Could you make your family budget look good in a ten-year analysis if you counted ten years of income but only seven of expenditures? That’s what the Congressional Budget Office did in their report on Senator Max Baucus’s health care bill.

Their subpar accounting includes revenue from tax increases and cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage starting in 2010. However, the bulk of expenditures begin in 2013, when many of the bill’s programs go into effect. It sounds like the CBO has started taking accounting tips from old Enron manuals. How can Democrats be taken seriously if they use ten years of revenue to pay for seven years of expenditures?

It’s frightening that Congress could soon vote on a bill that will cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars without the crucial information of an honest CBO score. But that’s just what Democrats will ask us all to do. It is smoke-and-mirrors trickery that should have no place in Congress – a deceitful playbook from which the Congressional Majority has played from time and time again.

Democrats will use these CBO numbers to continue the charade that their proposals would reduce health care costs for Americans. But one only has to look at the dozens of new taxes Senator Baucus’s bill creates to see that health care will become much more expensive for Americans. And for the first three years, we really won’t be getting what we’re paying for.

If the White House “misread” our entire economy back in January, should we trust it to read—and manipulate—even a fraction of the economy now? Logic says no. Yet, the health care industry makes up approximately one sixth of the entire U.S. economy, and many Washington Democrats are rushing to redesign it in the next week.

Think it won’t happen? Let’s take a trip down memory lane…

The push to pass the stimulus bill was frenzied and hasty. Over $787 billion was spent before you could say “shovel-ready.”

Fast forward six months.

Unemployment has climbed to nearly 10% as stories of wasteful stimulus projects are repeated on a daily basis. Whether it’s putting skylights in a state alcohol warehouse in Montana or buying a dishwasher in Colorado with money meant for meals, stimulus dollars seem to be going towards everything except creating jobs.

Now, with only a single week to go before the August break, the CBO is estimating that despite the cost-cutting rhetoric, the House Democrats’ health care proposal will increase America’s deficit by $239 billion over the next ten years. $239 billion is an awfully large increase for health care reform that was supposed to “save” money. It’s also a lot of money to spend by next week.

Americans are all wondering how they are going to afford their health care in their budgets. Shouldn’t Congress?

It is time for liberal lawmakers to learn from their mistakes and think through their health care reform proposal before it’s rushed to the floor for a vote. Last time Washington panicked and overspent, the American people didn’t get the economic recovery they paid for. Are we going to get the health care we pay for? The answer will be “no” unless Americans speak out and make their voices heard in the halls of Congress.

The Department of Defense is moving forces from Okinawa to Guam – all well and good. Except, the recently passed DOD Authorization contains funding for construction firms to pay their workers wages consistent with labor rates in Hawaii – 250% HIGHER than wages in Guam.

This will not only take over $10 billion (over 10 years) needed dollars out of the pockets of wounded service members, but will pad the pockets of Hawaii’s labor unions while hurting small businesses in Guam.

As we vote on funding for critical programs for our Nation’s Veterans and construction of our military instillations, it is important to ensure the timely and adequate delivery of these services.

This provision provides labor unions dollars, that in my opinion, are more crucial and can be better spent on military hospitals as they deliver first-class health care to our wounded soldiers.

For the past two days, the Energy and Commerce Committee has been marking up the Waxman-Markey “Cap-and-Trade” bill. It will impose a huge, new cost on all energy (estimated at $4,300 per family each year) and destroy millions of American jobs.

While the price of everything will go up, the effect on electricity prices will be particularly dramatic. Last night, Republicans put forward a straightforward amendment to require that utility bills indicate the increased cost of electricity that will result from this legislation. The Democrat majority on the Committee rejected this commonsense measure. That’s right: they actually voted against disclosing these costs to consumers on their utility bills!

Today, in another partisan vote, the Democrats have added an amendment to essentially require every new and existing home sold in America to be inspected and labeled as to its energy efficiency. If you thought the emissions tests required by the DMV were a pain, just wait to have your home inspected and “labeled.” In addition, on a party-line vote, the Majority has included a mandated study on requiring all products sold in the United States, down to potato chips, to be labeled as to their CO2 “content,” showing how much CO2 is emitted in the manufacturing of each product. If you think government is big now, get ready for it to be stunningly bigger and more invasive!

