Posts Tagged ‘Nancy Pelosi’
Unions and liberal groups blast Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill as ‘puny’
Unions and liberal groups have dismissed Sen. Harry Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill as “puny” while calling for larger stimulus measures.
More than two dozen organizations, including the AFL-CIO, National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) and National Council of La Raza, warned Democratic leaders in Congress to avoid tackling the troubled economy through incremental action.
They urged the Senate to pass the $15 billion jobs measure, which features a hiring tax cut for small businesses, but called for much more legislation to bring down an unemployment rate the White House projects to average 10 percent this year, more than 9 percent next year and over 8 percent in 2012.
“If this $15 billion was the only thing [that passed], that would be like having an amputated arm and sticking a Band-Aid on the end of it,” said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, on a conference call Friday.
Lawrence Mishel, head of the union-backed Economic Policy Institute think tank, described the $15 billion bill being pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as “small, puny.”
In addition to the $13 billion hiring tax credit, Reid’s bill includes money to extend the federal trust fund for highway and other transportation projects, a tax break allowing businesses to write off losses from depreciating equipment and bonds for state and local government infrastructure projects. Reid has set up a Monday procedural vote to bring the bill up for debate, and Democrats hope to pass it later next week.
The left-leaning coalition is proposing its own jobs package that goes beyond the House Democrats’ $154 billion jobs bill, which passed without House Republican votes in December.
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Taxpayers pay $101,000 for Pelosi’s in-flight ‘food, booze’
Speaker’s trips ‘are more about partying than anything else’
It reads like a dream order for a wild frat party: Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey … and Corona beer.
But that single receipt makes up just part of the more than $101,000 taxpayers paid for “in-flight services” – including food and liquor, for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trips on Air Force jets over the last two years. That’s almost $1,000 per week.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, which investigates and prosecutes government corruption, show Pelosi incurred expenses of some $2.1 million for her use of Air Force jets for travel over that time.
“Speaker Pelosi has a history of wasting taxpayer funds with her boorish demands for military travel,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said today. “And these documents suggest the Speaker’s congressional delegations are more about partying than anything else.”
Pelosi, D-Calif., recently joined President Obama on a Judicial Watch list of Top 10 corrupt politicians because of her “sense of entitlement,” the group said.
“Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2008 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline,” the evaluation said.
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Health Care Overhaul May Be Mortally Wounded
The House is not about to pass the Senate’s version of the health care overhaul bill. The election of Republican Scott Brown to the Massachusetts Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy pretty much puts a fork in a massive bill that’s been nearly a year in the making.
Following what was reportedly a fairly rowdy meeting of House Democrats, on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said the votes for the Senate bill simply aren’t there.
“Unease would be a gentle word in terms of the attitude of my colleagues toward certain provisions of the Senate bill,” she said.
And so far, the idea of scaling back and reaching out to Republicans doesn’t seem likely to pay off — at least not while Republicans like House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio smell electoral blood in the water.
“Listen, our goal is to stop this monstrosity,” Boehner said. “And we’re working with our members so that we don’t find ourselves in a position where they’re able to pick off a few of our members and to get this bill passed.”
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Pelosi: House Will Not Adopt Senate Bill
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said on Thursday that Democrats remained committed to passing far-reaching health care legislation, but she said that the House would not simply adopt the Senate version of the bill and send it to President Obama in part because of problematic provisions that she said contributed to the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election on Tuesday.
“We recognize health care has to be done, health care reform must be done,” Ms. Pelosi said at her weekly news conference in the Capitol.
However, she said that party leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers had not decided how to proceed given the opposition to simply passing the Senate bill and the fact that Senate Democrats, as a result of the outcome in Massachusetts, will no longer control the 60 votes needed to surmount a Republican filibuster and approve a revised bill.
“Unease would be a gentle word in terms of the attitude of my colleagues toward certain provisions in the Senate bill,” Ms. Pelosi said.
“So in its present form without any change,” she added, “I don’t think it’s possible to pass the Senate bill in the House.”
She singled out a provision for the federal government to pay the entire cost of a proposed expansion of Medicaid, even though other states will eventually have to share the expense, which was added to the Senate bill by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, to win the vote of Senator Ben Nelson, the Nebraska Democrat.
Ms. Pelosi said she believed provisions like that contributed to the concerns of voters in Massachusetts.
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Health Bill Path Grows Uncertain
Tough Calls Loom If Democrats Lose Majority in Senate
White House and Senate Democratic officials said Monday that they believed asking the House to pass the Senate health bill unchanged was likely to be their best hope if their party loses a Senate seat in Massachusetts. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office signaled that the House wouldn’t go along with that, and the bill’s fate dimmed.
A defeat in Massachusetts would not only deprive Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate but also underscore the unpopularity of the health legislation and possibly lead some wavering party members to reverse their support.
