Garrett drops us to bottom 5.5%

Saw this when I was scanning Blue Jersey, according to Congress.org the power ranking for our Fifth District is now 411 out of 435. I've used the phrase "minority of the minority" before when describing our District's position on the Hill, and this serves as reinforcement. When the Republicans were in the majority, Representative Scott Garrett was only able to get 1 of 41 bills he sponsored enacted. Due to his unabashed partisanship and sporting a voting record that's more conservative than 97% of the House, our District's position is likely to drop this year instead of climb.

The art of compromise is something that Garrett ran against from the very beginning, and is going to haunt our District the longer he is in office. Garrett is of the Tom Delay school of thought that compromise is a bad thing and that "Real Republicans" according to this mindset don't work with Democrats (sorry, 3% doesn't cut it). I've spoken before about how our former Representative Marge Roukema was targeted by these authoritarians and how Garrett was all too quick to answer their call for a challenger. This conservative cannibalism was also evidenced in primary challenges to Senator Arlen Specter and other good legislators who were targeted for no other reason than refusing to follow the hard right Republican leadership like lemmings at the expense of their constituents.

Closer to home, in New Jersey's 24th District, a battle for State Senate had been brewing between Garrett's friend and fellow "Mountain Man" Assemblyman Guy Gregg and New Jersey's longest serving legislator, retiring Senator Bob Littell. Voters in the 24th should think long and hard about Gregg's attacks that Littell wasn't a "Real Republican." As the State Senator's wife said to PoliticsNJ about her husband:

“He's a Republican,” Virginia Littell says proudly. “Sometimes you vote with the Democrats. Hello! You run in a Republican primary but when you go to the capital the people put you in the general election.”

"You get what you can get through the process of negotiations,” she said. “My husband is not a traitor; he's a trader, a horse trader."

In order to get things done for the District, you have to cut deals when you're in the majority and especially when you're in the minority. Gregg was using the same rhetorical attacks against Littell as Garrett used against Roukema (RINO, etc.). However, in this case, the game has changed. Littell has announced his retirement, and a fusion ticket has emerged in the 24th that seems to be principled, less divisive and more results oriented. Being effective leaders requires both principle and pragmatism. Garrett has plenty of principles he likes to talk about, but absolutely no pragmatism. Of all people, Richard Nixon probably has the best quote on this:

Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.

My hope for the 24th, as with our Congressional District, is that Republican primary voters will see that the race to irrelevance being run by Representative Garrett serves neither our District nor will it serve the people of the 24th with Gregg.

Garrett, a liberal?

Gave a quick check of Herb Jackson's blog "Capital Games" before heading upstairs, and he has a note about National Journal's annual vote ranking. So, I decided to check it out. Turns out, according to the votes they looked at, Representative Scott Garrett's more liberal than 42.8 percent of the House. Considering the praise he received before his appearance at CPAC, that may raise an eyebrow among his base. However, there are a couple ways to set their mind at ease.

With rankings like the Journal's, it's important to note that the outcome depends on the votes selected. If you analyze every recorded vote, as done by Poole and Lewis, Garrett ranked more conservative than 97% of the 109th House.

Also, in a selective survey it leaves out what Garrett would like to become law. For that a more accurate rating may be the analysis done by Govtrack.us, that lists him as a Radical Republican based on a statistical analysis of Bill co-sponsorship (for quality control, I checked Ted Kennedy, who is listed as a Radical Democrat).

So for those who may doubt Garrett's street cred as one of the most conservative members of Congress, never fear, the numbers back up the claim.

Garrett's grudge against drinking water

Update: This bill's passage has major implications for North Jersey. Both The Record and The Herald News carried stories about Representative Bill Pascrell Jr.'s legislation, which was approved among the New Jersey House Delegation, 12 to Garrett.

I've been working on another project this evening and decided to take a break to see what went on in the House today. One bill, and Garrett's vote on it, stood out. He was the only NJ House member to vote against The Water Quality Investment Act of 2007. Basically, it provides grant money to states and towns to help clean up their water by avoiding sewer overrun into streams and such. This was a big problem where I lived in Michigan, where we'd have significant rain and the sewage treatment facilities would overrun and dump raw sewage in the rivers and lakes where people swam and would catch fish for dinner. Fun stuff, huh?

