Posted on 07/22/2009 9:49:47 PM PDT by Maelstorm
Democrats are preventing Republican House Members from sending their constituents a mailing that is critical of the majority’s health care reform plan, blocking the mailing by alleging that it is inaccurate.
House Republicans are crying foul and claiming that the Democrats are using their majority to prevent GOP Members from communicating with their constituents.
The dispute centers on a chart created by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Republican staff of the Joint Economic Committee to illustrate the organization of the Democratic health care plan.
At first glance, Brady’s chart resembles a board game: a colorful collection of shapes and images with a web of lines connecting them.
But a closer look at the image reveals a complicated menagerie of government offices and programs that Republicans say will be created if the leading Democratic health care plan becomes law.
In a memo sent Monday to Republicans on the House franking commission, Democrats argue that sending the chart to constituents as official mail would violate House rules because the information is misleading.
In their eight-point memo, which was obtained by Roll Call, Democrats identify a litany of areas where they believe the chart is incorrect.
For example, Democrats argue that the chart depicts a “Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund” that is “simply a recipient of IRS funds, with no outflow. ... This is false.”
The chart’s illustration of low-income subsidies is also “misleading and false,” Democrats argue.
Congressional rules for franked mail bar Members from using taxpayer-funded mail for newsletters that use “partisan, politicized or personalized” comments to criticize legislation or policy.
The dispute over Brady’s chart is being reviewed by the franking commission, which must approve any mail before it can be sent. No decision had been made on the matter by press time.
Brady adamantly denied that the chart was misleading and said Democrats are simply threatened by the content of the graphic.
“I think their review was laughable,” Brady said. “It’s ... downright false in most of the cases. The chart depicts their health care plan as their committees developed it.”
“The chart reveals how their health care bureaucracy works, and people are frightened by it,” he added. “So this is their effort to try and discredit” the chart.
Republican Members have made 20 requests to mail a version of the chart to their constituents and have been told that the requests are being delayed while the commission reviews allegations that the chart is misleading.
“Hiding the truth about wildly unpopular policies is a Democrat specialty,” said one GOP aide. “I’d like to see the flow chart on how Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi plans on implementing the open and transparent government she keeps promising everyone.”
“We have initiated discussions with the minority to try and resolve current differences and are operating in good faith to achieve that goal,” said Kyle Anderson, a spokesman for House Administration Chairman Robert Brady (D-Pa.). The committee has oversight of the commission.
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), ranking member of the committee and a member of the franking commission, said through a spokeswoman that he is also aware of the situation and is working with the members of the franking commission to resolve the differences, but he added that he believed Democrats on the commission were overreaching.
“He strongly believes that the franking commission does not have the authority to deny Member communications based on partisan differences of pending legislation,” said Salley Collins, a spokeswoman for Lungren.
The franking commission is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans.
Republicans quickly embraced Brady’s chart, and over the past week about 50 Members have posted it on their Congressional Web sites or used it in a floor speech. It has also been posted on the home page of the Republican National Committee.
I have seen in other places this chart is made up? Is it real? I understood initially that it was straight out of the plan...I just wanted to confirm it is real and where is was posted originally before I spread it around.
I try your suggestions. Thanks.
Democrats argue that the chart depicts a “Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund” that is “simply a recipient of IRS funds, with no outflow. ... This is false.”
The thin red link between the IRS and the HIETF is just that - it has no arrows on either end, therefore it is BOTH an inflow and outflow. It appears to be a holding entity between the IRS and Treasury, where the IRS has a direct output to the Treasury (see bold red line with arrow), AND, at the same time, a way to buffer funds between IRS and Treasure, ushing the HIETF as the buffer.
There’s a plethora of media available. Doesn’t have to just be snail-mail.
They can’t actually, legally (Constitutionally), pass health care reform or cap and tax, either,
or just about ANY policy they’ve implemented since January.
But that’s not going to stop them.
Do you hear ANYONE in Congress questioning the Constitutionality of 0bamacare?
Ah, they don’t read the bills. Surely can’t explain ‘em. But the want to claim there are ‘inaccuracies’ in how Conservatives, who *do* read the bills, communicate.
That’s a rich crock full o’ crap.
Can the truth not suffer a heated debate?
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Right, the RATs don’t like the truth.
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Are laws to be passed with one eye closed and a nod and no one question them?
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They’d greatly prefer single party rule where no one asks anything.
The Dems are Fascists...0bama lied and FREE SPEECH died!
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Well said.
“Ray Charles could make more sense of an electrical circuit diagram than ANYONE could of this Obamanation...”
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Hear, hear!
Perrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect...
What they’ve done is maneuvered the Dems into suppressing a mailing initiated by the Republicans. NOW the Republicans have the Democrats on record using Censorship to stop the real story of the Healthcare issue getting to the people.
Its a masterstroke of political maneuvering!
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Great point! Now they Republicans (read: the Conservatives among ‘em), need to DEMAND, that if this chart is somehow inaccurate, you MUST explain the socialist health care to the people...demand they use flip charts.
This will cause three things.
—The RATS will have to read the bill.
—It’ll publicize the bill and what’s in the bill - and people will actually read about it and try to make sense of it.
—The RATS will either have to explain the bill - which will make things worse for them, or they’ll have to try a ‘cover-up’ which is not a good thing in politics (have you noticed?)
As well it should, because its passage could very literally mean their premature deaths.
>> This is the very reason for the push to get it done now, just like with the so-called stimulus. He thinks once he gets it through, too bad
The reason for all the rush on this, Stimulus etc...is his observation that collective insanity only last so long. The longer people have to think about things the more they will realize that you cannot borrow your way out of debt any more than you can create a trillion dollar entitlement that is “budget neutral”.
It’s a lie. A farce.
Can’t fool all of the people all of the time....
EXACTLY!! This was the Republicans’ intent as they are sometimes capable of acting intelligently!! Hooray for our team’s goal of eliminating this Obamination!!!
SCREW the democraps, I posted the whole thing on my blog anyway.
We can get the word out either way
” You are missing the point I believe.
Mailings are the last thing the Republicans are worried about, they know they can get this info out with a simple mouse click.
What they’ve done is maneuvered the Dems into suppressing a mailing initiated by the Republicans. NOW the Republicans have the Democrats on record using Censorship to stop the real story of the Healthcare issue getting to the people.
Its a masterstroke of political maneuvering!”
bingo
Let’s turn into community organizers. The Obama team called upon his teams of bloggers to get out there and saturate the internet to help get this Health Care bill passed. We need to do the same. We didn’t do it during the election and the community organizer did a superb job and we ended up with a Marxist in the White House. Let’s roll!
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/
One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet.
“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.
Mr. Obama used the Internet to organize his supporters in a way that would have in the past required an army of volunteers and paid organizers on the ground, Mr. Trippi said.
“The tools changed between 2004 and 2008. Barack Obama won every single caucus state that matters, and he did it because of those tools, because he was able to move thousands of people to organize.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. Mr. Trippi argued that those videos were more effective than television ads because viewers chose to watch them or received them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted.
“The campaign’s official stuff they created for YouTube was watched for 14.5 million hours,” Mr. Trippi said. “To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million.”
There has also been a sea change in fact-checking, with citizens using the Internet to find past speeches that prove a politician wrong and then using the Web to alert their fellow citizens.
“In a memo sent Monday to Republicans on the House franking commission, Democrats argue that sending the chart to constituents as official mail would violate House rules”
Do it anyway.
Dude, you are freaking CLUELESS!
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