Contribute To The DCCC... If You Want To Make It Easier For The GOP To Abolish The EPA And Defund Planned Parenthood

Last night, when even politicians started wondering if they should take a stand on the OccupyWallStreet movement-- maybe they had read Van Jones' powerful Which Side Are You On framing-- Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the eternal, craven Beltway apparachik, was tweeting away mindlessly about the grandeur of Iowa Blue Dog Leonard Boswell.


Nothing from ole Debbie about a crucial Outside-the-Beltway movement that could shake the foundations of America, just mindless cheerleading for a conservative shill who had just a few days before joined 230 Republicans in another move to hamper the operations of the EPA. Wasserman Schultz, of course, voted with the Democrats. It was the last vote before Boehner let everyone go home for another super-long "weekend." Those who would see nothing wrong with taking legalistic bribes from corporations that pollute our air and water and then voting to cut back on the regulators won the vote, 249-169, a landslide against social sanity. Bosell was hardly the only Democrat joining the Republicans on that one. The list reads like a cross between what's left of the mangy Blue Dog caucus and the DCCC's Front Line list of priority races that they're sinking virtually all their contributions into this cycle. If you donate to the DCCC, you're donating to "Democrats" who vote with Republicans against the EPA. These are the Democrats who rallied behind Boehner and Cantor and against the EPA:

Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Leonard Boswell (Blue Dog-IA)
Dennis Cardoza (Blue Dog-CA)
Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
Jerry Costello (IL)
Mark Critz (PA)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Nick Rahall (WV)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Terry Sewell (AL)

The bolded names are on the DCCC list of endangered incumbents who vote with the GOP so often that Democratic voters won't support them. In the case of the EPA bill, there were actually 4 Republicans who crossed the aisle in the other direction and voted with the Democrats against the polluters. Each of the 4 represents a blue-leaning district and is likely to face a life-or-death match-up next year: Charlie Bass (NH), Judy Biggert (IL), Robert Dold (IL) and Nan Hayworth (NY).

Many on that same list of Blue Dogs and other "Democrats" the DCCC wastes all its money on, are also the traitors working with Boehner and Cantor on yet another attack against Planned Parenthood. Last week the Republican Leadership had Montanan teabag zombie Denny Rehberg introduce an appropriations bill with no input which they are now planning to push without any subcommittee hearings-- remember how the used to whine that Nancy Pelosi operated the House like a Soviet politburo or some nonsense? It prohibits any funds going to Planned Parenthood unless they stop providing abortions entirely (even if it's with non-federal funds). Progressive Caucus Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the ranking Democrat on the Labor, Education, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, responded for the House Democrats (well, for most of the House Democrats):

"Today, Chairman Rehberg posted on the Internet a draft bill and other materials, representing his proposals for the fiscal year 2012 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Act.

"I am very concerned by reports that the Chairman has no plans to convene a meeting of our subcommittee to consider and mark up this legislation. While this posting of the Chairman’s proposals is interesting, it is by no means an acceptable substitute for public debate and amendment. The Chairman, by himself, is not the subcommittee.

"Eleven of the 12 House appropriations subcommittees have now marked up their fiscal year 2012 legislation. The Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee stands alone in its failure to take even this first step, with markup dates having been twice announced and twice postponed. While the House has failed to act, the Senate Appropriations Committee has considered and approved their version of the Labor-HHS-Education bill at both the subcommittee and full committee levels. If no House markup is held, this would be the first time in nearly a decade that our subcommittee has failed to report out a bill.

"Such a course is a clear violation of the Republican majority’s pledge to follow regular legislative order in dealing with appropriations-- a pledge which the majority leadership of the House and the committee have emphasized time and again this year. I certainly hope that the majority will keep its promises, and convene a meeting of the subcommittee and then the full committee to consider a Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations bill.

"Further, if these documents represent the position that Chairman Rehberg intends to take into negotiations with the Senate, it looks like we’re in for a long, difficult process. After a year of contentious budget debates, radical proposals from the new majority, and multiple threats of government shutdowns and even defaults, there had been hope that we’d be able to put all that behind us for a while and complete action on fiscal year 2012 appropriations in a reasonably timely and cooperative manner based on the spending levels agreed to in the Budget Control Act enacted last month. Judging from these proposals, though, the Republican majority doesn’t seem to be on board for that goal.

