“The Senate, before it votes to fill this critical position, has a duty to ascertain if Mr. Southers favors mandatory union bargaining over the safety and security of the American people,” said Wilson.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has placed a legislative hold on Southers, preventing him from being confirmed via unanimous consent. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to break the hold. Speaking on NBC News this morning with Matt Lauer, DeMint said, “what I’ve asked for, Matt, is just some debate and a recorded vote. They… want to pass Mr. Southers in… secret, without a recorded vote. I think there’s some significant issues. I’ve asked him if he is going to change the policy of collective bargaining within the TSA and he will not give me a straight answer.”

Wilson responded to charges that DeMint’s hold prevented Southers from being confirmed. “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did not even schedule a floor vote on Southers prior to the botched terror attack of Flight 253 on Christmas,” said Wilson, “because filling the position was not a top priority of the Senate.”

“A simple up or down vote could have had the nominee confirmed already. Reid doesn’t even need DeMint to lift the hold, he knows it, and has even acknowledged it,” Wilson said, pointing to a December 29th statement by Reid, “I will file cloture on Mr. Southers’ nomination when the Senate reconvenes in January…”

“Instead,” Wilson said, “Reid has sought to use the terror attack as means of confirming an otherwise objectionable nominee,” Wilson said, adding, “Which, is exactly how the Senate confirmed Kathleen Sebelius to the Department of Health and Human Services when they used the H1N1 scare as a means of skipping objections.”

In a statement on January 1st, DeMint said, “Erroll Southers has not been forthcoming about whether he’ll give union bosses control of our airport security, which is one of the most important decisions he’ll make as head of the TSA. Mr. Southers’ unwillingness to form a position on collective bargaining seriously calls into question his judgment, because it weakens security and has already been rejected by the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and by every previous TSA administrator.”

In testifying in front of Congress in November, Southers declined to say whether he would support collective bargaining or not. Wilson said he was “dodging.”

“Mr. Southers ought to have an opinion about whether union bargaining would harm the administration of transportation security or not,” Wilson explained, adding, “The fact that he did not deny it outright is troubling enough, since it indicates that he is considering it.”

“The least Southers should be saying is that if union bargaining over security procedures would undermine said security, he would reject it,” Wilson said. “If he cannot be that specific, the Senate has no reason but to assume he’s attempting to conceal his agenda, and that security is not his number one priority.”

As reported by the Federal Times, Southers “pledged to review the issue and said he would talk to a cross-section of stakeholders, including employees, before making a decision.”

“Mr. Southers ought to just answer Senator DeMint’s very simple question so Senators can make an informed vote on the nomination,” Wilson said, adding, “The advice and consent of the Senate is not a guarantee.”

Wilson said Southers should be rejected, regardless, for “abusing his position to order background searches on his wife’s boyfriend in the 1980’s.”

As reported by PoliJam, “Errol Southers, a former FBI agent, had reportedly used his office in the 1980s to access a federal database in order to look into the background of his then-estranged wife’s new boyfriend. In a sworn affidavit on October 22, Southers gave certain details about the incident to the Senate homeland security committee, only to later notify the committee on November 20th that his first account was incorrect after the committee had already approved his nomination the day before on November 19.”

“What is emerging with Mr. Southers is a pattern of dodging questions, withholding information, and changing stories,” Wilson said, concluding, “None of which qualifies him to head the TSA, although he may have a future in politics. The Senate should reject this nomination and send a message to Barack Obama that the TSA needs to be headed by a nominee who has a demonstrated ability and willingness to be forthcoming to Congress about what is good security policy, and what is not.”

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“So-called Blue Dog ‘conservative’ Democrats in the House have long touted their caucus as being fiscally-responsible, but what emerges from an analysis of their voting records is a pack of lapdogs who have voted largely in lock-step with their more radical counterparts in House leadership,” said Wilson.

“In vote after vote, the Blue Dogs have been all bark and no bite. Although they had the votes to do so, they have not stopped a single piece of budget-busting legislation in a year that saw the largest budget deficit in American history: $1.4 trillion,” Wilson explained.

“By over a 4 to 1 margin, so-called ‘moderates’ in the House have voted with the bankrupt Pelosi agenda of Big Government,” Wilson added.

The analysis shows 856 Yea votes and 207 Nay votes, which Wilson said “was not enough to stop anything.”