Beginning with his tax difficulties, and continuing through the puzzling narrative of when and what he knew about the AIG bonuses, Treasury Secretary Geithner has done little to inspire the confidence of the American people. Oddly, Secretary Geithner continued his bizarre and puzzling conduct this week, making flatly contradictory statements about the dollar in a span of only 24 hours. This weakens confidence not only in him, but in the currency he is entrusted to protect.

On Tuesday, Secretary Geithner testified before the House Financial Services Committee that he ‘categorically renounces,’ recent proposals from China and others to shift away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency [see hearing transcript below]. The next morning in New York, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, he was asked about the same proposals and said he is ‘quite open,’ to them [see press report below].

Really, Mr. Secretary? Is it too much to ask that your position remain unchanged over a 24 hour period?

Excerpt from Secretary Geithner’s March 24th testimony before the Financial Services Committee at approximately 11:30am:

http://gop.gov/resources/library/members/az/03/World-Currency-Question-3-24.wmv

Representative Bachmann: We’ve seen both China, Russia, and Kazakhstan, make calls for an international monetary conversion to an international monetary standard as soon as the G20, and I’m wondering would you categorically renounce the United States moving away from the dollar and going to a global currency as suggested this morning by China and also by Russia, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary Geithner: I would, yes.

As reported in the Washington Times:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/26/geithner-gaffe-on-dollar-roils-stock-bond-markets/

An unguarded comment by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Wednesday set off a sudden drop in the dollar and contributed to a chain of market-rocking events that included a setback in the stock market and a sharp uptick in interest rates.

Mr. Geithner appeared to lend his support to a proposal by China’s central bank governor to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency with a basket of currencies that would be managed by the International Monetary Fund. In an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday morning, Mr. Geithner raised eyebrows by saying that ‘we’re actually quite open to that’…

When did playing by the rules become a crime?

The housing legislation that the Democrat Congress is set to consider today includes something called “cramdown” It’s a provision of the bill that gives judges the power to rewrite someone’s home mortgage when they default and file for bankruptcy, reducing the principal balance on the loan. That is, if someone takes out a $150,000 mortgage on a $200,000 home and then defaults and files for bankruptcy, the judge can lower the mortgage to match the current, sunken value of the home – say $100,000.

It’s a good deal for the borrower. But, here’s the catch: lenders will no longer want to lend money for homes because a bankruptcy judge may use this “cramdown” power to, by the stroke of a pen, reduce the amount the borrower has to repay. Lenders will have to offset the risk of a “cramdown” by raising rates and tightening lending on the more than 90% of Americans paying their mortgages on time. In other words, if you acted responsibly – saved and sacrificed to buy a home you could afford – you now are being asked to give up a chunk of those savings for someone who was not as responsible.

Once again, if you lived within your means, played by the rules, worked extra hours, your reward is another loathsome bailout strapped to your back.

Washington should be lightening the load on responsible, hardworking Americans. Instead, they keep adding to your burden.

How much more out of touch can the Nancy Pelosi Congress possibly get?

No American family should ever have to worry about their own government placing a terrorist in their community. I have introduced legislation that would make this impossible – ensuring that the Islamic extremists at Guantanamo are not given the chance to enter our country and complete their unfinished mission of shedding American blood.

That is why I introduced a bill which can be summarized in one word – NO. We will not allow, under any circumstances, the Gitmo detainees to set foot on American soil.
Our brave soldiers have valiantly sacrificed to keep these radicals away from their loved ones and ours – now we may bring them here ourselves? I don’t think so. Convicted terrorist Khalid al-Jawari, sentenced to thirty years for an ambitious terrorism plot in New York City, was recently slated for early release in part due to good behavior. How many more terrorists do we want to set free in America?

The best and surest way to keep our families safe – and to keep Gitmo detainees from completing their unfinished mission of shedding American blood – is to keep them off of our soil. Period.

Last night President Obama said, “I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan…Not because I believe in bigger government – I don’t.”

Really?

If that’s true, why was every single policy the President suggested last night…big government?

Mr. President, if you don’t like big government, perhaps you should consider not making it the centerpiece of your administration. That makes about as much sense as holding a fiscal responsibility summit days after passing one of the biggest spending bills in history.

Wait. That already happened.

