On Friday I said we needed to make Earl Pomeroy’s life painful this week for going home to North Dakota, telling his constituents he would oppose Obamacare, then going back to DC and saying he would vote for it.
199 of you have taken the opportunity to flood his district office with protest packages of dog dirt.
Have you sent yours to drive the point home that he’s betraying his constituents and harming the country?
Details are here.
Earl Pomeroy told his constituents he was standing up to his fellow Democrats on health care.
He stood up to Nancy Pelosi and said he wouldn’t vote for a bill that expanded the deficit.
Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., had interrupted Pelosi’s presentation about one version of the bill with questions about its cost. According to Pomeroy and others, she cut him off — twice — with a question of her own:
Is there any version you could support?
Yes, Pomeroy said, but not the one most likely to succeed.
Why couldn’t Pomeroy support the health care legislation? Because it busted the budget.
In fact, now that the Democrats’ health care legislation has been released, we know it is still a fiscal train wreck.
While Democrats claim their the coverage expansions total $894 billion, this figure represents the net costs of expanded coverage. The CBO score reveals total costs of the coverage expansion total $1.055 trillion-$425 billion in Medicaid costs, $605 billion in “low-income” subsidies for individuals to purchase coverage through government-run Exchanges, and $25 billion for small business tax credits. Democrats’ lower $894 billion number conveniently includes offsetting revenue from more than $150 billion in tax increases (only a portion of the $729.5 billion in total tax increases)-$33 billion from individuals who do not purchase, and $135 billion from employers that do not offer, government-forced insurance.
The more than $1 trillion in spending on coverage expansions does not even include additional federal spending included in the legislation-including extension of Medicaid “stimulus” funding to the States, a new reinsurance program for retirees, and a $34 billion trust fund for public health-that totals $224.5 billion. When combined with the cost of the coverage expansions, total spending under the bill actually approaches $1.3 trillion.
Nonetheless, Earl Pomeroy has decided to side with Nancy Pelosi against his constituents today.
Before the official unveiling, House Democrats gathered in the basement of the Capitol for a final briefing with Pelosi and other leaders, and they agreed that the time for compromise had arrived. Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), a prominent fiscal hawk, stood up to announce that he would support the measure, drawing a round of applause loud enough to be heard outside the room. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to pass something,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).
Here’s the thing — if we make Earl Pomeroy’s life extremely painful for the next week, Republicans are going to think twice about jumping ship and so will a lot of the Blue Dog Democrats.
This fine dog poop can be shipped to Earl Pomeroy at
Office of Congressman Earl Pomeroy
3003 32nd Ave S Suite 6
Fargo, ND 58103
Likewise, you can tie up his phone lines by calling (701) 224-0355 and then (202) 225-2611 to express your dissatisfaction.
*Note: if you use our link, I can track the orders sent and Amazon kicks back some cash to RedState too! A win-win.
There’s no way to sugar-coat it, although Dorgan’s certainly trying. If his town halls are all going to be like this one:
Dorgan will be at the fire hall for only an hour, so there won’t be a lot of time for questions, Pyle said.
…then yes, he is in point of fact ‘worried.’ As well he should be: Ramussen’s new numbers are out, and they are really, really pretty. At least, from the point of view of folks who are against health care rationing.
Both the House and Senate stimulus bills contain some pleasant-sounding ‘Buy America’ provisions, which require that all the steel used for construction funded in the bill be American-made. Rules like ‘Buy American’ may sound nice, but they are inherently unhelpful. In a global economy, what does ‘American-made’ mean? And how much of a premium should taxpayers cover to purchase ‘American-made’ products instead of others? Why does American-made steel get a preference, but not cars, or food, or health care, or any other commodity? And why should taxpayers pay extra to support less-efficient firms in the first place? Rules like this amount to an attempt to protect an inefficient economy hamstrung by big government, and they’re no substitute for cutting taxes, reducing regulation, and getting government out of the way.
And apart from ineffective, it also has the potential to spark a very costly trade war:
“There is no company that is going to benefit more from the stimulus package than Caterpillar, but I am telling you that by embracing Buy American you are undermining our ability to export U.S. produced products overseas,” said Bill Lane, government affairs director for Caterpillar in Washington. More than half of Caterpillar’s sales — including big-ticket items like construction cranes and land movers — are sold overseas.