"Instead, the Rehberg draft injects a whole host of new, contentious legislative issues into the process-- most of them quite extraneous to the task at hand of setting funding levels for federal agencies and programs for the upcoming fiscal year. His proposal contains at least 40 brand new legislative provisions and riders, many of them highly controversial, and most dealing with complicated subjects well outside the expertise of the Appropriations Committees.

"For example, the draft bill contains no fewer than six controversial new riders relating to the National Labor Relations Board. One of them, for example, overturns 75 years of practice by removing the protections of the National Labor Relations Act from workers in any firm that falls within the SBA’s definition of "small business"-- a definition broad enough to encompass companies with a thousand employees in some cases. The bill also includes language amending the Davis-Bacon Act, along with provisions interfering with pending rules on subjects such as the fiduciary duties of pension plan investment advisors, wage rates for temporary foreign workers, and coal dust exposure for miners.

"Then, there’s a provision to block Education Department rules designed to protect students and taxpayers from those for-profit colleges with the very worst records as far as student debt loads and defaults. There’s also language prohibiting local public radio stations from using any funds they receive from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to acquire programming from one particular provider that has evidently been singled out for the Republican majority’s displeasure-- National Public Radio.

"In the health area, the Rehberg draft once again includes language prohibiting use of funds to implement almost any part of the Affordable Care Act. (It makes exceptions for certain Medicare payment regulations and a few provisions relating to drug costs under Medicaid.) The prohibition would continue “until 90 days after the date on which all legal challenges to any of such provisions are complete"-- which in practice will probably be a very long term and certainly the entire fiscal year covered by this bill.

"There are at least 50 million people in this country without health coverage and yet all that we hear from the Republican majority on this subject is "no." The bill’s prohibition would prevent use of funds to implement reforms like prohibiting insurance companies from excluding pre-existing conditions for children, allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ policies, and placing restrictions on lifetime and annual coverage limits, to give just a few examples. It would also deny funds to implement the interim “risk pool” coverage for uninsured people with health problems and to continue putting in place the systems needed for full health reform implementation in 2014.

"Another health-related provision prohibits any funding under the bill from going to any Planned Parenthood affiliate unless the organization promises not to perform abortions with non-federal funds. Remarkably, these particular health care providers-- and the patients they serve-- would be denied federal funding for any purpose unless they agree to stop providing a lawful medical service using funds from patients and other non-federal sources. The main effect would probably be to prohibit Medicaid patients from choosing to receive services such as contraception and cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood clinics.

"On Pell Grants for college students, the Rehberg plan does maintain the total maximum grant at the current level of $5,550. However, it makes a long series of amendments to the authorizing law governing Pell Grants (and, in some cases student loans and other financial aid as well), which allow the appropriation to be cut $2.3 billion below the FY 2011 amount. Some of these changes may have merit, as a means of improving the long-term viability of the program, and I will be interested in the views of experts in the field once they have a chance to review the Chairman’s legislation.

"However, some of these proposed authorizing law amendments cause serious concern. Most notably, the largest single change appears to be targeted to students who are working while going to school-- especially adult students independent of their parents-- and appears likely to reduce Pell Grant assistance for many in this group by many hundreds of dollars. That seems exactly the wrong step to be taking when so many people are relying on Pell Grants to go back to school or stay in school to gain the education and skills they need for jobs in the new economy.

"Turning from riders to money issues, one thing that seems puzzling about the Chairman’s draft is the spending total. It’s not at all clear how the Rehberg proposal fits into the Republican leadership’s stated intent of producing appropriations bills consistent with the limits set in the Budget Control Act. At about $4 billion below last year’s level, it produces more savings than the $2.5 billion in total savings prescribed for all eight “non-security” appropriations bills together. Is the majority’s intent to target all of the Budget Control Act’s non-security cuts (plus some more) to the education, health and other important programs funded in this bill? That seems a case of badly misplaced priorities. Or are they not intending after all to produce bills at the totals negotiated just last month? There’s really no way to answer those questions unless the majority discloses how they are allocating the Budget Control Act discretionary spending totals among all of the various appropriations bills. I hope they will do so.

"As for the specific funding levels in Chairman Rehberg’s proposal, there are some I strongly support. For example, Head Start receives an increase in order to continue to serve the same number of children as in the current year. Biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health gets the 3.5 percent increase recommended by the President (although I regret that the draft does not adopt the Administration’s proposal to create a new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, to improve the process of turning basic research into new treatments). Additional funding is provided for the two main programs that assist local school districts throughout the country: increases of $1 billion for title I grants for education for the disadvantaged and $1.2 billion for special education. I am also glad to see that the Chairman’s draft rejects the President’s proposal to cut the Community Services Block Grant almost in half.

"Unfortunately, the Chairman’s proposal also contains a number of harmful and ill-advised cuts. One of the most egregious items is the almost complete elimination of the Corporation for National and Community Service-- the agency that administers successful programs such as Americorps and the Social Innovation Fund. The Chairman’s mark simply dissolves the entire enterprise without regard for the unique role CNCS plays in our democracy. Without CNCS, there will be no Americorps, Senior Corps or Learn and Serve-- programs which, taken together, serve as a powerful engine for community volunteerism to tackle America’s challenges that exist right here at home.

"I am also deeply disturbed by the massive cuts to our nation’s job training system. With unemployment at a staggering 9.1%, more Americans than ever are depending on the 3,000 one-stop career and training centers located in communities nationwide. This is a network funded with federal dollars but adapted at the local level to best serve each individual community. Yet the Rehberg plan proposes to cut approximately 75% from the funding level currently provided for basic grants to states and localities for training and employment. In addition, while I am relieved to see that his draft measure protects reemployment programs for veterans, it reduces funding by more than half for other nationally administered training programs that have proven results, such as Youthbuild.

"I understand the majority may claim that these cuts reflect a decision to provide only a part-year appropriation in this bill, as part of a plan to shift the federal funding cycle for job training programs. However, for the local agencies that run these programs, this technical effort is, at best, a serious disruption. Further, if the amount in the Rehberg bill is actually intended as only part-year funding, how can the majority plausibly claim that they will restore the cut and go back to the full year amount next year, when the Budget Control Act will continue to tightly constrain spending? With millions of Americans out of work, it is hard to imagine a worse time to inject such uncertainty into the workforce development system.

"Another cut that will reduce assistance to the unemployed, as well as to others in need, comes in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The Rehberg bill reduces LIHEAP by $1.3 billion or 28 percent, even though there will be just as many people needing help this winter as last and some fuel costs are likely to be rising-- especially for heating oil.

"The Rehberg plan also once again proposes to wipe out all funding for the title X family planning program, which received $299 million in fiscal year 2011. This program helps support family planning and reproductive health services to more than 5 million people annually at 4,500 community-based clinics.

"Further, under the Rehberg plan, the Centers for Disease Control receives about $670 million less in fiscal year 2012 than in 2011, a 10 percent cut. This is the result of reduced regular appropriations combined with rescission of all fiscal year 2012 funding for the Prevention and Public Health Fund. Support for training health professionals-- particularly primary care providers-- is cut by $321 million or 62 percent. All funding under the Affordable Care Act for Community Health Centers and the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) is rescinded. As a result, Health Centers will have no more funds than last year to help care for the unemployed and uninsured. The NHSC—which provides scholarships and loan repayment assistance to doctors, dentists, and nurses who work in underserved areas-- will have 55 percent less funding than in fiscal year 2011.

"Finally, the Rehberg plan fails to provide the traditional advance appropriation for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. By far the largest portion of this appropriation is used for direct grants to help support the operation of approximately 1,300 local public television and radio stations throughout the country.

"In conclusion, the Rehberg plan fails to adequately address our nation’s needs in the midst of economic crisis, while bogging down the process with politically driven legislative riders. I cannot support this measure in its current form and am eager to engage with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both houses of Congress to find solutions that will make the best use of federal resources in pursuit of job creation and economic growth, as well as in support of the neediest Americans."

Rehberg, a member of Michele Bachmann's House Tea Party caucus and a corrupt multimillionaire whose relationships with the worst of the Beltway lobbyists is notorious all over Washington, isn't seeking reelection to the House next year and is instead challenging Jon Tester for his Senate seat. The Republicans are deciding who to nominate to replace him-- Steve Daines, a millionaire job exporter from the Greed and Selfishness wing of the party or John Abarr, a KKK and GOP organizer from the Hatred and Bigotry wing. But the Democrats are also struggling with their nomination. The two front-runners are state Rep. Franke Wilmer, a populist professor we've talked about before frequently with the Republicans, Gillan.

It's crucial, as we've been saying for years, to elect progressives, not conservatives, whether they call themselves Republicans or Democrats. Although she's gotten better since then, in 1999 Kim Gillen boasted a dismal 20% pro-choice voting record. And that isn't the only place where she's lined up with the GOP. No Democrat who voted for deregulation of Montana's energy utilities-- as Gillan did in 1997-- has ever won statewide office since then. But the Beltway insiders are behind her, just the way they were behind corporate shill John Morrison in 2006-- before savvy Montana Democratic voters handed them his head. We asked Franke, an articulate advocate of women's right to choice, about Rehberg's proposal. Her response (below) is why we urge all DWT readers who can afford to to consider assisting her in her campaign:

"During one of our country’s worst economic downturns Congressman Rehberg's proposal just pushes a partisan ideology instead of solving the real problems average people are facing. Instead of looking for ways to put people back to work, he attacks women's rights and proposes huge cuts to Planned Parenthood-– an organization that works primarily to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Planned Parenthood has absolutely nothing to do with our current economic problems and Congressman Rehberg is just using it as pretext to attack women's rights. It is an outrage.

"Our economic problems were created by irresponsible conduct on Wall Street, driven by greed. Rep. Rehberg not only proposes leaving people literally out in the cold by cutting home heating assistance for low-income families, but also cutting unemployment benefits during a time of record unemployment; cutting job services and limiting access to college and other programs that help people to get back to work. I know from my personal experience the effects these cuts will have. I was a waitress for sixteen years and put myself through school with the help of a few Pell grants-– which he has called welfare. Of course we need to balance the budget, but balancing the budget on the backs of people down on their luck is not the America I grew up in."

I ran into Rob Zerban yesterday. He's the Democratic candidate battling it out with Wall Street superstar Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin-based congressman advocating to end Medicare and other social and regulatory programs in order to be able to cut taxes further for his wealthy backers. Over the course of the campaign Rob has become more and more attuned to the inequities rampant in our society and championed by his opponent. When I asked him how he feels about the Occupy Wall Street movement, he didn't hesitate for a second:

"What is happening on Wall Street is indicative of what is happening everywhere in the US. The vanishing middle class is finally waking up to the class warfare that has been waged against them. This is evident by the redistribution of wealth over the past thirty years. Stagnant wages along with the rollback of workers rights is creating a destabilization of our society, along with any security the middle-class had. They are no longer willing to sit by and watch the disastrous plans of the GOP & Paul Ryan drive this country to ruin. It is time to stand up and fight back. My running to replace Paul Ryan is a moral imperative for me, and part of our countries struggle in the larger narrative of our domestic priorities to determine what our country will look like for future generations of Americans. The debate in DC will determine the fate of the middle class. It is a fight we must win."

Time to Stop Paul Ryan?


UPDATE: Beware The Mangy Blue Dogs

I just got an e-mail from a friend, a political consultant who had been telling me about a Democratic candidate running for Congress in Illinois. He told me the candidate was claiming to be a solid progressive but when I checked with people I know in the area-- friends in labor unions, bloggers, activists-- they all responded the same way: "GAG!" But I agreed to talk with him anyway and hear what he had to say. Today's e-mail:

"I just got word back from the candidate's campaign manager that he is not looking to work the progressive/blog money and we have walked away from his campaign. He thinks that they can find enough money from Blue Dog groups to fund this campaign and is moving him right into center right to 'attract Democrats and Republicans'.

"GAG these assholes never learn!"

Not the right match for a Blue America candidate.