Blue Dogs Roll Over

Toothless Blue Dogs Roll Over on Stimulus Bill
Donald Lambro
Friday, February 20, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The House's Blue Dog Democrats like to pretend they are the deficit tigers of Congress, determined to stop runaway spending and stamp out waste, fraud and abuse.

But when push came to shove, as it did in the pork-crammed $800 billion economic-stimulus bill, most of these tigers mewed like pussycats, voting in lock step with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank for a bill they had not read.

One by one, they inserted their voting cards into the slot in front of their seats and charged the stimulus money to the taxpayers. The first payment will be due April 15. Brace your wallets.

"Toothless tigers is one way to describe them. They are more gums than teeth when it comes to putting a bite on deficits," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union.

NTU's "bill tally" monitoring showed that Blue Dogs propose three-quarters less spending increases than the Democrats as a whole, but the majority of Blue Dogs still vote for most of the spending bills their party brings to the floor.

"The Blue Dogs can't say with a straight face that they have a moderate or conservative bone in their body. They're exposed as pawns of the most left-wing Democratic leadership in American history," says tax-cut crusader Grover Norquist.

There are about four-dozen Blue Dog Democrats who took their name about a dozen years ago from their Southern ancestry and who showed their party loyalty by saying they would vote for an old yellow dog before voting Republican.

At the start of the new Congress, they vowed that a "top priority will be to refocus Congress on truly balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the national debt places on them."

In a Feb. 4 letter to Speaker Pelosi, Indiana Rep. Baron Hill and seven other Blue Dog leaders said they had "serious reservations" about the big stimulus bill then working its way through Congress.

But on final passage, only a half-dozen brave Blue Dogs voted against the bill that will, with interest, add $1 trillion-plus to the federal debt.

One of them was Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick of Idaho, who had offered a $200 billion alternative, but when it failed, he voted no on the stimulus put together by Democratic leaders and the White House.

Minnick soberly told his constituents: "We must be mindful of the legacy we leave for future generations. The consequences of this bill will be painful and possibly harsh for those tasked with the burden of paying for what has been passed today."

The only other Blue Dog no votes came from Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith, both of Alabama, Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Heath Shuler of North Carolina.

Not all Blue Dogs are entirely honest or accurate in reporting what they voted for on Friday, Feb. 13. Rep. Allen Boyd of Florida issued a release that said "The final stimulus package includes $320 billion in spending initiatives, compared to $544 billion in the original House stimulus bill."

Actually, the bill he voted for contained $515 billion in spending and a whittled-down $275 billion in tax reductions.

But if some of the bill's questionable spending is a sign of things to come, the Blue Dogs and their colleagues will have a lot of explaining to do.

Go online to www.Propublica.org, a journalistic watchdog outfit that is shining some sunlight on the spending spree, and you will get an eyeful. The group boiled down the 1,000-plus-page bill to its separate appropriations. The list is a veritable who's who of all the major departments, agencies and programs in Washington. Everyone has his fingers in the pie.

There's $150 million for the Economic Development Administration, a tired Great Society holdover whose expenditures have wasted untold sums; $636 million for the Small Business Administration whose loans have never made a dent in new business development, affecting only a tiny fraction of start-ups; $1 billion for the Census Bureau for temporary census-taker jobs; and $2.5 billion for National Science Foundation grants to university academics who already have jobs.

Propublica also reported last week that, when it crunched the figures in the stimulus bill for about $100 billion in transportation and infrastructure projects, it "found that states with high unemployment are getting less money per-capita or even per-unemployed worker than states with low unemployment."

For example, Rhode Island, with 9.3 percent jobless, gets $193 million, while Virginia, with 4.8 percent unemployment, gets $890.6 million.

And www.StimulusWatch.org now lists all of the projects that are being funded under Obama's plan, many of which raise questions as to need.

