ("Democrats Propose $1.9T In Debt Limit," The Associated Press, 1/20/10)

Dems Already Passed $290 Billion Debt Limit Increase On Christmas Eve.  "The U.S. Congress passed legislation increasing the U.S. debt limit by $290 billion before recessing for the year." (Jonathan D. Salant and Brian Faler, "Senate Votes to Increase Debt Ceiling by $290 Billion (Update1)," BusinessWeek, 12/24/10)

• Even Though Debt Ceiling Was Already Increased By $789 Billion Earlier In 2009. "If Congress agrees to the Treasury's request it would mark the second increase in the debt ceiling this year. The economic stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year increased the debt ceiling by $789 billion to $12.1 trillion." (Michael R. Crittenden And Patrick Yoest, "Lawmakers Urged To Raise Nation's Debt Limit," The Wall Street Journal, 8/10/09)

 White House "Strongly Supports" Hiking The Debt Ceiling. "The administration strongly supports passage of an increase in the public debt limit. Such an increase is critically important to make sure that financing of federal government operations can continue without interruption and that the creditworthiness of the United States is not called into question." ("Raising The Roof," Politico 44, 1/20/10)

CONTINUING THE DEMS' DANGEROUS BINGE SPENDING HABIT IN 2010, AN IRRESPONSIBLE PATTERN ENABLED BY OBAMA IN 2009

In 2010, Obama's Non-Defense Discretionary Spending To Increase By 16 Percent, Highest 1-Year Increase Since Jimmy Carter In 1978. (Office Of Management And Budget, "Table 8.7--Outlays For Discretionary Programs: 1962-2014," Accessed 12/11/09)

• Obama's Deficit Expected To Reach Record $1.5 Trillion In FY 2010. (White House Office Of Management And Budget, "Mid-Session Review: Fiscal Year 2010," 8/25/09)
• But Obama Still Rushing To Pass  $2.5 Trillion Government-Run Health Care Experiment. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT): "Just for a second -- health care reform, whether you use a ten-year number or when you start in 2010 or start in 2014, wherever you start at, so it is still either $1 trillion or it's $2.5 trillion, depending on where you start..." (Sen. Max Baucus, Floor Remarks, 12/2/09)
• And Is Pushing For $174 Billion Stimulus II. "The House narrowly passed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) $174 billion jobs bill Wednesday, only after Pelosi and other party leaders yelled, pleaded and cajoled reluctant Democrats worried over deficit spending. The vote was 217-212. No Republicans voted for the bill, and 38 Democrats voted against it." (Mike Soraghan and Jared Allen, "House Narrowly Passes Pelosi's $174B Jobs Bill," The Hill, 12/16/09)

Obama Started 2009 By Signing $787 Billion Stimulus Bill In Which Has Failed To Prevent Unemployment From Reaching Double Digits. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 1/11/10)

• In March, Obama Signed $410 Billion Omnibus Spending Bill Containing Over 8,500 Earmarks Worth $7.7 Billion. "President Barack Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill Wednesday ... that includes more than 8,500 pet projects worth $7.7 billion." (Jonathan Weisman and Greg Hitt, "Obama Outlines Plan To Curb Earmarks," The Wall Street Journal, 3/12/09)
• In December, Obama Signed $450 Billion Omnibus Spending Bill That Increases Non-Defense Discretionary Spending By 12 Percent From Last Year. "The sweeping omnibus package ... reflects a 12 percent increase in discretionary spending over last year ..." (H.R. 3288, Roll Call Vote #949; Approved 221-202; D 221-28; R 0-174 , 12/10/09; Jennifer Bendery, "Both Parties Pile Earmarks Onto Spending Bill," Roll Call, 12/10/09)
• Obama's Spending Contributed To Record Deficit Of $1.42 Trillion In FY 2009, Three Times More Than Previous Record Year Before. "The Obama administration has released new deficit numbers, and they are not pretty. The deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, came in at a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the record set just last year." (David Jackson, "Obama Team Makes It Official, Budget Deficit Hits Rec ord. By A Lot," USA Today's "The Oval" Blog, 10/16/09)

Obama's Budget Will Create $9.1 Trillion In Debt Over Next Decade, Nearly The Amount Of Debt America Has Accrued In Its Entire History Up To July 2008 ($9.5 Trillion). ("An Analysis Of The President's Budgetary Proposals For Fiscal Year 2010," Congressional Budget Office, June 2009; Public Debt, www.treasurydirect.gov, Accessed 7/20/09 )

BUT VOTERS READY TO STOP OBAMA DEMOCRATS THIS NOVEMBER

Last Year, In Virginia And New Jersey, "Vast Economic Discontent Marked The Mood Of ... Off-Year Voters, Portending Potential Trouble For Incumbents Generally And Democrats In Particular In 2010." (Gary Langer, "'09 Exit Polls: Voters Approve Of Obama, Wary Of Economy," ABC News, 11/4/09)

According To Latest Pew Research Center Poll, Americans Have Soured On Obama's Binge Spending, Big-Government Agenda:

• 58 Percent Of Americans Disapprove Of Obama's Handling Of The Federal Deficit, While 32 Percent Approve. ("Few See Personal Upside To Health Care Reform," The Pew Research Center, 1/14/10)
• 51 Percent Of Americans Disapprove Of Obama's Handling Of The Economy, While 42 Percent Approve. ("Few See Personal Upside To Health Care Reform," The Pew Research Center, 1/14/10)
• 52 Percent Of Americans Disapprove Of Obama's Handling Of Health Care, While 38 Percent Approve. ("Few See Personal Upside To Health Care Reform," The Pew Research Center, 1/14/10)

That's Why Dems Now Trail GOP By 9 Percent In Generic Ballot Polling, 16 Percent Swing Since Obama Took Office. (3,500 LVs, MoE +/- 2, 1/4-1/10/10; "Generic Congressional Ballot," Rasmussen Reports, 1/12/10)