The ALG analysis includes votes on the $789 billion “stimulus”, bankruptcy mortgage “cramdowns,” ACORN funding, a $108 billion International Monetary Fund expansion, the Waxman-Markey carbon emission caps, the $2.1 trillion “public option” health system, the $154 billion assistance program for bankrupt states, and the $290 billion debt limit expansion.

According to the Blue Dogs’ website, “In the 111th Congress, the Coalition intends to continue to make a difference in Congress by forging middle-ground, bipartisan answers to the current challenges facing the Country. A top priority will be to refocus Congress on balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the debt places on them.”

“By its own measure, the Blue Dog coalition has not succeeded,” Wilson noted. “The House of Representatives this year alone has voted to spend more than $3.6 trillion, to nationalize the health care system, to strangle the nation’s access to energy, and to bankrupt the Treasury—and yet the Blue Dog and so-called ‘moderate’ Democrats have done nothing to stop the profligate financial catastrophe unfolding at the nation’s Capitol,” Wilson said.

Wilson pointed to the record national debt which currently stands at over $12 trillion, as placing an “insurmountable burden on the next generation of Americans.” The total debt is projected to top the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011 at over $14 trillion. By 2020, it will top $20 trillion.

Wilson said that if entitlement spending is not reined in, it will soon half of the entire budget. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), entitlement spending as a percentage of budget outlays will continue to increase over the next decade. In 2019, OMB projects that entitlements spending will stand at $2.482 trillion (45.93 percent of outlays totaling $5.403 trillion).

According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, by 2050 entitlement spending “will consume nearly the entire federal budget.”

“While the nation is going bankrupt, House Blue Dogs and ‘moderate’ Democrats pretend that their support for these terrible pieces of legislation is ‘deficit-neutral.’ They have done nothing to stop the madness, which will only bankrupt the Treasury, destroy the dollar, and saddle American taxpayers without a debt that cannot be paid.”

Attachments:
“Blue Dogs and Moderate Democrats Voting Records, 2009,” Americans for Limited Government.

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“The Independent Medicare Advisory Board will become the Healthcare Soviet—dictating rules, rates and procedures in America’s health care system with no appeal. That is why Reid has given it the most protection,” Wilson explained.

In the Reid Substitute, under Section 3403 in a section entitled “Limitations on Changes to this Subsection,” it states, “It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

Section 3403 establishes the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB), which would “reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending” under the Reid substitute. Wilson said that is “rationing.”

“The whole purpose of this panel is to ration health care to seniors, no question,” Wilson said.

“To hide that, the bill states that ‘The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care’ right after it gets through establishing the power for the IMAB to ration health care,” Wilson explained.

“This is Orwellian Newspeak of the first order,” Wilson declared, adding, “Right in this section, Harry Reid is saying that they’re going to ration health care away from seniors, but they’re just not going to call it that.”

“And then, to lock it in place, Reid goes as far as to require a two-thirds vote in order to amend or repeal the rationing board,” Wilson explained.

The Senate rules change was exposed on the floor of the Senate by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), as reported by the National Review Online. Senator DeMint said, “This is not legislation. This is not law. This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or repeal the law.”

DeMint said that under Senate rules, it should take a two-thirds vote of the Senate to invoke cloture on legislation that contains such rules changes. And, that, “[A]s the chair has confirmed, Rule 22, paragraph 2, of the standing rules of the Senate, states that on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the senators present and voting.”

However, the Senate President ruled that the rules change was not a rules change, but a change in procedure.

“This is completely unconstitutional,” Wilson noted, pointing to Article I, Section 5 of the Federal Constitution, which states: “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings…”

“Under current rules, the Reid substitute, which includes a rules change making it out of order to amend or repeal a section of the bill, should require a two-thirds vote in order to be enacted,” Wilson explained, concluding, “That has not happened, and will not happen, meaning that once passed, any attempt to remove the health care rationing board will be deemed out of order forevermore. People are going to die.”

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The Alert is an online news wire and aggregation service provided for media outlets to enable them to instantly access the top news in the nation’s capital. Bipartisan and all-inclusive, The Alert, as its tagline proclaims, provides “The top news. All the time. In an instant.”

According to Washington News Alert Bureau Chief, Robert Romano, “The Alert is a valuable resource for reporters to turn to get original source material. As newsmakers send us their releases, statements, speeches, multimedia, etc., they will be fed into The Alert directly so that reporters will have a single source, turn-to site to get their hands on political news—directly from the newsmakers without any filters.”