In Lewiston, Maine, for instance, $2.6 million will be spent to build a bike and pedestrian path. In Portland, Maine, $2 million will go for a skateboard park; $1 million for a bike-pedestrian trail; $2.5 million to restore a pond; and $500,000 to replace the city's fleet of police cruisers and SUVs.

This is just a small sampling of what the Blue Dogs voted for, and no doubt there's more to come. Stay tuned.

"Conservative" Blue Dogs jet with wives to Paris on our dime.

Tanner, Gordon Vote to Give You $13 a Week, Take Wives to Paris for Valentine's Day on Taxpayers' Tab

Congressmen John Tanner and Bart Gordon are headed to Paris for Valentine's Day at taxpayers' expense

NASHVILLE – What are you doing for Valentines Day? Tennessee Congressman John Tanner – who claims to be a fiscally conservative Democrat – is taking his wife to Paris, France – and you are paying for it.

This will be Rep. Tanner's second taxpayer-funded trip to Europe since the November election. He traveled with a Congressional delegation to Valencia, Spain, and Rome, Italy, in November. This weekend, he's leading another Congressional delegation – 13 Congress members and 10 spouses – on a nine-day trip to Europe include Brussels, Rome, Vienna, Paris on Valentine's Day, and a stop at a famed ski town in the Bavarian Alps.

While the average American in tough economic times looks for bargains when they travel, Tanner and the delegation will be flying with an entourage of spouses, staffers and military escorts on a military plane at huge expense.

"The estimated average tax cut that middle class Americans will receive for the last six months of the year as part of the bloated 'economic stimulus' package that John Tanner and the Democrats passed in Congress today is $13 a week," said Bill Hobbs, communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party.

"At $13 a week, it would take the average American several years to save up enough money to take their sweetie to Paris for Valentine's Day, but John Tanner and Bart Gordon aren't average Americans," Hobbs said. "They are Democrat congressmen who claim to be fiscal conservatives but are right now jetting off to Europe at taxpayers' expense instead of coming back to Tennessee to explain why they voted for billions of dollars in pork projects and payoffs to special interest groups but only $13 a week for the average middle class taxpayer."

The front page of Tanner's congressional website notes today that each American's share of America's $10.7 trillion national debt is $35,038.15. On Friday, before jetting off to Europe, Tanner and Gordon voted to add $787 billion dollars to the national debt. Your share of that – more than $2,600 - would be enough to pay for a weekend in Paris.

In December 2007, Tanner gave a speech on the House floor in which he criticized continued borrowing to pay for today's federal spending., calling a proposal to add $50 billion to the national debt "irresponsible."

Another reason to thank the "conservative" Blue Dogs for supporting "Porkulus"

Fox News is on air now giving details of Porkulus.

According to Fox, the only part of the economy to be cut by Porkulus is our military -- 10% "to start," in the words of Barney Frank, for maintenance, training, and procurement

Other details include the Veterans Administration sharply cutting medical treatment for vets, and for military retirees, patient premiums and co-pays for TRICARE are being raised 100-400%, PLUS medical care for veterans and retirees will be the first to be rationed by the White House Office of Healthcare Coordination.

FEEL the love, tolerance, and bipartisanship...

Congress is voting on a bill they have not read or seen.

Our Congress is voting on a 1,434-page bill that no one—repeat, no one—has had a chance to read in its entirety, much less digest and deliberate. More lobbyists have copies of the bill than congressmen.

*This bill has been advertised as an economic stimulus bill—despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will actually weaken our nation's long-term economic growth.

* The bill reverses the bipartisan and highly successful welfare reforms of 1996 and drastically expands the welfare state. For instance, it will start rewarding states for adding people to their welfare rolls, rather than for helping them find gainful employment. And contrary to long-established practice, it will entitle able-bodied adults without children to receive cash assistance.

