Tag: Congress

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CBO: Health bills to increase federal costs – CQ Politics- msnbc.com

CBO: Health bills to increase federal costs – CQ Politics- msnbc.com
I thought this was interesting and wanted to share with everyone. Basically, the new health care reform they are talking about will increase federal costs, not reduce them like we are being told.

This is straight from the Congressional Budget Office who looks at the total costs and provides that information to Congress.

My stance is that something needs to be done for health care. It is getting quite expensive and I don’t see how people who don’t have health insurance get medical care.

A couple of years ago I had to have emergency surgery to have my appendix removed. Luckily I had, and currently have, real good health insurance. It was amazing to me all the charges that came with the surgery and recovery in the hospital.

If I didn’t have that health insurance, it would have been a real big hit to us.

People should be able to afford health insurance and plans should be available for people to choose for themselves, not be forced to have one type of plan for many or all.

If you look at Canada or England, we can see that people have health care, but it is quite expensive and not real good. If you hurt your knee, you could wait weeks to get time for a MRI. That is not good.

So I think that something needs to be done with health costs. It just needs to be reduced. Finally we need to have realistic health plans for people to choose that will meet their needs. Not mandated or required.

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Unhappy with Congress

I am extremely unhappy with Congress right now.
This unhappiness is two-fold.

  1. That they passed a bill to delay the Digital television transition. The new date is June 12. This is something that has been on-going for several years and will only cost us more money. The only people who haven’t converted yet are those who will now procrastinate until we get closer to the new date.  It is ridiculous that this was done and only show the ineptitude of Congress.
  2. The stimulus package. There are many items in this stimulus package that will not help. It is a waste to put us into a further deficit and that needs to be adjusted before it goes forward. The excess spending is already causing problems in the Senate where it doesn’t have enough votes. Something needs to be done, but it should be something that gets the economy going, provides for new jobs, and actually does something. This package does not do that.

It is time that Congress goes back to its roots and actually represent the people and not big business who have the money to get in front of Congress.

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Nancy Pelosi fails at bipartisanship, fails America!

I just want to say that the U.S. Congress is the most dysfunctional group in the world.
But it is led by the worst, most ineffective speaker that the U.S. House of Representatives has ever seen, Nancy Pelosi.  This idiot was smiling in the press conference this afternoon after failing to get the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the financial bailout, something that needed to be done in some form.

Despite her claims, it was her fault that the bailout didn’t pass.  Throughout this entire process she said that the bailout bill needed to pass as a bipartisan effort.

But what does Pelosi do?

Right before the vote, Pelosi takes the floor and proceeds to rip President Bush and the Republicans over points of disagreement.  Pelosi was being extremely partisan, EXTREMELY!

The prepared version of the speech, which is still be handed out by her office, was relatively tame.  But the actual version she delivered today before the vote deviated quite radically.

Here is a sample:

This is the reason that the bill didn’t pass.  The ineffective leadership that Pelosi brings to the House is what is driving the partisanship and causing Congress to be the most dysfunctional group.

It was her plan all along to do this and make McCain and the Republicans look bad in the process.

As long as 30 years ago with Tip O’Neill was the Speaker of the House, you fought for what you believed in and then came together for the best of the country.

But what Nancy Pelosi did today was drive a dagger right through the heart of America.  That is no way to run the House of Representatives or for a member of the U.S. Congress to act.

Lance from A Second Hand Conjecture sums it up best:

More importantly, if Pelosi believes her rhetoric about the importance of this bill the poor judgment, lack of leadership and inability to understand the importance of statesmanship in a crisis should be grounds for immediate dismissal from her post.

Shame on you Nancy Pelosi, SHAME! You are supposed to be a leader, the leader of the House of Representatives. But you did anything but lead today.

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Republicans protest on House Floor, chastise Democrats for adjourning session

This is an interesting development for the refusal of the Democrats to debate or vote on opening new land to gas and oil exploration, a new energy bill.  This when fuel is at all time highs, they are restricting future development.  
What did the Democrats decide to do?  The decided to go on a five week vacation?  Give me a break.  

It get even better.  The first vote on adjournment happened on Wednesday.  Earlier in the week, Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO) said in a debate for the vacant seat in the U.S. Senate that he would vote to keep the lawmakers in session until the considered the new energy bill.

But he missed the vote!  He showed up late because he was attending fundraisers in Colorado.  Why can’t he do what he was elected to do and represent the people of the second district in Colorado.  He is off fundraising for his run for U.S. Senate that he can’t serve his constituents back home.

If Mark Udall can’t spend his time in Washington when the House is in session representing me, then why should I vote for him in the election this November?

The GOP has a right to be mad.  I have a right to be mad because my Congress can’t do anything and my representative is more concerned about raising money than he is about representing me.

Congress needs to get their act together and get something done.  There was a time in the country where the Congress would debate an issue in public and then come together for a compromise that would work with both sides of the aisle.

Let’s get back to that time. The stuff that is happening now is just not working.  America is better than this.

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Bush Vetos Spending Bill, Congress Can’t Get Anything Done

Today President George Bush vetoed a spending bill that would have funded the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.  Congress doesn’t have the votes to override the veto.
In an article in the Washington Post, President Bush said “the bill spends nearly $10 billion more than his proposed budget and includes more than 2,200 pet projects, or earmarks, such as a prison museum, a sailing school taught aboard a catamaran and a program teaching Portuguese as a second language.”

The Democrats response?  Threatening to withhold funding for the Iraq war.

In a press conference this afternoon, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said “…that Bush will not get more money to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year unless he accepts a plan to complete troop withdrawals by the end of next year.”

Continue reading “Bush Vetos Spending Bill, Congress Can’t Get Anything Done”

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Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else

Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else | CNET News.com
It is the responsibility of universities and colleges to teach our kids and promote thought and discussion, not police what the students or staff are doing on the Internet.

What is worse is that they are threatening them by withholding their federal financial aide.  For all the schools, this is a big deal.

But in reality it is the students who are getting the shaft by the Democrats.  For schools to meet the requirements that the Democrats are proposing, they will have to sign-on to subscription services like Ruckus or Napster.

Continue reading “Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else”

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Day Light Savings Goes Away Until March

Don’t forget to turn your clocks back on Sunday morning at 2 A.M.  Day Light Savings ends and won’t show up again until March.
I am not quite understanding Congress’s reasoning behind moving DST back one week from the last Sunday in October until the first Sunday in November.  This week has been especially hard because the sun has been coming up so late that it has been hard to get motivated in the morning.

But the time has come to begin getting up in the dark and heading home in the dark.  Have I ever told you how I hate the winter?  I love May, June, & July when we have extremely long days and the sun is up for a long time.

I loved it when I was living in northern Idaho and the sun wouldn’t set until almost 10 P.M. or later in the summer.

Well I guess it will be time to get out and take walks at lunch now, otherwise I will never see the sun during the week.

See you in March DST.