Contact: Scott Yeldell, 210.861.8626
scott@cansecoforcongress.com
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President Barack Obama visits Texas on Monday for fundraising efforts. A conservative state representative would ask the president these three questions that are on the minds of East Texans.
First, Mr. President, how can you honestly claim that ObamaCare does not increase taxes even though states will pay a large portion of this program through unfunded mandates? Projections are that ObamaCare will cost Texas $27 billion by 2020 or $2.7 billion per year. That is 3 percent of the budget from one mandate (Texas Health and Human Services Commission Report, March 31, 2010). Next session, the legislature will wrestle over balancing the state budget without raising taxes in the face of a potential $18 billion shortfall. Where do we get money to fund ObamaCare mandates without raising taxes? Do we spend funds earmarked for education? Do we de-fund law enforcement? Do we forgo building roads needed to develop our local economy? The best health care reform will come from free market principles that empower citizens rather than growing government.
Second, Mr. President, why are you suing Arizona for taking measures to protect its citizens and borders when the federal government has been derelict in its constitutional duty to do so? Texas is currently spending billions to educate, incarcerate and provide health care for illegal immigrants. Additionally, because the federal government has failed to secure the border, Texas has spent millions of state funds to do so. The federal government meddles in matters in which it has no authority yet refuses to fulfill its constitutional mandate to insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare and repel invasions. When a state steps forward to protect its citizens and borders, why should its reward be the full legal wrath of their own federal government? Instead of wasting federal tax dollars provided by East Texans to sue Arizona, we should use those funds to secure the border.
Finally, Mr. President, when your own economic program has led to increased unemployment while Texas is outperforming the nation, why are you attempting to micromanage the Texas economy? The economic stimulus program that was supposed to create jobs has actually increased national unemployment. In spite of that record, your administration seems intent to micromanage how the Texas Legislature deals with important issues such as education, unemployment insurance, permitting of industries that create jobs, and more.
Texans can best govern Texas because of our love for freedom and free enterprise. We do not need the increasing encroachment of the federal government in our state.
Erwin Cain is the Republican nominee for District 3 State Representative in the November General Election.
Source: http://theparisnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=4e3d1f2e10362de4
]]>Democrat State Representative Patrick Rose has found a way to make ends meet during this tough economy – by dipping into his campaign bank account.
Beginning in March of 2005, Representative Rose evidently got tired of paying for his own gasoline in his 2003 Ford F-150 and began charging it to his campaign. Since that day, Rose has billed his campaign approximately 322 times totaling $21,340.90 for gasoline and $15,422.67 for maintenance of his personal vehicle, a total of $36,763.57.
Rose has been passing these charges along to his campaign for approximately 65 months (or approximately 273 weeks). Typically, a pick-up truck needs to be filled up weekly. Simple math shows that Rose may not have paid for a single tank of gas since February 2005.
Some highlights from Rose’s campaign finance report:
· $21,340.90 for fuel, a total of 322 charges
· $15,422.67 for auto insurance, maintenance and registration
· $19,170.73 for food, including countless breakfasts, lunches and dinners for himself, staff and a few for his fellow House members
· $7,754.37 for gifts and flowers*
“While families and small businesses have been struggling to make ends meet, cutting back, carpooling and brown-bagging it, their state representative has been abusing the trust of his donors and constituents,” said Jason Isaac, the Republican challenging Rose in the November election.
Legitimate and occasional business expenses are common in any business or campaign. But Representative Rose’s spending is a clear abuse of his campaign funds. Donors contribute to a candidate to help them win an election or conduct officeholder business without expensing it to the taxpayers. Putting his donors on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars worth of food, flowers, gifts and gasoline shows Rose’s complete lack of respect for his donors.
“The people of Texas are simply fed up with politicians gaming the system for their own personal benefit and Patrick Rose is no different. He should personally repay his campaign for these abuses immediately and find room in his personal budget to pay his own bills like everyone else,” concluded Isaac.
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*This total does not include flowers and gifts for funerals and memorials.
Contact: Valerie Phillips
(512) 482-8245
vphillips@casteelerwin.com
Source: http://www.isaacfortexas.com/
]]>With the fall elections just three months away, President Obama recently summoned corporate leaders to the White House again to urge them to start hiring.
The president doesn’t seem to understand that his own policies have created pervasive uncertainty about the government’s future actions, causing many private investors to steer clear of new commitments to long-term investment — the kind that gives rise to additional private-sector jobs.
The unemployment situation, of course, is dismal. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the standard unemployment rate more than doubled after the economy began to contract early in 2008 and now seems stuck near 10 percent.
More significant, however, is the employment shortfall, because hours worked, in conjunction with the productive use of capital, natural resources and energy, gives rise to what we really want from the economy: goods and services.
