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So, if you can’t fathom any further intrusions by this big government administration and congress, just wait; they’ve only begun. It clearly does not matter to them that their agenda is counter to the will of a significant majority of the people. Their far left liberal ideology trumps all. We must elect people who will put forward a pro-growth, limited government prescription for prosperity, and not stand idly by while the out-of-touch Democrats foist more and more government upon us.
Remember this Nancy Pelosi gem from back in 2006: She promised to “drain the swamp” and “run the most ethical congress in history.” Well, here we are nearly four years later, and yet another Democrat, Charlie Rangel, is up to his neck in scandal. Is Pelosi draining the swamp? Nope. Instead, she sits idly by, quieter than a librarian with laryngitis, as the muck gets deeper and deeper.
Apparently the condition is catchy, because virtually the entire Democrat caucus has been equally silent. In fact, a few dozen plus have been more than just quiet. Jason Altmire and forty one of his Democrat colleagues have evidently decided that it’s ethical to keep tainted Rangel campaign cash. Altmire was on the receiving end of $21,000 in campaign contributions from Rangel and his PAC, but has not found it necessary to do the principled thing and return the money.
So, not only has Altmire chosen to remain silent, rather than call for a swift and decisive resolution to the Rangel matter, he’s also managed to splatter himself with some of that rising swamp water. Perhaps it’s not surprising that someone such as Altmire who voted for the hyper-political ‘do as I say not as I do’ Pelosi, would allow himself to become ethically compromised.
Jason Altmire and the Democrats were just born to spend. Whether it be on big ticket programs or small, they just can’t seem to help themselves. Altmire just voted NO on a proposal that would cut the first-class sleeper subsidy on Amtrak. For those who may be unaware, federal taxpayer dollars grant a significant subsidy to those who opt for “sleeper class” travel, as opposed to coach class. These passengers are provided with a sleeping room (many of which include private facilities), turn-down service, complimentary entertainment, and pre-paid food. Not surprisingly, Amtrak loses more than twice as much per passenger ($396)for this first class service as compared to coach service. This additional subsidy would add another $1.2 billion over ten years to the ballooning debt.
This week, President Obama signed a bill, adding tens of billions to the national debt, further extending unemployment benefits. How serious can the Obama administration, Jason Altmire, and their liberal Democrat cohorts be about cutting the deficit when they refuse to pay for this $34 billion expenditure out of a nearly $3.8 trillion proposed budget? Perhaps they are simply incapable of cutting an extremely bloated budget by less than 1%--a budget they’ve increased by more than 22% since Bush left office? Is this a party we should trust with control of the purse strings?
Recall that in November of last year, after signing the previous unemployment benefits extension, Obama said: "Now, it's important to note that the bill I signed will not add to our deficit. It is fully paid for, and so it is fiscally responsible." Apparently, he’s acknowledging that yesterday’s extension is not fiscally responsible. Just more hypocrisy on spending from Altmire and the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ Democrats.
Today, President Obama signed “Financial Reform” into law. Jason Altmire said, “This historic law will end taxpayer bailouts for Wall Street once and for all.” How can that be true when Altmire and the Democrats refused to allow Fannie and Freddie be included in the legislation? The government continues to pour hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money into those failing entities.
This Independence Day weekend certainly does not bring a respite from campaigning—I am in the midst of a busy four-day stretch of appearances in more than a dozen communities from one end of the district to the other.
I hope that you will find time for moment of reflection this weekend. Two hundred thirty-four years ago, the signers of the Declaration of Independence set in motion the world’s longest and most successful experiment in self-government. Their courage as they pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” in Philadelphia shaped the American idea in a fundamental way.
The heated political debates of the moment—and they are heated for the simple reason that the stakes are indeed high—would not be possible without the conviction that animated the Declaration of Independence that individuals and communities can and have a right to shape their own destiny.
In the America that was forged by those ideas, we all tend to that kind of freedom for granted. I hope that you enjoy what Americans once called without irony “the glorious Fourth” with family and friends and remember just how precious the freedoms we celebrate today are.
Why? Fear of the political consequences for members of Congress who would then have one more vote to explain to an electorate that is ever more skeptical about runaway federal spending.
This is, of course, the same Congressional majority that passed a $767 billion “stimulus” bill, set in motion a federal takeover of one-sixth of the American economy, passed a second stimulus bill late last year only to see it rejected by the Senate, and is now discussing a $50 billion bailout of state and local governments.
A family that fails to set and follow a budget is likely to regret it.
A business that does not set a budget is all but doomed to fail.