* It does extreme violence to the concept of federalism—bailing out states that have spent irresponsibly at the expense of taxpayers in states that have been fiscally prudent

* It greatly shifts the responsibility and power over health care delivery and decision making from individuals to government. Among other things, it would create a new federal health board to decide which medical services are "effective" in America, paving the way for government effectively to overrule the clinical decisions of private physicians.

* It deliberately censors religious speech and worship on school campuses by prohibiting use of any "stimulus" funds for facilities that are used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school of divinity.

The list goes on. These and similar provisions will mean fundamental changes in our society. In many instances, the bill would establish policies that directly challenge widely held American values.

Both the President and the leaders of the House and Senate have violated their solemn promises that the bill would be available for several days of public review prior to voting, so that the American people might have a chance to learn what is in the bill and to make their views known to their elected officials.

 

Blue Dogs Give Mouse $30 Million Dollars

Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese

Talk about a pet project. A tiny mouse with the longtime backing of a political giant may soon reap the benefits of the economic-stimulus package.

Lawmakers and administration officials divulged Wednesday that the $789 billion economic stimulus bill being finalized behind closed doors in Congress includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi represents the city of San Francisco and has previously championed preserving the mouse's habitat in the Bay Area.

The revelation immediately became a political football, as Republicans accused Democrats of reneging on a promise to keep so-called earmarks that fund lawmakers' favorite projects out of the legislation. Democrats, including Mrs. Pelosi, countered that the accusations were fabricated.

Politics aside, the episode demonstrates that no matter how hard lawmakers argue that they technically lived up to their pledge to keep specific projects from being listed in the bill, there is little stopping the federal money from going to those projects after the legislation passes and federal and state agencies begin deciding where to spend their newfound dollars.

Programs for sexually transmitted diseases, smoking prevention, a clean-burning power plant and a computer center also appear ready to get infusions of money once the bill becomes law, congressional offices told The Washington Times.

"One of the proudest boasts of Democrats supporting their trillion-dollar spending plan is that it doesn't contain earmarks. But it seems like powerful Democrats will still find a way to bring home the bacon," said a frustrated Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, who took direct aim at the mouse.

"This certainly doesn't sound like it will create or save American jobs," Mr. Steel said. "So can Speaker Pelosi explain exactly how we will improve the American economy by helping the adorable little" critter?

A spokesman for Mrs. Pelosi said Republicans "fabricated" the claim.

"The speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. This is yet another contrived partisan attack," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. "Restoration is key to economic activity, including farming, fisheries, recreation and clean water."

Republican lawmakers said they learned of the marsh money when asking about how various agencies plan to spend stimulus money. The vitality of the mouse has been an issue for Mrs. Pelosi and other California Democrats since the early 1990s.

President Obama boasts that the stimulus plan contains no earmarks because Congress technically did not use the earmark process for lawmakers to request and drop in specific spending items. Congressional leaders were putting the finishing touches on a $789 billion final version of the bill Wednesday night. It was not clear how many of the programs criticized by Republicans remained in the package.

Some of those items that Republicans are calling earmarks include $200 million for a clean-burning power plant in Mattoon, Ill., and $750 million for the National Computer Center and $500 million for the National Institutes of Health offices, both located in Maryland.

Other spending questioned by Republicans -- but not considered on the chopping block -- are $275 million for flood prevention, $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries, and $650 million for the digital TV converter-box coupons.

The list goes on: $1 billion for administrative costs and construction of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office buildings, $100 million for constructing U.S. Marshals office buildings, and $1.3 billion for NASA, including $450 million tagged for science.

Then there is the $300 million for hybrid and electric cars for the federal government. The funding includes golf carts for federal workers.

The "Change" brought to DC by 0bama

The only Change Obama has brought to DC is now the corruption is bigger and bolder.