The Senate passed its health bill Dec. 24, and the simplest plan for Democrats would be to have the House pass the same bill should Democrat Martha Coakley lose a Massachusetts special election Tuesday. Democratic officials called it the least-bad option, but aides said no formal proposal has been taken to the House leadership.
Top Democratic aides on Monday described the scenario as difficult to pull off. House liberals oppose the key differences in the Senate version: a tax on high-end insurance plans and less generous assistance to help low-income Americans buy insurance.
“Certainly the dynamic will change depending on what happens in Massachusetts,” Ms. Pelosi said Monday. “But it doesn’t mean we won’t have a health-care bill.” Ms. Pelosi has previously indicated she doesn’t want to pass the Senate’s version. A spokesman said that position hasn’t changed.
Democratic officials, while publicly saying the bill remained on track, were facing the sobering reality that the effort could collapse. Until the Massachusetts race turned tight, congressional Democrats had hoped to deliver a bill to President Barack Obama before his State of the Union address, which is scheduled for Jan. 27.
A close vote in Ms. Coakley’s favor would allow Democrats to maintain their 60-seat majority in the Senate, but the image of a Democrat almost losing in a state as liberal as Massachusetts might lead some Democrats to abandon the health legislation.
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By: Janet Adamy and Naftali Bendavid
Wall Street Journal
Let the Cameras In
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 6, 2010
CONTACT: Heather Cirmo, 213-864-6645
New Website Launches Urging Democratic Leaders to “Let the Cameras In” on Health Care Negotiations
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Although Candidate Obama said, “When I come together around this health care system, I’m going to do it all in the open. I’m going to do it on C-SPAN,” President Obama has locked the door on the network, opting to engage in secret meetings and back-room negotiations in order to ram his health care agenda through the legislative process. C-SPAN Chairman and CEO Brian Lamb, in a letter sent to Congressional leadership Tuesday, requested that “you open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage.” In response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “There has never been a more open process for legislation,” while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman said although he respects C-SPAN’s “commitment to ensuring transparency,” there is no plan to allow the network access to health care talks. President Obama has also been silent on the issue.
Today, American Future Fund launches a new website called Let the Cameras In (www.letthecamerasin.com) at which people can sign a petition urging Congressional leadership to stop engaging in back-room negotiations and allow the American public to be informed about the health care debate. Coinciding with the website is a Facebook page(http://www.facebook.com/pages/LetTheCamerasIncom/260684296042?v=wall) where people can stay up-to-date on the campaign for more transparency.
“Congressional leadership’s unwillingness to permit C-SPAN to cover what they are doing begs the question, ‘What are they trying to hide?’ The American people should no longer be in the dark about legislation that will consume 1/6 of our nation’s economy,” said American Future Fund President Sandy Greiner. “The process needs to be more ‘open’ by allowing cameras in.”
House Health Care Reform Adds $89 Billion to Debt When Medicare Adjustments Are Considered, Says CBO
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has repeatedly said that health care reform would be deficit neutral, the House of Representatives passed an additional Medicare reform bill last week that would interact with the previously passed health care bill (H.R. 3962) to add $89 billion to budget deficits in the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
H.R. 3961, the Medicare Physicians Payment Rates Reform Act of 2009, is referred to as the “doc fix,” and is characterized on Pelosi’s Web site as “companion legislation” to the larger health care bill. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) calls it a “fiscal shell game.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the legislation will cost $210 billion dollars over a decade to implement on its own. Taken together with the Affordable Health Care for America Act (the health-care reform bill), it would add $89 billion to the federal debt between 2010 and 2019.
Fact check: Health care poll results more mixed than certain
For the second day in a row House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office has sent out “fact sheets” touting the results of separate public opinion polls on health care. The first, referring to an Associated Press poll released this week, carried a headline that read, “New AP poll shows widespread support.” The second press release, referring to a poll in today’s Washington Post, included the words, “Americans support health reform bill.”
The polls themselves show Americans are far less exuberant. The AP poll found that more people (43%) oppose the health care plans being discussed in Congress compared with 41% who support it. The Washington Post poll found similar results (49% opposed compared with 48% in support) as did a Gallup poll last week that we told you about here.
WSJ: Blue Dogs Make Sleepy Watch Dogs
Blue Dogs are all bark and no bite.
By STEPHEN MOORE
When the so-called fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats folded on the health care reform bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi skated to victory and even declared, “That was easy.” No wonder. A new analysis of the three big House votes impacting the budget and deficit this year finds the Blue Dogs are all bark and no bite.
The calculations were done by Heritage Foundation congressional analyst Mike Franc. On three votes that would massively expand the size of government — the stimulus plan, cap and trade, and health care reform — Blue Dogs mostly were AWOL. “Of the 52 House Blue Dogs, only four voted against all three,” says Mr. Franc. Sixteen voted for two of the three, and 17 voted for all three.
AFF Sends Letter to Speaker Pelosi
The American Future Fund sent the following letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding bringing the U.S. – Colombian Trade Promotion Agreement to a vote on the House floor.
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