This morning, House Republicans Conference adopted a unilateral ban on all earmarks. Yesterday, House Appropriations Committee enacted a ban on for-profit earmarks. However, the House Republicans' moratorium is more extensive and bans all earmarks for all members of the Republican caucus. Previously, While some members of Congress had sought to slow down "pork-barrel." most of the focus was on battles between the parties as to who could best reform the earmark process. The Republicans have drawn a line in the sand and voted to ban all earmarks by their Republican members. House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN) said this morning:
Federal spending is out of control and the American people know it. Earmarks have become emblematic of everything that is wrong with spending here in Washington D.C. Today, . . . House Republicans have determined to renounce earmark requests of all kinds in this Congress, and the American people won that debate.With the White House and Democrat leaders leaning on Blue Dog Democrats in the House to vote for Democrats’ unpopular monstrosity of a health care bill, more focus is falling on the outrageous special deals for various lawmakers that helped the bill pass the Senate in December and the potential that more deals might be made to get it through the House.
By standing in favor of a moratorium on earmarks in this Congress, House Republicans are making a clean break from the past. We are offering the American people a fresh start on spending in Washington, D.C. We are offering the American people a new way forward. With the health care reform bill being debated and haggled about in these very hallways, no doubt earmarks are being talked about in a different way by the Democrat Majority. After the ‘Cornhusker Kickback,' the ‘Gatorade Deal,' the ‘Second Louisiana Purchase,' the American people want us to change business as usual in Washington D.C.
The contrast will be startling in the days ahead. No doubt as Democrats are making backroom deals, and offering earmarks to pass their government takeover of health care, today with one voice House Republicans have stepped forward and said, "The time has come to set aside earmarking as usual and begin the process of turning federal spending back over to the American people with a new course, new discipline, and new transparency."
Politico reports, “President Barack Obama is pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go further than Obama has previously disclosed to strip the final health care reform bill of the narrow deals aimed at appeasing specific senators. The president wants to eliminate more than just Sen. Ben Nelson’s ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ and Sen. Bill Nelson’s agreement to shield 800,000 Florida seniors from Medicare Advantage cuts, the White House told POLITICO Wednesday in response to questions about other deals in the bill.”
So, the White House is apparently embarrassed by the Cornhusker Kickback and the Gator Aid. According to Politico, “Obama tried to publicly distance himself from the deals, saying he wasn’t in the room when they were struck, even though some of his aides were.” But that seems to be the extent of Obama’s chagrin at the deals leaders in his party made to get his signature legislative effort passed. Politico notes, “The so-called Louisiana Purchase is still safe, according to the White House, since the provision requested by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) would apply to any state in which all the counties have been declared a disaster zone. The Medicaid funding formula fix is worth $300 million to Louisiana, according to Landrieu.” Apparently some deals are more equal than others.
But, the backroom deals certainly make life uncomfortable for some House Democrats. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) told Neil Cavuto yesterday, “The Senate bill contains the Nebraska-Nelson agreement, where all the 49 states subsidize Nebraska’s Medicaid program, that’s unacceptable. And unless those items are guaranteed to be removed by the Senate, I don’t think we’re going to be able to pass the bill.”
And yet, just as some House Democrats and President Obama are calling for the deals to be removed, Obama is apparently offering different deals to other House Democrat members. The Washington Post reports, “Among the rewards Obama is ready to offer [wavering House Democrats], White House officials said, are election-year visits to competitive congressional districts, where a presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds.”
And, these aren’t the only backroom maneuvers going on! House Republicans warned yesterday of a strategy being considered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-NY). The scheme would involve Slaughter’s job to write a rule for debate in the House on the reconciliation bill Democrats want to use to apply some fixes to the deeply flawed Senate bill, such as stripping the Cornhusker Kickback. But in this case the rule, which has to be approved by a majority of the House, would “deem” the Senate health care bill as passed, meaning that House Democrats would be attempting to avoid a direct up-or-down vote on the Senate bill as Obama has been calling for all week. How else would one describe this but a vote-laundering scheme for nervous House Democrats?
All the backroom deals, parliamentary shenanigans, and partisan maneuvering demonstrate just how uncomfortable so many Democrats are with this massive health care takeover that the overwhelming majority of the American public wants scrapped. Democrats should step back from the edge and reevaluate their leaders’ arrogant insistence on pushing a bill that raises taxes, cuts Medicare, increases premiums and is so unpopular it can only get votes through backroom deals involving taxpayer money and promises of the president’s campaign assistance. This is not the reform Americans want.
It is clear that the Democratic leaderships and a majority of their Democrat colleagues are intent on a pursuing the Democrats' Three Point Plan to Destroy America’s Standard of Living: Tax, Spend and Regulate! Over 60% of Americans do NOT want this bill yet that does not matter to the Democrats in Congress; 48% of Americans want the entire health care bill scrapped and to start over. And only 25% of Americans even want this bill.
Citizen's call the following and share your heart felt opposition against voting for nationalized health care:
PHONE NUMBERS FOR SWING VOTE CONGRESSMEN:
| PLEASE CALL! | DC OFFICE | LOCAL OFFICE |
| Harry Mitchell | (202) 225-2190 | (480) 946-2411 |
| Gabrielle Giffords | (202) 225-2542 | (520) 881-3588 |
| Ann Kirkpatrick | (202) 225-2315 | (928) 226-6914 |
| Jerry McNerney | (202) 225-1947 | 925-833-0643 |
| John Salazar | 202-225-4761 | 970-245-7107 |
| Jim Hines | (202) 225-5541 | (866) 453-0028 |
| Alan Grayson | (202) 225-2176 | (407) 841-1757 |
| Bill Foster | (202) 225-2976 | 630-406-1145 |
| Baron Hill | 202 225 5315 | 812 288 3999 |
| Mark Schauer | (202) 225-6276 | (517) 780-9075 |
| Gary Peters | (202) 225-5802 | (248) 273-4227 |
| Dina Titus | (202) 225-3252 | 702-256-DINA (3462) |
| Carol Shea-Porter | (202) 225-5456 | (603) 743-4813 |
| Tim Bishop | (202) 225-3826 | (631) 696-6500 |
| John Hall | (202) 225-5441 | (845) 225-3641 x49371 |
| Bill Owens | (202) 225-4611 | (315) 782-3150 |
| Mike Arcuri | (202)225-3665 | 315)793-8146 |
| Dan Maffei | (202) 225-3701 | (315) 423-5657 |
| Earl Pomneroy | (202) 225-2611 | (701) 224-0355 |
| Steven Driehaus | (202) 225-2216 | (513) 684-2723 |
| Mary Jo Kilroy | (202) 225-2015 | (614) 294-2196 |
| Zach Space | (202) 225-6265 | (330) 364-4300 |
| Kathy Dahlkemper | (202) 225-5406 | (814) 456-2038 |
| Patrick Murphy | (202) 225-4276 | (215) 826-1963 |
| Christopher Carney | (202) 225-3731 | (570) 585-9988 |
| Paul Kanjorski | (202) 225-6511 | (570) 825-2200 |
| John Spratt | (202) 225-5501 | (803)327-1114 |
| Tom Perriello | (202) 225-4711 | (276) 656-2291 |
| Alan Mollohan | (202) 225-4172 | (304) 623-4422 |
| Nick Rahall | (202) 225-3452 | (304) 252-5000 |
| Steve Kagen | (202) 225-5665 | (920) 437-1954 |
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