Added Senior Editor Adam Bitely, “We have aggregated D.C.’s top media outlets that utilize RSS feeds, top newsmakers who utilize Twitter, and top national political bloggers into a single system that updates itself every time those outlets are updated.”

According to Bitely, the National News section includes top national, D.C. news outlets, such as Politico, Washington Examiner, Congressional Quarterly, and more than two-dozen others. As those outlets release breaking news, it is automatically included in The Alert.

“The Alert will help political reporters, opinion leaders, bloggers, and editors to keep up to date with the headlines, as well as what top newsmakers are saying as soon as it happens,” Romano said.

The Alert contains four prominent features:

• the Twitter feed of top DC tweeters;
• the National News feed of the latest headlines from the Washington Post, Washington Examiner, Politico, Congressional Quarterly, and other DC news outlets;
• the blog feed from top political bloggers; and
• the Breaking News & Commentary feed, which will include Congressional and not-for-profit releases, statements, opeds, etc. as well as “breaking news that ALG-NRN News identifies throughout the day, and up-to-the-minute,” said Romano.

Romano reminded elected officials, news outlets, bloggers, activists and organizations nationwide to send breaking news tips and headlines to press@washingtonnewsalert.com. Newsmaker Tweeters should contact Alert Senior Editor Adam Bitely at adam@netrightnation.com about adding their Twitter feed to the system.

“We look forward to adding new features to The Alert as time goes forward, and we encourage user feedback to help us with making those improvements,” Romano said, concluding, “Our goal is that The Alert will get better and better, and not miss a beat.”

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According House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s website, the bill (HR 2847) in total will cost $154 billion of taxpayer funds allocated from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

“The House has abandoned all sense of decency. No sooner than the banks pay back the TARP does Congress just take the money shell it out to bankrupt states and union bosses,” said Wilson.

“These are not loans to the states and public sector unions. They are Christmas gifts,” Wilson noted. “They will never be paid back. That $154 billion is gone. So much for TARP ‘paying for itself’—Congress has just poured it down the sewer of insolvency.”

The final vote in the House was 217-212 in favor of the $154 billion bailout.

Yesterday, in a letter Wilson urged members of the House to reject the bailout of state governments with taxpayer funds paid back by banks through the TARP.

Wrote Wilson, “Bailing states out of their own reckless decisions is as irresponsible as bailing out poor decisions by investment firms, or GSE’s like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I urge you to vote no on this legislation, which will raid TARP funds in a kickback to public sector unions that donated generously to your campaign coffers.”

This new $154 billion bill includes $48.3 billion in funds for highway construction unions and other infrastructure spending and another $23 billion for public education unions.

The $789 billion “stimulus” bill also contained $53.6 billion to bail out state and local governments.

Speaking on December 3rd in Washington, Barack Obama announced the plan: “Next year we’re going to still have some of those challenges because usually state and local government revenues lag the recovery as a whole. They may need some more help from the federal government.”

Obama indicated the federal government had a responsibility to engage in deficit-spending on behalf of revenue-strapped states. “Frankly, because state and local governments generally don’t have the capacity to engage in deficit spending, some of that obligation falls on the federal government,” said Obama.

“Transferring bailout funds to public sector unions in bankrupt states is the final insult for American taxpayers, who are being straddled with an insane $12 trillion debt that cannot possibly be paid back,” Wilson said, concluding, “Never have the American people been so poorly represented by Congress.”

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“Congress is ready to give the American people an early Christmas present: slavish indebtedness for perpetuity,” Wilson said, adding, “In the meantime, Moody’s has issued a stark warning against the deteriorating public finances of the U.S., which if not corrected, will likely result in the loss of the nation’s Aaa bond rating.”

Last week, Moody’s Investor Services stated that U.S. “public finances are deteriorating considerably and may therefore test the Aaa boundaries…”

According to the Washington Post, “The House may vote this week to raise the federal debt ceiling by at least $1.8 trillion, as the current limit is set to be breached by New Year’s Eve.” The legislation would be included in the House “stimulus” bill, which will be attached to the annual defense appropriations bill.

Wilson said that attaching the national debt increase to troops funding was “a cynical admission that on its own, the measure would face certain rejection by the American people. Washington’s big spenders are hiding behind the troops.”

