About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Only 21 Of 87 Freshman House Republicans Are Still With You

The Continuing Resolution (CR) - 2011 FY Budget deal that was negotiated last Friday night was reported by Speaker John Boehner to have resulted in a $38.5 billion reduction below FY 2010 spending levels.  Since last Friday that $38.5 billion number has evaporated until it may really be only $300 million of real spending cuts or less than 1% of what was announced after considering how real such things as a $6.2 billion savings for not spending money left from the 2010 Census is.  The WSJ reported the $38.5 billion figure included phantom cuts, one time gimmicks that will be restored in FY 2012, etc.  How pitiful after Republicans campaigned & promised to reduce spending $100 billion their first year starting January 2011 & also promised to repeal or @ least defund ObamaCare as much as possible - none of which was included in this Budget deal.
 
The above described Budget Bill for FY 2011 passed the House & Senate earlier today & of course BO will sign it since he got virtually everything he wanted as indicated above.  Even after last fall's Republican House takeover & good gains in the Senate America is still on BO's glide path vision for deterioration - seems like BO doesn't even have to run - he can walk past this competition using the corrupting atmosphere in Washington DC to his benefit without raising a sweat.  In 2008 we had a no win election of BO - Socialist/Communist vs. McCain Socialist-light who voted for the Budget Bill today exactly as BO wanted.
 
The vote in the House supporting the Budget Bill was 260 to 167.  Of the 167 voting against the measure 59 were financially responsible Republicans - far too few.  The numbers keep getting worse when you realize that only 21 of the 87 freshman House Republicans voted against the measure  What happened to the other 66 freshman House Republicans in only three short months - as if you don't know?
 
Most disappointing once again was that Rob Woodall (GA), James Lankford (OK), & Kristi Noem (SD) voted with the establishment old guard Republicans - is this what they were sent to Washington for?  Below is the list of House Members who voted in your interest.  Naturally NJ's Frelinghuysen, Lance, Runyan (one of the 66 disappointing freshman), & LoBiondo voted the wrong way.
 
In the Senate the vote supporting the Budget Bill was 81 to 19.   The fifteen Republican senators who voted against the measure were led by Jim DeMint (SC), Mike Lee (UT), & Rand Paul (KY) who were recently joined by Lindsey Graham (SC) in a separate caucus.  The others were Coburn (OK), Crapo (ID), Ensign (NV), Hatch (UT), Inhofe (OK), Johnson (WI), Risch (ID), Rubio (FL), Shelby (AL), Toomey (PA), & Vitter (LA).  What happened to Saxby Chambliss (GA), Johnny Isakson (GA), John Cornyn (TX), Richard Burr (NC), Jerry Moran (KS), & Jeff Sessions (AL)?
 
The only encouragement I can take from the above is that we now know where the people who supported this bill stand - & it is not with us, it is with their congressional careers.  Still, how discouraging it is to have elected 87 new House Members only to find that 66 of them have already abandoned ship.  It doesn't give much hope for the deficit ceiling fight (I barely have the strength tonight to call it that) or the fight for trillions in the 2012 budget negotiations.  It is looking pretty hopeless for America @ this point.
 
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 268
(Republicans in roman; Democrats in italic; Independents underlined)

      H R 1473      YEA-AND-NAY      14-Apr-2011      3:00 PM
      QUESTION:  On Passage
      BILL TITLE: Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Yeas Nays PRES NV
Republican 179 59   3
Democratic 81 108   3
Independent        
TOTALS 260 167   6
 
---- NAYS    167 ---

Ackerman
Adams
Amash
Bachmann
Baldwin
Bartlett
Barton (TX)
Bass (CA)
Becerra
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Broun (GA)
Brown (FL)
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Carson (IN)
Chabot
Chaffetz
Chu
Clarke (MI)
Clarke (NY)
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Cravaack
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (IL)
DeGette
DeLauro
Deutch
Doggett
Doyle
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Edwards
Ellison
Engel
Farr
Filner
Flake
Fleming
Forbes
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Fudge
Garamendi
Gardner
Garrett
Gingrey (GA)
Gonzalez
Gowdy
Graves (GA)
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Griffith (VA)
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Harris
Hastings (FL)
Heller
Higgins
Hinchey
Hirono
Holt
Honda
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hurt
Jackson (IL)
Jackson Lee (TX)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jordan
Kaptur
King (IA)
Kingston
Kucinich
Labrador
Lamborn
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Long
Luján
Lynch
Mack
Maloney
Markey
Matsui
McClintock
McCotter
McDermott
McGovern
McHenry
McNerney
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Moore
Mulvaney
Murphy (CT)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neugebauer
Pallone
Pastor (AZ)
Paul
Payne
Pearce
Pelosi
Pence
Pingree (ME)
Poe (TX)
Polis
Price (NC)
Quayle
Quigley
Rangel
Rehberg
Reyes
Richardson
Richmond
Rigell
Ross (FL)
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sánchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Schakowsky
Schmidt
Schweikert
Scott (SC)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Slaughter
Southerland
Stark
Stutzman
Sutton
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Tipton
Tonko
Towns
Velázquez
Walsh (IL)
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch
West
Wilson (FL)
Wilson (SC)
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth
Yoder

---- NOT VOTING    6 ---

Giffords
Gohmert
McCaul
Meeks
Olver
Reichert

3 comments:

  1. Yesterday Senator Coburn reported on Greta's FOX hour that the IMF stated its displeasure with the 2011 budget deal. No surprise. The main surprise is that our congressmen are putting their careers over our nation's economic health. If the Fed ends QE2 this summer and our debt continues to grow 4 to 5 billion per day, interest rates will spike and the dollar may collapse. How short sighted our Congress people are. We need term limits ASAP.

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  2. Doug - Question for you.... Will you be doing a piece on your blog re: What does it mean to be a FairTax co-sponsor other than signing up for a congressional bill?

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  3. Honestly, this blog seems to be part of the problem we're experiencing within the beltway extremism. This is certainly not part of the solution toward compromise.

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