The List

First president not to attend The Inaugural Medal of Honor Ball
5 exectutive orders the first week in office. Including
* -allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States.
* - Scrapping the Mexico City Policy that protected taxpayers from involvement in overseas abortions for eight years. Obama will send hundreds of millions of dollars to groups that aggressively promote abortions on a worldwide scale.
Insults China
First interview, with foreign news outlet- for Muslims
Talks about his muslim family
Picks fight with Limbaugh
Won't take question from press
Allows to FDA approve first human embryonic stem cell safety trial (3 days after Pres. Bush left)
Excludes any compromise with GOP on Stimulus bill Massive pork in stimulus bill
5% of stimulus bill to actually go to infrastructure
Offers to negotiate directly with Iran
Puts 5 millionairs on his cabinet
Makes a tax cheat the Sec. of the Treasury
Bombs Pakistan
Argues with the Pope on abortion
Signed the SCHIP bill, that gives health care to illegals
Won't allow a video of his retaking of the oath of office
Ordered the closure of Gitmo
Halts all pending Bush regulations

Second week:

Appoints extremist Samantha Powers to head foreign policy team
Secret nuke talks with Iran/Syria
Appoints tax cheat for commerce secretary
Illegal alien aunt, granted a "stay" of deportation Daschle the tax cheat/lobbiest proposed as secretary for health care
Nancy Killefer for candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for federal government fails to pay household help taxes ...withdrawn
Obama brings the U.S. Census Bureau under White House jurisdiction under protest from Republican lawmakers
12 lobbyists (or more) appointed to high gov't positions within the first 14 days of his administration (up to 17 by another source)
Administration demands defense cuts of 10% during wartime
Obama envoy George Mitchell tells Palistinians " they believe can extract from Israel concessions reaching "much further" than during talks held under the previous administration
The European Union warns the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting Obama's "Buy American" policy, intensifying fears of a trade war Obama immediately backs down from policy
After stating her priority would be "mum-in-chief", Michelle Obama goes on listening tour and then makes political speeches with her husband not yet one month in office...
George Mitchell resigns from a Saudi Lobbying firm, two weeks into his appointment as "Special Middle East Envoy"
Obama administration says it will cancel 77 drilling leases near Utah parks
Ogden, President Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, used to represent Playboy
Steven Chu, Obama's secretary of energy (not a climatologist) states: California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming
Obama names "most fined" Washington State bureaucrat Ron Simms to the #2 position in HUD
Hilda Solis, Obama's pick for labor secretary's husband is found to be a tax cheat just before the confirmation vote
Directed military prosecutors to revoked charges pending against mastermind of USS Cole bombing: Al Nashiri
Adding insult to injury: speaks to families of USS Cole dead, after decision to free Al Nashiri- not before

Third week in office

Obama changes the setup of the National Security Councel by executive order
Shauna Daly, professional "dirt digger" hired as "White House councel research director"
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel got free housing from House rep (D) Rosa DeLauro for 5 years . DeLauro is married to Stan Greenberg; a pollster (Quinlin Rosner Research) with lucrative contracts from both that representatives.

Stay tuned for more "change"

Blue Sky for Obama - Nothing but Blue Sky

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Media: Katrina crashes into New Orleans, FEMA responds feebly and President Bush is blamed for the loss of life and limb. Winter smacks middle America, killing 55, FEMA's late again, but President Obama gets a pass.

Last week's winter storm, paying no attention to Al Gore's warnings about global warming, has left a trail of dead and broken bodies and wrecked property from the Plains to the East Coast. Of the 55 deaths, 24 have been in hard-hit Kentucky.

Throughout the region, hundreds of thousands are still without power and some survivors have had to resort to using melted snow for their water supply. A shortage of gasoline and heating oil has made life miserable for many.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear called the ice storm "the biggest natural disaster that this state has ever experienced, at least in modern history." The Federal Emergency Management Agency, however, apparently didn't get the memo. Much as they did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, locals are complaining that FEMA has not been swift enough in delivering aid.

Nothing remarkable about that. FEMA, whose performance in the 2005 Katrina disaster wasn't exactly sterling, is a federal agency that supplements state and local authorities. It's not an on-site organization and can't respond instantly. That's the job of the city, county and state governments.