A great country without a budget is a nation without priorities, lurching from one crisis to another while spending money wildly and running up a trillion-dollar tab for future generations to pay.
That, sadly, is the fiscal state of the American Republic today. My opponent has helped bring us to this point through his votes and his failure to lead. I am running because we deserve better.
Some commentators and economists have even taken to calling unemployment rates like this “the new normal,” but there is nothing “normal” about the devastating effect of this level of unemployment on individuals, families, and communities.
This Congress has spent trillions of dollars on “stimulus” programs that have in reality stimulated nothing except the national debt. The only impact of these programs? The children and grandchildren of the men and women who are struggling today to find work are likely to face the same struggle as the country they inherit wrestles with the legacy of the irresponsible policies of the last few years.
Runaway spending and ever-higher taxes will soon put our country irreversibly on the road to the kind of economic paralysis that has been all too familiar in Europe since the nineteen-sixties.
I believe that it is not too late. The shadows may seem long as we consider the millions of unemployed, a skittish stock market, and a series of financial crises sparked by countries that have largely followed the same economic policies as this Administration: runaway deficit spending, a massive expansion of the role of government, and higher taxes.
A pro-growth agenda in Washington can still turn things around and rekindle the economy opportunity that has always been one of America’s touchstones. I am running for Congress for work for just that, and I hope that I can count on your support in the months between now and November 2.
After nearly ten months on the campaign trail, I can tell you the cynics are wrong.
In every corner of the Fourth Congressional District, I have met men and women whose interest in politics has nothing to do with expensive polling or complex models for voter turnout. Instead, their involvement flows from their deep concern about our nation’s future. Some are high school and college students, fired by the idealism of youth. Many more are parents and grandparents, worried about what sort of country will be passed on to future generations.
I believe that the same kind of activists can be found everywhere in the United States.
These new activists—and more than a few newly energized activists who have long been involved in politics—do not by any stretch of the imagination agree on every issue, but the energy they have recently brought to American politics is a tremendous thing.
There is no doubt in my mind that with we have a real chance of victory in November because of the hard work of so many dedicated men and women. More importantly, our nation is better off because of their involvement and energy—the very things on which the Founders of the Republic believed our country would stand or fail.
A recent poll conducted by two nationally renowned pollsters for National Public Radio—the source of some excellent journalism but hardly a conservative mouthpiece—looked at the seventy most competitive districts around the country, including this one. The results are stark: the same voters—conservative Democrats, independent voters, and some Republicans—who voted for the liberal Democrats in 2006 and for Barack Obama in 2008 are eager to see a real change in our nation’s policies this year.
In the same poll, 56% of voters in districts like ours said that the country “needs new people in Washington,” while those polled preferred Republicans to Democrats by a margin of 49% to 41%.
No poll in June can guarantee anything about results in November—but this survey makes clear what I have believed for more than a year: big-spending Democrats like Jason Altmire are wildly out of step with Western Pennsylvania and with your help we can elect a Congressman this year who shares our values.
If you have not done so, please take a moment today to volunteer for our campaign or to make a contribution on this website. The stakes this year are far too high for anyone to “sit out” this election!
This week, President Obama asks Congress to spend another $50 billion--$50 billion that can only come from additional deficit spending—to bail out state and local governments.
After spending trillions on predictably failed attempts to bail out the economy, for which we have nothing to show but a river of red ink and an unemployment rate stuck just below ten percent, the last thing our country can afford is to spend billions more on government programs.
To the surprise of no one, nothing has been heard on the most recent attempt to spend our country into prosperity from Congressman Jason Altmire . . . which is just the latest example of his failure to exercise any leadership on the issues facing the country.
Political debate is nothing new in America. From the decades before the Civil War—when duels between those representing opposing sides were not unheard of—until today, passions have run high in every decade.
The reason is simple: nothing is more central to our political system than the right to free and unfettered debate on the topic of the day, whether that is the establishment of the first national bank or the war in Afghanistan.
The other constant across the decades has been that that right was secured first and foremost by the willingness of American service members to lay down their lives to protect it. On this holiday, born in the aftermath of a terrible civil war that laid out a new and better notion of what America means as a country, I ask that each of you take a moment to thank a veteran for the liberty he or she has helped safeguard.
Since September, we built a coalition of volunteers, raised money, knocked on doors, and took our message to the voters.
The result was distinct: we carried each of the six counties in the district and won more than two-thirds of the vote overall.