Congressional leaders say that the increase in the national debt has been as a result defense spending. Wilson said that while defense spending as a percent of the overall budget has actually decreased, “the uncontrolled growth of the debt has occurred via entitlements spending, which has far outpaced any other part of the budget.”

According to an Americans for Limited Government analysis of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) data, annual entitlement spending has grown from $386.4 billion in 1992 (27.98 percent of budget outlays totaling $1.381 trillion) to $1.36 trillion in 2009 (38.17 percent of budget outlays totaling $3.653 trillion). (Sources: www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/hist.pdf, and http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/asset.aspx?AssetId=1702.)

Annual defense spending, on the other hand, has shrunk as a percent of total outlays from 21.6 percent to 18.12 percent.

“That is remarkable,” Wilson said, “when one considers the fact that defense spending has more than doubled since 1992.” Defense spending stood at $298.35 billion in 1992, and has grown to $662 billion in 2009.

“Entitlement spending over the same period has more than tripled during the same period,” Wilson added.

According to OMB data, entitlement spending as a percent of budget outlays will continue to increase, and defense spending will continue to decrease. In 2019, OMB projects that entitlements spending will stand at $2.482 trillion (45.93 percent of outlays totaling $5.403 trillion).

“Soon,” Wilson said, “entitlement spending will break the federal treasury and saddle the American people with an insurmountable bill that can never possibly be paid. In fact, we will not even be able to keep up with our interest payments.”

According to the New York Times, “the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically.”

In a recent column, Wilson wrote that “even as interest repayments grow exponentially, the debt will not shrink. In fact, the national debt has grown every single year since 1958. And the government projects that trend will continue unabated for the next decade.”

Wilson said that the growth of the debt could be directly correlated and shown to be caused by the growth of entitlements. The national debt has grown by over 295 percent since 1992, and will have grown by over 492 percent by 2020. Entitlement spending has grown by over 351 percent since 1992, and will have grown by over 642 percent by 2020.

“Entitlement spending is the greatest contributor to the growth of the national debt because it is growing at an even faster pace than the budget as a whole. That means it is, without a doubt, the most uncontrolled, profligate, unaffordable and unsustainable portion of the budget,” Wilson explained.

Currently, the national debt stands at over $12 trillion and is projected to top the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011 at over $14 trillion. By 2020, it will top $20 trillion.

“This is a problem that, if not addressed by Congress now, will destroy the solvency and prosperity of the nation. The only solution is to rein in entitlement spending and figure out a way to actually reduce debt,” Wilson said, concluding, “For, if we do not, this generation and future generations of Americans will be enslaved to a debt that cannot be paid.”

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According to TalkingPointsMemo.com, under the plan “Insurance companies will have the option of creating nationally-based non-profit insurance plans that would offered on the exchanges in every state. However, according to the aide, if insurance companies don’t step up to the plate to offer such plans, that will trigger a national public option.”

“A vote for a triggered ‘public option’ is the same as a vote for the ‘public option,’” Wilson said. “Everyone knows the game will be rigged so that the trigger will automatically be pulled later. The fact is, the Reid proposal authorizes the establishment of the ‘public option,’ and that is reason enough to vote no.”

“Only Senators Snowe and Collins can stop this madness,” Wilson declared. “Now is a time for choosing for Senators Snowe and Collins, with the ‘public option’ aimed at the American people.”

“They must decide whether they will be the ones who pull the ‘trigger’ and help the government take over the nation’s entire health system. Or, whether they will stand with the American people and stop the trigger from being pulled,” Wilson explained.

In the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, 51 percent of voters surveyed say they oppose the proposed legislation. Only 41 percent support it.

“This plan will only result in the establishment of the government-run ‘public option’ that will lose trillions of dollars, ration of health care away from seniors, raise the cost of premiums, drive the American people off of private health options, and bankrupt the Treasury,” Wilson said.

A recent Congressional Budget Office study states, “Average premiums per policy in the non-group market would in 2016 would be roughly $5,800 for single policies and $15,200 for family policies under the proposal, compared with roughly $5,500 for single policies and $13,100 for family policies under current law.”

The Senate version of the “public option” will start operating at massive deficits starting in 2015, according to an Americans for Limited Government analysis of Congressional Budget Office data. By 2019, the “public option” will have spent some $361 billion more than it took in via new taxes.

“Senators Snowe and Collins can be heroes if they stop this highly unpopular, budget-busting government power grab. They are in an historic position to save health care for millions of Americans,” Wilson concluded.

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