BLS data show that between 1960 and 1970, the number of hours worked in the private business sector increased 12 percent. In each subsequent decade — 1970-80, 1980-90, and 1990-2000 — hours worked increased 18 percent per decade, or about 65 percent overall from 1970 to 2000.
During the past decade the growth stopped. When the economy turned down after 2000, business sector employment fell by 5 percent during the following three years. Although employment recovered after 2003, the economy ran out of steam again at the end of 2007. So, for the seven-year period as a whole there was no gain.
At that point, the most recent recession set in, pushing hours worked in the business sector down by more than 9 percent by the third quarter of 2009. Since then, hardly any gain has occurred, and the hours being worked today in America’s businesses are roughly equal to the number being worked in 1995.
Unless an unexpectedly rapid improvement occurs soon, Americans will endure not a Japanese-style “lost decade,” but a lost decade and a half or more.
Construction employment has fallen the most — about 28 percent — reflecting the housing bust. Employment in durable goods manufacturing, such as autos and appliances, fell more than 20 percent; in nondurable goods manufacturing the decline was more than 10 percent.
Employment in utilities has remained almost unchanged, and hours in leisure and hospitality services are down less than 5 percent. But elsewhere in the service sector, hours for most types of work are stuck at a level about 8 percent below their 2007 peak.
Government employment has resisted the trend. America’s local, state and federal governments employ 16 percent more people than they did in 1995. Given the uncertainty about how much value, if any, many of these government employees are producing, this development scarcely compensates for the losses in private employment.
Genuine economic recovery requires the one thing we are least likely to see: a substantial reduction of government expenditure, taxes and regulations, along with a credible government commitment to stay this less burdensome course. This would give private entrepreneurs the confidence and time to generate the prosperity only they can create.
Unfortunately, anemic private employment tempts politicians to intervene even more in the economy, heightening the uncertainty and discouraging investors further in a vicious cycle.
http://rickperry.org/release/texas-ophthalmological-association-shares-gov-perrys-vision-texas’-future
]]>WASHINGTON – Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst warned this morning that the new federal health care legislation will bust Texas’ budget – saddling state taxpayers with $27 billion in extra costs over the next decade.
“That’s an astounding number for us,” Dewhurst told the Texas State Society over breakfast, including a half-dozen members of Congress. “We’re on the hook for all those folks we’ve been trying to get to sign up for Medicaid.”
Doubling the state’s Medicaid rolls, he said, will mean that health care claims an ever-bigger share of the state budget. And that segment has already grown from one-quarter of the budget to one-third in the last seven years.
“Arguably, we have to crowd out public education or higher education to pay for this, or raise taxes,” Dewhurst said. “… Those are unsustainable numbers. Totally unsustainable.”
Backers of the new health care law consider the figures Dewhurst cited wildly inflated.
Texas has 6.1 million uninsured, the most of any state, and leads the nation with roughly 27 percent of adults younger than 65 lacking health insurance.
Health policy analysts say Texas will see a spike in costs, but mainly because until now, it made it so hard to qualify for Medicaid compared to most states.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, working with the Urban Institute, estimates that adding 1.8 million adults to Medicaid will cost Texas $2.6 billion between the years 2014 and 2019, because the federal government will pick up most of the cost.
The estimate Dewhurst cited doesn’t take into account that state and local governments will spend less on care for uninsured patients. An aide to Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, who introduced Dewhurst at breakfast, cited Congressional Budget Office projections this afternoon that show Texas would face only $1.4 billion in extra costs this decade due to the expansion of health care.
Dewhurst has been making regular trips to Washington to consult with the state’s lobbying arm, the Office of State-Federal Relations, and members of its congressional delegation.
He said he is most concerned about federal health care policy, along with energy proposals that include taxes on carbon emissions to combat climate change. That legislation has stalled, but critics say it would raise energy prices and hurt key sectors of the Texas economy.
“I have never seen so many things going on in Washington that directly affect us, as I have in the last year and a half,” Dewhurst said.
Tuesday’s breakfast took place at a club for Republican lawmakers a block from the U.S. Capitol. It was hosted by the Texas State Society, a nonpartisan group best known for its Black Tie & Boots inaugural bash every four years.
Dewhurst said he’s been getting lobbied by U.S. House members about redistricting. Thanks to rapid population growth relative to most of the country, Texas stands to gain at least three, and perhaps four new U.S. House seats when new Census figures are released early next year. The Legislature will redraw districts – a process that is always highly partisan.
