Congress On Vacation

Congress is now on vacation for a month. 


After all of the ranting and hyperbole about the deficit and how important a balanced budget is to the nation's future, Congress did nothing to cut the deficit or balance the budget. 


In fact in the last two weeks it added to the deficit. Member of Congress are now back in their districts and this is your chance. Download The Pledge and confront your Congressmen and Senators. They represent you. They work for you. All you are asking is that they make a pledge to live up to their most basic responsibility. You are asking them to do their job. 


If you confront a member of Congress, please videotape it and send it to me. I will air it on Television and on this site. Also, please take a moment to join the site by hitting the tab to the right. Together we can put pressure on Congress to work for us and not for themselves. 


Ask them to balance the budget or quit.

Congress Ready To Spend More

The Super Committee was a scam.  Sequestering is a scam .  Now Congress has just four days to do something about the out of control federal deficit.

And guess what it is going to do?  No, not nothing, but good guess.

Congress is set to SPEND more.  $200 Billion dollars in four days!   $200 Billion dollars more on top of the deficit that threatens to cripple America.  And it could be more than that...

Here is a list:

• Lawmakers are expected to spend $120 billion or so to renew a Social Security tax cut cut that averaged just under $1,000 per household this year. 
• They're ready to commit up to $50 billion more to continue unemployment benefits to those out of work for more than half a year.
• Doctors will be rescued, again, from promised cuts in Medicare payments. 

Now all of those are worthy causes.  And that shows the problem with cutting the deficit.  They are ALL worth causes that no one has the political coyrage to say "we can't afford it." 

And before you bring up the Bush tax cuts, they don't expire until the end of next year.  That is just too long to wait.  Congress needs to come up with a tax reform bill beore then.  Don't fall for arguments over tax rates.  Who cares what the rate is if there are so many loopholes, deductions and tax breaks that the biggest coprorations and richest American pay little or nothing anyway?

The tax code must be fair and right now it is not.  Reform the tac code and you will have real deficit reduction.  Then Congress can afford the obscene amount of money it is going to spend before Thursday.

There was a deficit reduction bill floating around Congress, but it was killed by special interests. 

For instance, the chairmen and senior minority members of the Senate and House agriculture committees tried to add a five-year farm bill onto the deficit reduction bill that would end much-criticized direct subsidy payments to Southern rice and cotton growers whether they farm or not. 

Sounds good right?  Wrong.

Instead of banking the nearly $50 billion in savings, farm-state lawmakers maneuvered to channel much of the money to a new subsidy for locking in four-decade-high revenues for corn and soybean growers in the Midwest.

The new subsidy would act as a free revenue insurance and could pay out if a farm lost as little as 13 percent of its revenue in a year. They easily would end up costing the government double the current subsidies to cotton and rice growers.  It was a cynical attempt to use deficit reduction into guarenteed prosperity for big agricultural interests.

That is why the Pledge is so important.  No wiggle room.  No slight of hand.  Balance the budget or quit. 

Here are just a few things Congress has done in this session instead of dealing with the deficit, a budget, a jobs bill, immigration reform or an energy policy:

1) VACATION Congress took a lot of vacation.  Since the first of the year. the House of Representatives has been on vacation  as much as it has been in session.  They like to call it "in district constituant services," but it is really fund raising and vacation.

2) TRASH CONSTITUTION Both the Senate and House debated for some time over allowing the Federal Government to arrest citizens inside the United States and hold them in military custody indefinitely and without a trial.  Finally they decided that darn Constitution just gets in the way.

3) TRASH CONSTITUTION TWO  Both the Senate and House debated seperate bills that would allow the Justice Department to shutdown any web site for being "Rogue."  They were promoted as anti-piracy bills, but the power was so broad they would have violated Freedom of Speech rights.  The bills were fueled by corporate lobbyists that wanted to take out competition.  Again, after much debate, the whole thing is on hold.  Gee, what a shock.  Congress ended up doing nothing.

4) VOTE FOR GOD Who says Congress can't come together to take on the tough issues of the day.  In a 396-9 vote, Congress reaffirmed "In God We Trust" as the national motto.  It wasn't in any danger.  Congress just wanted to vote on something,  Hmmm, I wonder why Congess likes "In God We Trust so Much."  Oh that's right -

5) READ A CENSORED VERSION OF US CONSTITUTION  You can't make this stuff up.  Congress read aloud the Constitution, for the first time in history, but then ironically ruined the point of the whole thing by leaving parts of it out.  So they censored a document that fights censorship in the very First Amendment.  Later, the Speaker addressed Tea Party members and  mixed up the Constution with the Declaration of Independence.  Can't a guy ad lib?

6) GET PIT PASSES FOR LIFE This Congress was good to Nascar.  First, it cleared the way for Governement money to be used to sponsor a  Nascar Race.  Then it okayed tax cuts for Nascar.  Thank goodness in these days when veterans, the elderly and schools are seeing their money cut, NASCAR will be okay.  Hey, wait!  What a great idea!  Maybe Senators and House Representatives should be required to wear the logos of all the companies and special interests that have bought their votes, just like Nascar drivers.

7) PIZZA IS A VEGETABLE  Or as kids call it - "The Most Awesome Bill Ever!"  As a way to derail an Obama Administration initiative to make school lunches healthier and with the prodding of food industry lobbyists, Congress declared Pizza is a vegetable because it has tomato sauce.  I know, I know, tomatos are fruits, doesn't matter.  Congress says they are vegetables.  Hey, Big Mac's have lettuce and tomatoes AND pickles - a Big Mac is a salad!

8) RUIN THE FUNERAL OF AN AMERICAN ICON  Frank Buckles, the longest living and lone survivor of Worl War I, died this year at the age of 110.  He came to symbolize al the men who fought in that war.  In his and their honor, veterans requested that his remains lie in honor in the Capital building.  It was blocked by Congress.

There is a much longer list of Congressional insanity, but I don't want to ruin your day.

We need to force Congress to re-focus on the economy.  Dowload the Pledge and ask them to sign it. 

We will keep a running list of those who do and thos who refuse on this site.
We need to insist that Congress do its job.

Another Pledge I like

This is Matt Locker from New Jersey, known on Twitter as @MattLocker.  


@LarryMendte A solidaric companion campaign to your piece.

The Pledge on the Philadelphia Magazine site

Bums in Congress Work About as Much as the Unemployed
How we can force politicians to do some work next year
By Larry Mendte

Congress just got back from a week-long Thanksgiving vacation and is scheduled to start a month-long vacation on December 8th. When they return, it will be 2012, an election year, and if you think there was partisan bickering this year, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This means that for another year nothing meaningful will get done. There will be no jobs bill to help the 14 million unemployed, no deficit-reduction bill after the Super Committee scam, and Americans will still be fighting and dying in Afghanistan, a war that has lost its purpose. You can forget a comprehensive energy policy or immigration reform, two things every politician promises, but no one ever really does.

Read the rest at PhillyMag.Com

Pizza First

Here is the kind of thing Congress has been doing instead of dealing with the economy:

Big Props to Mark Constisciano from Wilmington, Delaware who wrote this on my Facebook page: 
_______________________________

Mark Contrisciano Larry, I posted it on the FB page of Senators Carper and Coons from Delaware. An open request for their signature and support.
_______________________________

Tom Carper and Chris Coons are the two Senators from Delaware.  I told Mark to please let me know if he gets a response and I will post it here and maybe use it on the air.

But that is a great idea for everyone.  Post the Pledge or the video on the Facebook pages or Home pages of your Representatives or Senators.  Let me know if you do.

Way to go Mark!