Okay, how about this: saying you don’t like big government while promoting it, would kind of be like railing against earmarks while getting ready to sign a bill with, oh say, 9,000 of them.

Wait – that’s also really happening, house Democrats passed it today.

I guess we’re seeing a trend. The President tells the American people he’s not into big government, while he proposes expanding government. It’s like that high school crush you didn’t want to tell anyone about.

But of course, it’s not much of a secret in this case. After all, it’s hard to hide things like trillion-dollar spending bills and pork stacked a mile high. I’m also sure Americans will notice when the government tries to take over their health care and raise their taxes. And they won’t be happy.

There’s a reason, Mr. President, lines in your speeches saying you don’t like big government are a big hit – it’s because, believe or not, people hope you mean it.

Minutes ago, the House passed the so-called stimulus bill in the face of bipartisan opposition and without a single Republican vote–again.

The only thing that now stands between the American people and the passage of this monstrous bill is a vote in the Senate that is tentatively scheduled for 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. tonight.

Now is the crucial time to make your voices heard to the three Republican Senators who support this package and who have the power to stop it:

Sen. Arlen Specter [PA]: 202-224-4254
Sen. Olympia Snowe [ME]: 202-224-5344
Sen. Susan Collins [ME]: 202-224-2523

How fitting is it that the stimulus bill is coming to a strong-arm vote on Friday the 13th?

This entire process has been a horror story. The exclusion of Republicans. The pork and paybacks for special interests. The secret, closed-door meetings. The mammoth bill text kept hidden until hours before the vote.

But of course the greatest horror is not the process – it is the product. At the end of the day we have an economic stimulus without economic stimulus. A recovery package that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says will shrink the GDP. An historic transfer of wealth and power to the federal government – which the government has no plans of returning to the people.

Commonsense Americans have been expressing their concern, frustration and outrage for weeks. But Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid – and yes, President Obama – have not listened.

With the clock ticking before this vote, we must continue sounding the alarm. We must raise our voices. We may lose the day – but do not let history record that we went down without a fight.

Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Americans are up in arms, decrying wasteful spending in the so-called stimulus bill. They should be. But one of the bill’s worst provisions has gone almost unnoticed, dangerously lurking below the radar of those exposing the bill’s flaws.

“Comparative Effectiveness Research,” sounds innocuous, but big-government programs always do. The $1.1 billion of the stimulus package earmarked for this project is a significant step toward government-run healthcare. Comparative effectiveness research is a tool for bureaucrats to decide which medical treatments Americans should or should not have access to.

In countries with government-run healthcare systems, comparative effectiveness is often used as an excuse to deny patients life-saving medical care on the grounds of cost-effectiveness. The healthcare board of the United Kingdom has repeatedly denied breakthrough drugs to citizens suffering with breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, and even multiple sclerosis on the grounds of comparative effectiveness. The British government has stripped citizens of the freedom to choose their own healthcare. Congressman David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has already admitted as much. Just read his own words from the committee report on the stimulus, talking about this provision: “Those items, procedures, and interventions… that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.” We must not allow it.

Comparative effectiveness “research” presents a danger to freedom of healthcare choice in America. And if the potential consequences of the study alone don’t scare you, recall President Obama’s failed nominee to oversee the Department of Health and Social Services. In his own book, Critical, Daschle talks about his desire to create a federal planning board to make Americans’ healthcare decisions. While Americans may have dodged a bullet with Daschle, the fight against government-run healthcare is only beginning.

We’ve all seen the television ads saying every year America spends $700 billion on foreign oil, constituting the largest transfer of wealth in human history. It’s no coincidence that Congress is now considering the largest government bailout in American history. The current energy situation is bleeding the American economy and jeopardizing American security.

This week, Congress will likely pass legislation authorizing $700 billion to bailout Wall Street. Our economy is struggling. But, just a week ago, the Democrat-led Congress blocked the creation of thousands of American jobs, denied the American economy an influx of more than $900 billion, and refused close to $600 billion in federal taxes.

Despite the clear necessity for more American-made energy, and the overwhelming public support for increased domestic drilling, the Democrat energy bill kept much of our known resources in the Outer Continental Shelf off limits and failed to open ANWR and the Western United States to development. Their plan will not lead to the production of a single barrel of oil.

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