“I’ve had Democrats and Republicans come in and says let’s split it down the middle, or let’s do this or that. I think it’s too early,” he said. “Realistically, all of us need to look at where the population growth has occurred…. I don’t think it will be 4-0 Republican, or 0-4 Democrat.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/tgillman/stories/072910dnnatdewhurst.292ab8b0.html
]]>Comptroller Combs is not just leading Victory, but is also helping the party by providing regular counsel to Chairman Munisteri as well as generous financial help. Comptroller Combs has provided $50,000 in funds for the RPT, and of equal importance, has been providing the Chairman with her personal counsel on budgeting, financial issues, staffing, and more. Her advice and counsel has been instrumental in formulating a plan for the RPT, which we are confident will result in strong and healthy party in the future.
Read more here: http://texasgop.org/news.asp?artid=194
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Carter’s fundraising total nearly matched her opponent, Democratic incumbent Carol Kent. Carter and Kent are running in the historically Republican Texas House District 102.
“I am proud to have fought and won a tough primary while still nearly matching my Democratic opponent dollar for dollar,” said Carter. “This puts my campaign exactly where it needs to be as we head toward Election Day."
“This shows that our message of lower taxes and job creation is resonating and that voters are tired of having a Representative who has never met a tax increase -- both on individuals and small businesses -- she didn’t like.”
Texas House District 102 is in Dallas County. District 102 has been a dependable Republican District but elected Kent in a 2008 squeaker on the coattails of a narrow Obama win in the district.
For 2010 Carter has already raised $188,818, putting her near the top of all State Representative candidates in the State.
Stefani Carter was born in District 102. She earned her law degree at Harvard School of Law before returning to be criminal prosecutor in North Texas. She later went into private practice.
By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
Former Army officer Brian Birdwell has been picked by party activists to fill an opening in the general election for a Republican state Senate candidate after key GOP forces determined that he'd be able to withstand a possible legal challenge over his residence eligibility.
But Birdwell had to wait a full month after a victory in a special election before getting the official nod Friday as the Senate District 22 nominee while Republicans investigated assertions that he wasn't legally qualified to seek the position because he hadn't lived in Texas for all of the past five years.
While Birdwell claimed the SD 22 seat when he defeated former lawmaker David Sibey with 58 percent of the vote in a special election runoff in June, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst wanted to make sure that the Senate's newest member wouldn't be vulnerable to a lawsuit by Democrats on the residency question if he took predecessor Kip Averitt's place on the fall ballot.
Before the GOP's county chairs in SD 22 voted on a replacement nominee for Averitt, who'd won the March primary election after cancelling his campaign due to health problems, the Texans for Lawsuit Reform at Dewhurst's request asked one of its lawyers to research the Birdwell residency question so party officials could feel assured that his case was sound.
After TLR Counsel Michael Hull looked into the arguments and evidence that had emerged during the special election, the tort reform group decided that Birdwell was indeed qualified to serve in the Senate under the constitutional residency requirements. TLR, which contributed $50,000 to Sibley during the primary, has endorsed Birdwell and donated at least $5,000 to his campaign since he won the June 22 runoff.
Sibley and Averitt had questioned Birdwell's eligibility based in part on the fact that he voted in Virginia as recently as 2006 and obtained a resident fishing license there. Birdwell retired from the military as a lieutenant colonel in 2004 and moved back to Texas three years later. But Birdwell has contended that he never gave up his residency in Texas even though he was out of state being treated for life-threatening injuries suffered during the terrorist attack on the Pentagon nine years ago.
Birdwell, who won a term in the special election that expires in January, had the support of all of the eight county Republican chairs who were on hand at a downtown Waco hotel for the vote on the November nominee in SD 22. Two county chairs didn't attend the meeting. But new state GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri of Houston was on hand for the vote - and according to the Waco Tribune-Herald - he opened the meeting to the press after the activists were initially hesitant about doing so.
Averitt's decision to drop out of the race after winning the primary has also opened the door for Democrats to pick a fall nominee for a contest that none had entered when it appeared that he'd be seeking re-election as the incumbent. The list of Democrats whose names have been floated as possible SD 22 contenders includes former Texas House member Lyndon Olson Jr. and his brother, Waco attorney Charles Olson. Lyndon Olson, a state representative in the 1970s, served as the U.S. ambassador to Sweden for three years under Bill Clinton. Charles Olson is a former Waco school board member.
Waco attorney John Mabry, who's currently competing against Republican State Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson for the House District 56 seat in November, has been mentioned as a possible Senate contender. Mabry served one term in the lower chamber before losing to Anderson in 2004.
State Rep. Jim Dunnam, the leader of the House Democratic Caucus, has also been mentioned as a possible Senate candidate as well. But Dunnam would have to give up his House seat to run for the Senate in a race that will be tough for any Democrat to win in a heavily Republican district.
The GOP has held the SD 22 since Sibley was elected in a special election in 1991 to replace Democrat Chet Edwards after he won a seat in Congress. Edwards claimed the SD 22 seat initially in 1982 a year after it was created during the redistricting process.
