The Senate as you are well aware by now passed a sweetened version of the bailout Tuesday evening. The House voted again today and complied, as I suspected they would. So the dirty deed is now done. Bear in mind that this bill was rife with waist added by the Senate on Tuesday night that had nothing to do with the economical turmoil.
$2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children
$100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners
$192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry
$148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers
$49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill.
People, are you not outraged? If so, ask yourself why you might be going to the voting booth in November to return the same people to office who just voted for one of the largest Federal power grabs in American history and threw almost a trillion dollars of money we don’t have down the toilet. Are those of you in South Carolina prepared to give Lindsey Graham another six years? Think twice. He’s one of the culprits. Richard Burr also voted for it on behalf of North Carolina. Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) opposed the measure. Additionally, both Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama voted for the bailout as did VP candidate Joe Biden.
I can’t get the vote information from the House yet. The Web site must be getting swamped with traffic because it’s timing out on me, but I’ll post it as soon as I have it available.
Update: I now have the House roll. Sue Myrick and Gresham Barrett flipped on this, voting for the bailout today, whereas they voted against it before.
As I’m sure you have heard by now, the $700 billion bailout failed to pass the House of Representatives today by a mere 13 votes. I was opposed to this bailout, so I am rather pleased, for now. They’ll try something again. I just have a huge issue with this theory that corporations can privatize all of their gains but socialize their losses. That just doesn’t seem quite right to me.
This video pretty much sums up my thoughts.
So how did your representative vote? Did they vote to use your tax dollars to bail out Wall Street fat cats or did they vote to save your tax dollars?
Voting for the bailout were:
Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
David Price (D-NC-04)
Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)
John Spratt (D-SC-05)
Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)
Voting against the heinous bailout were:
G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
Robin Hayes (R-NC-08)
Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
Boy, the South Carolina delegation sure sucks a nut. David Price is no surprise. He loves using your money to give special favors to all of his corporate friends. Same with Henry Brown. I expected Watt to be on the yea list as well because he is a Socialist. Overall it looks to be just about split down the middle. Now you know who is on your side and who is pining for the Rockefellers.
The U.S. Senate today overwhelmingly sent President Bush a spending bill of $634 billion to keep the government “operating beyond the current budget year.” If only that were the case. This budget passage, as every other, consisted of a hogfest of a Congressional pen of pigs in starched white shirts feeding from the trough that you and I provided. This thing is stuffed with thousands of earmarks in addition to $25 billion of taxpayer funded loans to help bailout the automakers. The bill was presented in its final form from the House to the Senate as H.R. 2638, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008, sponsored by none other than our very own Representative David Price (D-NC-04).
How did our representatives vote? As usual, in the Senate Jim DeMint stood up and vocally opposed the legislation. Lindsey Graham joined him in voting against it. Richard Burr made a rare and unusual move, voting Present, Giving Live Pair. What this means is that somebody else who not present at the vote and knew they wouldn’t be who planned on voting the opposite way Burr was made a deal with him to vote present so that the outcome wouldn’t be altered by their absence. In other words, for the sake of argument, let’s say Burr was hypothetically going to vote No, but John McCain was absent and was planning to vote Yes which would cancel out Burr’s vote anyway. McCain would ask Burr to vote Present then so that the same result is produced. As I said, this is just a hypothetical. Burr may have intended to vote Yes and made a deal with an absent Senator who wanted to vote against it. And we can’t forget Liddy Dole who as usual voted for her pork.
In the House we had the following voting for the waste:
The House passed H.R. 6899 last night, otherwise known as the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act. As I touched on yesterday, this is the House version of Lindsey Graham’s “Gang of 10″ bill that will do absolutely nothing to open up oil reserves off of our shores and lower gas prices. This bill is nothing more than political cover so that politicians can go into the November election lying to their constituents that they voted for offshore drilling, when they didn’t. Most of the coastal oil reserves will remain untapped under this bill and will have no effect. Furthermore, the states will get no royalties from the drilling, so which state is going to okay this and take the slight risk of an oil spill without any revenue from it? None of them will and Nancy Pelosi knows that. Let’s not forget the tax increase the oil companies will receive as well which will get passed on to you and me when we’re buying our gas.
So who in the Carolinas voted for this hoax? Who will lie to you between now and Election Day and claim they voted to lower your prices at the pump? A lot of them.
While all six of the state’s congressmen face challengers, none of the races will be repeats as the all the major party losers in the general election of 2006 did not file to run for Congress again.
Fifth District Congressman John Spratt went the longest without a challenger. Republican Albert F. Spencer didn’t file to run against the 13-term Democrat until Saturday.
Spencer and Spratt have met before. In 2004, Spencer got 37 percent of the vote. A much better financed and supported Republican challenger in 2006, Ralph Norman, received about 43 percent of the vote against Spratt.
The 5th District stretches along the state’s northern border and rural Pee Dee areas - from Newberry and Cherokee counties more than 130 miles east to Dillon County.
The most crowded race is in the 1st District, which stretches from the Grand Strand to Charleston. Four-term incumbent Henry Brown will face Katherine Jenerette and Paul V. Norris in the Republican primary, while Linda Ketner and Ben Frasier compete for the Democratic nomination.
In the 2nd District, incumbent Joe Wilson will go for his fourth full term. He faces Phil Black in the Republican primary, while Rob Miller and Blaine Lotz are running for the Democratic nomination. That district runs from Beaufort County north into the northern and western suburbs of Columbia.
Gresham Barrett is seeking a fourth term in the 3rd District in the northwest part of the state. He will face Democrat Jane Dyer in the general election.
Fourth District incumbent Bob Inglis is trying for a third term since returning to Congress in 2004. He will face Charles Jeter in the Republican primary, while Bryan McCanless, Paul H. Corden and Ted Christian face off in the Democratic primary.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn will run for a ninth term in the majority-black 6th District. He will take on Republican Nancy Harrelson in the general election.
U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis plans to vote for legislation mandating a one-year moratorium on congressional earmarks, you know, those little spending add-ons that helped Republicans go from the majority to the minority in 2006, forcibly retiring a bunch of them along the way.
But, the Travelers Rest Republican says if the bill fails, he won ‘t be joining fellow Republican Joe Wilson of Lexington in swearing off earmarks for a year anyway.
“I’m very supportive of the earmark moratorium and will vote for it,†Inglis says, describing the plan as a needed reform on the road to abolishing the practice.
“But in the meantime, there will be some requests this year from South Carolina†that need to be addressed if they meet his criteria of economic development, local matching funds and serving the national interest.
What I read here is political posturing in an election year. How can Inglis expect anyone to take him seriously as a fiscal reformer when he says he’ll still stick his hand in the cookie jar if the rules don’t change? Yeah, we hear you, Bob. Earmarks are bad and all, but you’re going to make sure you still get your share of slop from the community trough. Apparently some Republicans are adapting to life in the Minority rather well.
U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis is spearheading support among senior Republican lawmakers for congressional hearings to pressure the Iraqi government to make progress on benchmarks set by Congress.
The move by the Upstate Republican likely could draw opposition from President Bush and his staunchest Iraq war allies in Congress.
The drive for “accountability hearings†reflects mounting frustration in GOP ranks over the failure of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s fractured central government in achieving 18 benchmarks set by Congress. They include narrowing sectarian divides and sharing oil reserves.
“It gets to a point where we have spent enough time and enough lives and enough money in this one particular spot,†said Inglis, one of 17 GOP House members to vote against the U.S. military surge in February.
I agree with Inglis. The Iraqi Government can’t continue to lean on the U.S. as their crutch. They have been given enough time and money to get their act together and what they did with their time was take a one month vacation in August while our soldiers are over their risking their lives and sweating their asses off in 120 degree weather.
Supper time came a little late for Lt. Michelle Roberts.
But she didn’t mind.
It was a chance to meet some state political leaders who on Saturday visited the Camp Phoenix headquarters of the S.C. National Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team.
‘It’s good to know we have their support, and it’s good to see good ol’ South Carolina folks,’ said the Spartanburg soldier.
The ‘good ol’ ‘ S.C. folks were Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Mark Sanford and Reps. Henry Brown and Bob Inglis, all Republicans.
Camp Phoenix was the last stop on a busy day that included a tour of the Afghan army’s training center and a nearby base where S.C. guardsmen are deployed.