Sensing that the gloomy stories gushing out of New Orleans were the perfect platform from which to lash into the president, an opportunistic media-political-celebrity pack roundly accused Bush of negligence, incompetence and outright malice.

From rapper Kanye West's immediate charge that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's blog entry from just over a month ago lamenting that Bush did a "terrible" job of handling of the disaster, smears rained down in a devastating storm of their own.

The bitter criticism achieved its intended effect. Many people believe that Bush's FEMA response — or more accurately the media's biased portrayal of it — was the moment he began to lose the public.

Meanwhile, Obama, whose administration on taking office vilified Bush on Katrina, has done no more for the victims of the winter storm. Yet no tirade has been forthcoming from either the media or the loopy orbit of Celebrity Planet.

The double standard is what we've come to expect, but it's not what we should continue to accept.


THOSE FOLKS IN KENTUCKY ARE MADE OF SOME PRETTY TOUGH STUFF! (Steve Gill)


An email from a person in Graves County, Kentucky who hasn't seen all those FEMA people that President Obama and the Governor have been touting. Keep these folks in your prayers, as they continue to be ignored by the mainstream media and their President.

"I am a resident of Graves County in Western Kentucky and live in an area that has been devastated by the Ice Storm.  Members of my family have been without electricity since Tuesday Night Jan 27, 2009.  We have been told that is will be up to 4 weeks before the power will be up and running.   I am very disappointed in President Obama for not showing any interest at all in my state.  I did not vote for Obama because I felt his qualifications and lack of experience would lead this country in a downward spiral and cause great damage to our would status.  I saw video and pictures of President Bush personally going to areas of devastation after Katrina, Rita, Tornado Damaged regions, etc. once the areas were secure and safe for travel.  I find it hard to believe that Obama shows no interest in a state that has had a record number of people affected by the Ice Storm with no power.  Is Obama afraid of the gun toting, God fearing, patriotic citizens of the Great State of Kentucky?  Is it because Kentucky did not vote/support him in the election?  Or is it because his handlers have not told him what to do yet? (i.e. Pelosi and Reid)

This being said,  no one in my family has been contacted by FEMA/National Guard/County Sheriff's office/ etc. to check on our well being.  We have 4 families that have been living in a house.   There are 5 children (ages 10 to 5) and 6 adults.  We have a wood burning stove for heat and we use it to cook on.  We had to buy a $1000.00 generator to provide electricity to run our well for water, our freeze/fridge, and to provide entertainment for our children.  We have not relied on anyone to provide for our families and I am glad that we have not relied on any outside help.  We live in the south end of Graves County and we are about 15 miles from the county seat of Mayfield. Our Gov., Steve Beashear, has been our end of the state a few times since the Ice Storm has ended and he has been praising the Pres for his help in sending FEMA and federal help to our area.  Beashear is a democrat and I am sure he is afraid to speak out against Obama but we need to have leaders that show real interest in their people.

We have been told the things would be better with FEMA and that FEMA would help and provide assistance to the people of this area.  The fact is FEMA will repay the State and Local Governments for their costs in the clean up and recovery, but that all of the money individual citizens have spent to take care of themselves and others will not be paid back or no assistance will be made available to them.  Generators, Propane, and Kerosene have all been made available to the people affected with power outages, but is has come as a price.  Water has been given out to people in need, if you can make it to the shelters and distribution centers.  The government has provided MRE's to the shelters and center, however all of the Wal-Mart/Grocery Stores in our area had to throw out all of their frozen/refrigerated food, due to power outages, spoiled or not.

It would be nice to see the President in our area showing support to American Citizens in a time of need.  He could make us a bunch of empty promises to help and assist us all, like he did during the campaign.  Well this is not going to happen.  So what I am trying to say is We are doing fine without the help and assistance that is being mentioned in the news and we will pray, comfort, and take care of each other on our own."