Time For Some Blunt Talk

The Republicans never even tried to take part in a serious health care debate. When they controlled Congress and the White House they did nothing (but create the donut hole and transfer billion of dollars from American families to their donors at Big Pharma). And once Obama was elected president, the GOP stance was simple obstructionism. Barely a week ago Utah obstructionist Orrin Hatch inadvertently got to the bottom of it when he worried aloud that healthcare legislation would be so popular that millions of people would cement their bonds to the Democratic Party for generations (like they did when Democrats overrode GOP hysteria and obstructionism and passed Social Security and then Medicare). He called health care legislation a "threat to the two-party system."

But the GOP tactics of remaking themselves into the Party of No has backfired a bit and their approval ratings have tanked completely. Only 19% of voters approve of Republicans in Congress and only 20% of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans, something of a low water mark. John Boehner decided to emerge from his tanning booth long enough to task the job of cobbling together a Republican health care proposal to his failed former #2 and current Missouri Senate candidate, Roy Blunt, chairman of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, which is still hoping to dismantle Medicare. He couldn't have found a more inappropriate character than Tom DeLay's corrupt ex-protégé and House Republicans go-to man for K-Street whores. Blunt himself has scooped up $578,782 from the Insurance Industry and another staggering $1,775,298 from health care special interests. A normal person would call that two million three hundred and fifty-four reasons to look for someone else. But Boehner wasn't out of the tanning booth long enough to think of that. It's a shame, because in all the months he had the job, Boehner came up with exactly... nothing. Zip, nada... not even the empty blue binder Paul Ryan had produced as the alternative Republican budget. (Ultimately, that empty blue binder looked pretty good compared to Blunt's abject failure so Boehner sent him on his way-- back to the campaign trail, where he's now trying to fend off enraged teabaggers-- and brought Paul Ryan in for the health care portfolio as well... and for a dismal scheme as laughable as Ryan's "budget.")

A senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Blunt was no doubt aware of the research his own committee did on the impact of the healthcare proposals on districts around the country. And even if he didn't have time to read all of them, he certainly must have glanced at his own 7th CD in the southwest corner of Missouri. If he did this is what he would have seen on how the Affordable Health Care for America Act he was fighting so hard to tank would impact his own constituents:

• Improve employer-based coverage for 394,000 residents.

• Provide credits to help pay for coverage for up to 200,000 households.

• Improve Medicare for 119,000 beneficiaries, including closing the prescription drug donut hole for 12,500 seniors.

• Allow 18,300 small businesses to obtain affordable health care coverage and provide tax credits to help reduce health insurance costs for up to 16,500 small businesses.

• Provide coverage for 81,000 uninsured residents.

• Protect up to 1,300 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.

• Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers by $164 million.

And speaking of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, they don't just deal with health care. They also deal with energy and, in fact, Blunt is on the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment which deals with national energy policy, fossil energy, renewable energy resources and synthetic fuels, energy conservation, energy regulation and utilization, utility issues and regulation of nuclear facilities, and nuclear energy and waste. Missouri isn't an oil producing state like Texas, Alaska, Oklahoma and Louisiana so Blunt doesn't get as much in payoffs as Big Oil lackeys Joe Barton (R-TX-$1,415,720), Don Young (R-AK-$969,263), Pete Sessions (R-TX-$619,214), Mike Conaway (R-TX-$601,818), John Sullivan (R-OK-$494,250), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK-$469,760) or Randy Neugebauer (R-TX-$429,372)... but almost. In fact he gets more than any other member of the House who doesn't represent an oil patch state. Big Oil's K Street whores are the hard core of the Roy Blunt fan club. So far Big Oil has given Blunt $428,098 and he's been as generous to them as they've been to him-- only he uses taxpayer dollars to reward them. And he's always there to protect them from regulations that might help the American consumers and pinch the corporate bottom lines:

• Voted NO on enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution. (Jun 2009)

• Voted NO on tax credits for renewable electricity, with PAYGO offsets. (Sep 2008)

• Voted NO on tax incentives for energy production and conservation. (May 2008)

• Voted NO on tax incentives for renewable energy. (Feb 2008)

• Voted NO on investing in homegrown biofuel. (Aug 2007)

• Voted NO on criminalizing oil cartels like OPEC. (May 2007)

• Voted NO on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies. (Jan 2007)

• Voted NO on keeping moratorium on drilling for oil offshore. (Jun 2006)

• Voted YES on scheduling permitting for new oil refinieries. (Jun 2006)

• Voted YES on authorizing construction of new oil refineries. (Oct 2005)

• Voted YES on passage of the Bush Administration national energy policy. (Jun 2004)

• Voted YES on implementing Bush-Cheney national energy policy. (Nov 2003)

• Voted NO on raising CAFE standards; incentives for alternative fuels. (Aug 2001)

• Voted NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR. (Aug 2001)

• Voted NO on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol. (Jun 2000)

So, don't just work against Roy Blunt's race for the Senate because of how bad he's been on health care reform; he deserves equal antipathy for his record on energy and the environment. In fact here's a short, entertaining video clip I thought you might enjoy taking a look at: