Congressman Joe Wilson Tells the Neal Asbury Show that Incident during President Obama Congressional Address was a “Town Hall Moment”

(BUSINESS WIRE)--Participating in his first full length radio interview since his famously shouted “You Lie” remark during President Obama’s address to Congress propelled him into the media spotlight, Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) appeared on the nationally syndicated Neal Asbury Show on WZAB-AM. Congressman Wilson attributed his dramatic vocal response to a “town hall moment,” a visceral reaction to what he inherently knew was Obama’s misrepresentation of the citizenship immigration policy. Congressman Wilson likened his response to the kind of spontaneous reaction he is seeing during full capacity town hall meetings he is holding in his congressional district.

“I respect President Obama, but we have the right to disagree, especially when he promotes an immigration policy related to health insurance that I knew was meaningless. The proof is that two days after the joint session, the citizen verification policy was overhauled,” said Congressman Wilson, who was elected to the United States Congress in 2001. He was grateful that President Obama and other Democratic leaders accepted his apologies, and was particularly grateful that the Republican Conference supported him, as did his staff and constituency.

Congressman Wilson is convinced that the Democrats don’t want the American people to understand the issues related to healthcare, and is angry that consumers are being treated as if “they are stupid – which they are not; they’re just looking for answers and explanations.”

“At least 95 percent of my constituents support what Republicans are trying to do. Our HR 3400 is a good bill, and a logical alternative to the proposed HR3200 being promoted by the Democrats, which is a Trojan Horse for a government option that would create bizarre rules and regulations likely to be controlled by a ‘Health Czar’ with the power to interpret these regulations. Our bill really reflects the power and potential of free enterprise,” said Congressman Wilson, who outlined some of the provisions of HR 3400: choice of affordable private options; consumers can keep their current coverage; tax incentives will be created for the insured; coverage will be allowed to cross state lines; and the bill will promote tort and medical liability reform.

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Nathan Deal: Don't Lie. Verify

On Tuesday, I was honored to stand up for Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina on the floor of the U.S. House.

Joe has apologized to the President for his remarks and the President has accepted. But the liberal, national Democrats are trying to silence anyone who stands in the way of their government-run healthcare program.

Joe Wilson is a good friend of mine. He has four sons who all wear the uniform of our Armed Forces, just as their father did.

I also have proudly worn the uniform of the U.S. Army. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that I would have to stand up and oppose the Commander-in-Chief. But in this Administration, I have and I will.

For years, I've been leading the fight in Congress to stop illegal immigrants from getting taxpayer-funded health care benefits. In fact, I wrote the law requiring every state to verify identity and citizenship prior to enrolling anyone in Medicaid. No one has been more aggressive about ensuring precious health care funds go only to those here legally.

Just last month, I offered an amendment to the Democrat government-run health care scheme that would prevent illegal aliens from getting taxpayer funded Medicaid benefits by simply requiring verification that an individual is a U.S. Citizen, or in this country legally. Unfortunately, my amendment was defeated on a mostly party-line vote.

However, the buzz on Capitol Hill is that liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is forcing through her government-run health care scheme--without a provision to verify U.S. Citizenship or legal status--to the House floor for a vote as early as this afternoon. And you can help make sure this important taxpayer protection gets an up-or-down vote.

Nathan Deal

Deal for Governor

Call the Speaker's office to tell her to require citizen verification. Her number is 202-225-0100.

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Cash for Clunkers’ woes preview Obamacare

By Lynn Westmoreland

As Democratic members of Congress heard an earful over August from angry constituents worried about a government takeover of health care, hundreds of thousands of Americans were getting a sneak preview of what Obamacare might look like.

Washington, in its wisdom, instituted a seemingly simple Cash for Clunkers program, a plan so well known by Americans that it needs no further introduction.

The Cash for Clunkers window has closed now, of course, but its record of delays, paperwork, refusals, computer crashes and general red tape remained fresh in the memories of Americans as the president addressed the Congress this week to push his ideas for health care reform.

Without doubt, the president is the Democrats’ greatest messenger and he’s gifted in the art of persuasion. But the president doesn’t need to convince Americans that we have problems with our health care system. We could have all agreed on that long before he took up residence at the White House.

The president’s challenge is selling Americans on the dubious idea that the answer lies in a government takeover of the health care industry.

There are many legitimate reasons Americans from coast to coast flooded town hall meetings over August to voice their opposition. There are basic worries about bigger government, higher taxes and even larger federal deficits. Others wonder how an underfunded Medicare program could sustain $500 billion in cuts. But the main concern is intimately personal: Americans know a public option will undermine private insurance and lead to rationing, lower quality care and bureaucratic interference in the doctor-patient relationship.

It’s the latter concern where the Cash for Clunkers program could come into play.

At first, Congress appropriated $1 billion to provide a $4,500 incentive for Americans to trade in gas guzzlers for new, more fuel-efficient cars. This was supposed to rev up the ailing car dealers and auto manufacturers. (While almost 700,000 cars were bought through the program, this is a case of the government picking winners and losers. Cash for Clunkers merely pushed consumers to buy cars in lieu of other big purchases. Plus, dealers may face a dry spell after the taxpayer-subsided binge.)

The Department of Transportation this week will increase its work force for the program to 5,000, up from 3,000 last week, which was up from 1,100 public and private sector employees in mid-August. The bureaucracy keeps expanding.

What are these 5,000 new government workers doing? They’re processing the 27 million pages of paperwork generated by those nearly 700,000 car sales. A huge backlog formed waiting on the mere stamp of federal approval of the sale.

While many dealers appreciated the jump start on lagging sales, common complaints echoed nationwide: The government’s web site kept crashing, dealers couldn’t get their money from the Department of Transportation, their accountants were working around the clock to fill out the bounty of paperwork required on each car and 50 percent of applications were rejected. As of today (Sept. 10), only a little more than 40 percent of submissions have been paid.

Paperwork. Problems with payments to providers. Delays. Backups. New bureaucrats hired. The government picking winners and losers.

These things were bad enough when U.S. consumers were just looking for a good deal on a new car. What’s it going to be like when you need dialysis or a heart transplant?

President Obama’s effort to sell cars may give Americans extra pause as they watch him kick the tires on his health care plan.

Lynn Westmoreland (R-Grantville) represents Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District.
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CREW Files Ethics Complaint Against Rep. Deal

(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yesterday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics against Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) for violating House rules and federal law by intervening with Georgia political leaders to preserve a program that financially benefits him.

This past weekend, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Rep. Deal, along with his business partner Ken Cronan, owns a lucrative business, Recovery Services, Inc., that – through a no-bid contract – provides inspection stations to the state for the inspection of salvaged vehicles. The business earned $1.4 million between 2004-2008 and Rep. Deal personally took home $150,000 a year.

In 2008, Georgia Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham took over responsibility for the inspection system and found the operational costs and locations of the inspection stations to be too costly and restrictive for the state of Georgia and its residents. Comm. Graham decided the best course of action was to reform the system and award contracts through a competitive bidding process.

Rep. Deal and his staff, with assistance from Georgia Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, then arranged meetings with Comm. Graham at which Rep. Deal and his chief of staff were present, to persuade him to reconsider his decisions, including the proposed elimination of $1.7 million that has been allocated for the program. After Comm. Graham’s plan was passed by the Georgia House, Rep. Deal’s chief of staff used his House email to contact Georgia state officials to ensure the state Senate did not pass the cut in the program. The money for the program was eventually kept in the budget.

Rep. Deal may have committed a federal crime by using his position and congressional resources to engage in self-dealing, thereby depriving his constituents of his honest services. By using congressional resources, including House computers and staff time to pursue his business interests, he violated the federal law and House ethics rule requiring taxpayer funds be applied only to official business. By using his position to force Comm. Graham to meet with him and his chief of staff to discuss his personal business, and by contacting other Georgia politicians to influence a vote on a state budget matter, Rep. Deal violated the House rule prohibiting members from using their positions to obtain financial benefit. Finally, Rep. Deal’s course of conduct violates the House rule requiring members to act in a manner that reflects creditably on the House.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said, “Astonishingly, Rep. Deal seems to believe he has the right to use his position as a member of Congress to ensure no one -- not even a Georgia official -- interferes with his sweetheart deal with the state of Georgia. The Office of Congressional Ethics and perhaps the Department of Justice should be able to teach Rep. Deal a valuable lesson: public service is not intended as a path to self-enrichment.”

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Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Delivers Weekly Republican Address

"I'm Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. I serve as the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which handles all tax legislation.

"The President of the United States has the pleasure of leading the country in the best of times, but the responsibility for digging us out of the worst.

"He has to govern in the present and build confidence for the future.

"Right now, Americans need jobs. They want Washington to fix only what it can, without destroying opportunities for the next generation.

"The President's programs don't connect all the dots.

"His plans fail to recognize that Americans are not an endless source of tax dollars to pay for government spending.

"The President's proposed budget raises taxes. For the vast majority of people who earn less than $200,000, raising taxes on higher earners might not sound so bad.

"Yet a lot of small businesses are in that category. The landscaper or the general contractor with a dozen employees could land in the bull's eye.

"Tell these business owners their taxes will go up. Odds are, they'll cut spending. They'll cancel orders for new equipment, cut health insurance for their employees, stop hiring, and lay people off.

"These small businesses happen to create 74 percent of all new private sector jobs in the United States.

"Meanwhile, the President's budget includes a tax increase on more than half of small businesses with 20 or more employees. Businesses of that size account for two-thirds of the small business workforce. The tax increase is equal to 20 percent of the marginal tax rate paid by those small businesses.

"Ask people what number of jobs they're willing to sacrifice right now. To a person, they'll tell you zero.

"The Administration also wants to cut the tax deduction for giving to charity. Even the Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning think tank, says this would mean $9 billion less for philanthropy.

"The Administration's proposal to reduce the carbon production could amount to an average hidden tax increase of around $3,000 per household a year. In effect it's a national sales tax on energy.

"All of these tax increases would be the biggest tax increase in history.

"That's not all: Even if every one of these tax increases goes on the books, this budget still nearly triples the national debt by 2019.

"The President and his allies in Congress want to spend too much, tax too much, and borrow too much.

"Somebody has to pay -- if not the middle class now, then later. Eventually the middle class gets hit.

"Meanwhile, if taxes get too high, people drop out of the workforce and pay less taxes.

"So higher taxes don't bring in more money.

"Government spending is a pretty inefficient way to create jobs anyway. Economists say the new stimulus bill will cost $787 billion to create or save 2.5 million jobs -- one million fewer than promoted by the Administration and congressional supporters. It amounts to $315,000 for each job created or saved.

"It's very simple. The government doesn't create wealth. It expends wealth.

"No wonder then the public is skeptical about Washington trying to fix the economy with one massive spending bill after another. It's hard to convince taxpayers that more deficit spending is the answer.

"There's evidence that the President and his people understand this, even if their budget doesn't show it. They say they don't want to raise taxes until 2011 because the economy is too weak.

"Well, if the President admits that tax increases hurt the economy, that will be true in two years as it is true today. Americans need leadership, and they need confidence now. They need their President and their elected representatives to connect all the dots. Jobs are hard-won. The government should first, do no harm. Thank you for listening."

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Representative John Boehner Honored for Support of Manufacturing

/PRNewswire/ -- AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) said that Representative John Boehner (R-8, OH) received the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence today at an award event hosted by AK Steel at its West Chester, Ohio headquarters. The NAM Award honors federal lawmakers whose voting records have consistently supported manufacturing in America. James L. Wainscott, chairman, president and CEO of AK Steel, presented the NAM Award to Representative Boehner.

"John Boehner has been a dependable voice of support for manufacturers and their employees," Mr. Wainscott said. "We are grateful for his leadership and dedicated efforts to preserve manufacturing jobs and assure competitiveness in Ohio and across the nation."

"Representative Boehner has demonstrated a true understanding of manufacturing's key role in the strength of the American economy and has acted to maintain and create manufacturing jobs," said NAM President and CEO John Engler from Washington.

The NAM Award is given to members of the House and Senate who support key manufacturing votes 70 percent or more of the time, as determined by an advisory committee composed of NAM members from small and large manufacturers.

Since the first NAM Award was presented for votes cast in the 105th Congress (1997-1998), Representative Boehner's NAM voting record is greater than 98 percent on key manufacturing issues. He is one of 43 senators and 181 representatives who earned the NAM Award for the 110th Congress. Members of Congress are notified in advance when an upcoming vote has been designated a "key vote" by the NAM.

"The NAM Award is a nonpartisan indicator to help manufacturers and their employees sort out the true allies of manufacturing based on their votes on key issues that affect the manufacturing economy," Mr. Engler noted.

Voting records for members of Congress -- including those who scored 70 percent or better to earn the NAM Award -- are available at www.nam.org/votingrecord with further details about the NAM Key Manufacturing Votes.

AK Steel's corporate headquarters, research center and largest steelmaking plant are located in the Eighth Congressional District which Mr. Boehner represents in the U.S. House.

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Boehner Statement on President Obama’s Address to a Joint Session of Congress

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) released the following statement on President Obama’s address to a Joint Session of Congress last evening:

“All Americans should be proud to witness the history that will be made in the Capitol this evening. President Obama will make a compelling case that our nation can overcome the immense challenges before us, particularly when it comes to strengthening our economy and creating new jobs on behalf of middle-class families. Republicans want to be partners with the President in finding responsible solutions to the challenges facing our nation, but thus far congressional leaders in the President’s own party have stood in the way. That’s why Republicans take seriously our responsibility to offer better solutions to address the concerns of the American people.

“Middle-class families and small businesses across our nation are making sacrifices and tough budget decisions. It’s time for Washington to do the same. We cannot afford to pile mountains more in debt on our children and grandchildren in order to pay for a spending spree that we simply cannot afford. It is time for both parties in Washington to back up our promises of fiscal responsibility with real action.

“That means instituting a spending freeze so we can get our budget in order – beginning by replacing the half-trillion dollar spending bill Democratic leaders have scheduled for a House vote tomorrow with a clean bill, free of pork-barrel spending. That means not raising taxes in the midst of a recession – a sure recipe for a weaker economy and fewer jobs. That means supporting our men and women in uniform by providing them all the tools they need to defeat our enemies. That means safely developing our nation’s vast energy resources to lower energy costs and create more jobs. And that means ensuring access to affordable, high-quality health care for every American.”

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RNC Chairman's Response to President Obama's Address

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele released the following statement last night:

"Watching President Obama address our nation -- and feeling the pride that is in every American's heart -- it's worth pausing to celebrate our nation's achievements. Yet even as we mark this historic event, we recognize the deep problems that continue to face our nation. Republicans are eager to work with President Obama on the challenges he discussed, especially restoring fiscal responsibility and growing our economy.

"After last year's State of the Union, then-candidate Barack Obama asked the nation to imagine a time when a President's agenda would draw standing ovations from both sides of the aisle. That sort of bipartisanship is an admirable goal -- and one that unfortunately continues to elude Washington. The Democratic leadership in Congress must be willing to work with Republicans to stop out-of-control spending, promote the creation of jobs, and to keep our troops properly funded.

"Now would be a good time for this young Administration to ask the Democrat leaders in Congress to actually consider working in a bipartisan way to solve the real problems Americans are facing.

"I am more confident than ever that the American people will stand up for the principles our nation was founded on and will hold their representatives accountable to overcome the challenges that this nation faces."

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Americans wisely turning against stimulus plan

By Lynn Westmoreland

It seems like every other day an old friend or business partner calls to let me know that they’re declaring bankruptcy or going out of business.

We can all agree that the United States needs a federal stimulus plan to give our crippled economy a jolt. Our economy shrank 3.8 percent in the last quarter. Jobless claims have mushroomed to 626,000. Stock portfolios and retirement plans have lost 30 percent or more of their values.

But Americans have figured out that the $816 billion plan that passed the House with no Republican votes carries as much danger to the republic as it does hope. In fact, polls show support rapidly declining; today, just 37 percent of Americans favor the current stimulus legislation, down from 45 percent just two weeks ago. That’s startling, considering that Americans are increasingly nervous about huge job losses, business failures and home foreclosures.

Americans are turning against the bill because they know we can craft a much better bill that will simultaneously cost less and create more jobs.

But first, let’s discuss the price tag. The House-passed version totals $816 billion. Once you factor in the finance charges on borrowing that money, the total crests over $1 trillion.

It’s almost useless to discuss a trillion-dollar figure because it’s a number we can’t really comprehend. We’re more likely to get incensed by the government wasting $25,000 than $25,000,000,000 because one number we can understand and the other one is basically inconceivable. This is a problem.

One way to put this in perspective is comparisons. Liberals have complained for years over the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, Nancy Pelosi’s stimulus bill costs more than both those wars combined. Put another way, if you spent $1 million every day since the day that Jesus was born, you would have spent less than this one piece of legislation appropriates.

Even without this new spending, the federal deficit would top $1 trillion and our debt has soared to $11 trillion. This has real-world consequences. We risk further devaluing our currency and scaring off foreign investors who have seen Uncle Sam as a “safe” place to keep their money.

The Democrats’ stimulus plan focuses more on fulfilling liberals’ pent-up wish list over the eight years than it does with creating or saving jobs. In Georgia, we desperately need transportation infrastructure but spending on those job-creating projects is only 6 percent of the bill.

Instead, the bill spends hundreds of millions and often billions on items such as facelifts for national parks, buying new cars for the federal fleet and repairing federal buildings. Those may all be great but won’t stimulate the economy. Plus, we’re setting a dangerous precedent by spending billions to bail out states’ Medicare and Medicaid shortfalls; I fear this will become a permanent expectation.

Republicans are offering an alternative plan that reduces spending, allows families and businesses to keep more of their own money and actually creates MORE jobs than the Democratic plan. The Republican plan lowers tax rates for individuals, families and small businesses; it removes taxes from unemployment income and extends that insurance for a year.

The GOP plan would pan out better for Georgia, too. The House Ways and Means Committee estimates the Republican plan would create 186,000 jobs in our state while the Democrat plan would yield only 113,000.

In a survey sent to 3rd District constituents in my e-newsletter (sign up at www.house.gov/westmoreland), respondents preferred the taxpayer-friendly Republican version by a 9-1 margin. I know my district is more conservative than most, but the rest of the United States is moving toward our position of more timely, targeted and fiscally responsible stimulus.

Lynn Westmoreland (R-Grantville) represents Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District.
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