The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with their own money. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859)
Three Liners: OK, so ‘one-liner’ is the term we all know and are accustomed to hearing, well I can't tell you much in one line, but here's a group of three-liners on various subjects which may give you some information you didn't know:
House Cafeteria: Prices in the government-run cafeterias in the basement of the House Office Buildings have gone up recently, at the alarming rate of 31% between 2007 and the end of 2008. According to House Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard, who oversees the House cafeterias; since Democrats took control of the House they have instituted requirements for organically grown food and required all workers to be union members in order to serve or cook in the cafeterias, and these steps have in turn caused the price increase. But, House staffers do not like paying for all this, so your tax dollars are being considered to subsidize this too!
Cuts: The President announced, with great fanfare, his proposals to cut $17 billion of spending from 121 programs in the upcoming fiscal year. This is after he increased spending by over $1 trillion dollars in just two bills in his first couple months in office. So, he is proposing to cut an amount that is less than 2% of what he just increased, and his proposal is half of what President Bush had proposed to cut from the same programs last year, but Congress summarily rejected.
War Spending: This week, we will vote on President Obama's $92 billion proposal for new and additional spending not included in the stimulus bill, or the omnibus bill, or the budget, or any of the already passed additional spending bills. $81.6 billion of this amount is more funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the balance is a grab-bag of unrelated spending items such as swine flu response, and $665 million for the West bank and Gaza. This madness must stop and as such I intend to oppose this bill.
Guantanamo: Not long after he was sworn in as President of the United States, Mr. Obama fulfilled a campaign pledge to close the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That was the easy part, now the administration has to figure out where to house the terrorists who are currently being detained there, of whom are required to be held at a military installation. Many of the same Members of Congress who supported closing this facility are now fervently arguing that the prisoners should not be moved to their state (including Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California) and many European countries are rejecting them too.
This year: The government will borrow 46 cents of every dollar it spends. I don't even need to say another word, or use up my alotted 3 lines on this one.
Cars and dealers: After unilaterally deciding to subvert contract law, equity, and any sense of fairness in requiring bondholders and stockholders of GM and Chrysler to take huge losses and give all benefit and upside to the United Auto Workers, the Obama Auto Task Force is at it again. They now have decided to unilaterally cancel the agreements of 3,600 GM and Chrysler dealers without the compensation called for in those agreements with the task force picking who stays and who goes. In an effort to supposedly save jobs, this will result in the loss of a job for about 190,000 employees of these dealerships.
Robots: Some of you may have received automated phone calls a few weeks back telling you to call my office and instruct me to vote for the President's budget. When people did call my office my staff would ask the callers why they would want me to vote to add more to the national debt in just over 5 years than all the previous 43 presidents combined had done prior, and to have deficits more than double the biggest deficit under President Bush. They frequently got the response, "Ahhh, well, I don't know about that but just tell him he should support the President because he is President."
Health Care: The President announced this week, with more fanfare and flourish, his "agreement" with "health care providers" to reduce the annual increase in health care costs by 1.5%. Never mind that this agreement has no specific method of how this will be achieved. The greater deception here is that the President's health care plan will cost an extra $600 billion or so, at the very least, so we are again "saving" a tiny amount of a greatly increased cost. Which means we are saving nothing.
Ok, you got me, that last one was 4 lines.
The survey that we did here a few weeks back was very popular with you all. So, next week, I will use that same survey mechanism to allow you all to be a Member of Congress for a week. Next week's Laptop Report will give you the opportunity to vote on every bill I vote on that week. I'm going to skip the arcane procedural votes because they often require understanding of all the rules which is not a skill set that any of you probably want to have. The week after that, I will tell you how you all voted on each bill; how the House of Representatives voted on each bill, and how I voted on each as well.
That should be fun!
Until next week, I remain respectfully, 
Congressman John Campbell
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