This is not my victory: it is yours. Your hard work, your commitment, and your determination to build a better future for our country all paid off in this victory—and what we accomplished this month is only the dress rehearsal for our victory in November.
From the bottom of our hearts, my family and I thank each of you for your unswerving commitment to our nation’s future. I hope that each of you will enjoy this holiday weekend with a joy tempered by the recollection of those who over more than two centuries have laid down their lives for our freedoms.
So how did we get here - to this wayward form of "governing"? We arrived here through 100 years of progressively increasing central government, constructed by Democrats and so-called moderate Republicans. Their power hunger and fiscal irresponsibility, enabled by activist judicial decisions that spit in the face of the 10th amendment, has turned our country into something our forefathers never would have envisioned.
That reality prompted my run for Congress. I am a conservative who will stand on principle, tell the voters what I plan to do, and won't veer off that course for job security or personal gain. How many public officials do you know who live by that code of ethics? If more did, opinions of public officials would soar. If Republicans did this, respect for smaller, less expensive government would soar as well.
I am committed to cutting government spending and central government control. You have my word.
I'm thankful for all of your hard work on my behalf, and for getting the word out about my campaign. If we keep this incredible momentum rolling, we'll be one step closer to reinstating the country our founding fathers envisioned.
I do not know to whom these journalists are talking, but it is not the hundreds of people—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike—I have met in the last week. These voters are not prepared to simply shrug their shoulders and forget about this multi-trillion dollar calamity as if a government takeover of health care were of no more significance than the defeat of a favored team in the NCAA tournament.
They want to see this terrible bill repealed, and so do I.
I was the first candidate in this race to pledge to work for the repeal of ObamaCare. If I am elected, that will be my first priority. Jason Altmire may have been allowed to cast a “no” vote on this bill by Nancy Pelosi, but no one has suggested that he will lift a finger to roll back this monstrosity. Nor can any sensible person imagine that my primary opponent, a career federal employee and no stranger to the expansion of federal power, is really going to work as a matter of principle to eliminate this trillion-dollar boondoggle.
I am heartened by what I have heard in the last few days: if we work hard to elect principled conservatives in November, we can undo a wrong-headed and potentially calamitous piece of legislation.
The last week has been an exciting one for our campaign. There is no question that the people of western Pennsylvania are deeply concerned about the direction in which the Democrats are leading our country. Everywhere I have gone this week, I have sensed a growing confidence that this year we can—and must—elect people this November who will take the lead against the radical agenda of President Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
At the same time, I can tell you that there is a growing awareness that there is a real contrast between the two candidates in the Republican primary. I am not a career federal employee, hoping to move up another step on the political ladder. I put my career on hold to run for this seat for one reason: the stakes for our country are just too high for those who care about the future of the United States to do nothing.
The professional politicians of both parties have failed us—and every day I am encouraged by the voters I meet who are determined to elect a real conservative this fall.
What’s more, we collected those signatures in the midst of the worst winter western Pennsylvania has seen in a generation.
I am honored by the confidence so many people have placed in me--and each day, I am more confident that the people of our region want to see principled leadership and fundamental reform in Washington. The stakes are too high for our country’s future to be left in the hands of career politicians from either party.
NOT included in this legislation are already existing protections against taxpayer funding of abortion, which are supported by 70% of Americans. These protections have been in place for decades, and pro-abortion advocates are using the Senate Bill to attempt to force American Taxpayers to fund a practice of which they overwhelmingly disapprove. Congressman Altmire claims to be Pro-Life, yet over and over again his votes do not match his words.
Western Pennsylvania deserves better. We deserve someone who is not afraid to lead and who will put the interests of the people over the interests of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. I look forward to taking on that challenge.
Question: How does a Congressman who votes for two consecutive $1.5 Trillion budget deficits, an $800 billion failed stimulus package and another $150 billion "jobs" stimulus get to claim to be a blue dog fiscal conservative?
Answer: When he becomes a professional politician and he thinks the people back home aren't paying attention.
We are paying attention, and in November, we will let him know.
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- In the news yesterday the Dems were actually happy to hear that $35k people had lost their jobs. Is this progress? Remove the shackles from the private sector and let us all enjoy prosperity and be less dependent on government! Stop the Dems from taking over a fifth of the nation's economy with their health care takeover!
- by drilling for just oil,our country can create more empolyment in steel mills [need of pipe], truckers [to delivery the pipe],people [to drill],all good paying empolyment with benefits. coal, will put people to work building machinery to extract the product. these two items can also be exported. helps our trade balance. it will create[oh my god] wealth. I forgot we need miners.