Anyway, Garrett voted against providing money to help fix problems like these, that usual have enormous costs that communities can't afford to fix on their own. At first I was surprised, however, I should have seen this coming, as Garrett has a long running feud with working sanitation and clean water for people to drink and get food from.

Rep. Garrett was one of 14 representatives to vote against "The Goals and Ideas of World Water Day." Here's what was resolved:

(1) supports the goals and ideals of World Water Day;
(2) recognizes the importance of conserving and managing water resources for sustainable development, including environmental integrity and the eradication of
poverty and hunger, and human health and overall quality of life in the United States and across the globe; and
(3) encourages the people of the United States to observe World Water Day with appropriate recognition, ceremonies, activities, and programs to demonstrate the importance of water and water conservation to human kind.

And Garrett voted no.

The other big one was Garrett's vote against the "Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005." It's a bit longer, but lays out the issues and consequences that a lack of clean drinking water has around the world. Basically, it resolves that we should focus our foreign aid on ensuring the availability of working sewers and clean drinking water to prevent, among other things, regional wars and children dying every 15 seconds from preventable disease. Garrett had a few more friends on this one, he was one of 34 to vote against it.

I don't know what Garrett has against providing clean water and working sanitation. Personally, I find his stance on these immoral and somewhat appalling.

A Hat Tip to Rep. Garrett

After watching his CPAC presentation(Afternoon session, 22 minutes in), I was ready to rail against Representative Scott Garrett again. In five minutes he managed to show his loathing for New Jersey's Congressional Delegation, show his ignorance of the importance of the Interstate highway system on commerce, and announced his dead before drafted legislation to gut funding for the Department of Education's Title I (poor children) and No Child Left Behind programs. Gathering facts and figures, I listened to the speech again, wanting to add something about how he's relegated one of the Districts that contributes the most in taxes (ours) to the minority of the minority and his actions are costing us influence in any real discussion of the issues. Armed with a full bottle of Diet Coke and my usual over-sized jar of peanuts, I listened to the speech one more time to see if I had missed anything, and thought to myself: Damn this guy is good.

It's not a defense of his positions, it's a political observation showing appreciation for his skill at rallying the base. I had the same thought after he beat Aronsohn in their radio debate. Here Garrett is, standing in front of an audience of the only people who didn't trip over each other to go see Rudy speak (the moderator asked those leaving to keep the noise down), and he had them cheering at points. Anchoring a group railing against earmarks, in a matter of fact manner he attacked the President and the big government conservatives who cost the Republicans the Congress. In front of his audience, it didn't matter how unproductive his legislation would be or how high our District's property taxes would go if they were passed. In front of that crowd, he was the valiant hero.

This isn't an endorsement of what he does or how he thinks, I'd prefer someone who takes pragmatic steps toward lowering taxes by making government more efficient, as opposed to floating "going nowhere" resolutions. The Bergen County Republicans' shellacking last November proves that voters would rather pay more for services due to corruption and inefficiency than have no services at all. I'd hedge a bet that if you showed his speech to the majority of voters in our District, and they have a true conservative alternative, Garrett might actually lose an election. However, I'm a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due. Garrett's a rising star to his base and when given the opportunity to talk just to them, he shines.

Defending the Defenseless

With it's recent ruling, the New Jersey Supreme Court took a major step forward in defending the defenseless. By striking down a number of eligibility restrictions that served as barriers for the developmentally disabled and their families to receive care, our fair state will take a major step forward to providing for those most in need of help. The question now becomes one of money, priorities and morals.

Ranging from high to extremely low functioning folks, I got to see first hand the ranging demands on both caregivers and families while serving at a non-profit housing provider in Michigan. I also learned the harsh reality it is somewhat easy to raise donations for children with developmental disabilities; however funds for adults are harder to come by. Government funding is often the only way to provide services to those in need.

In his effort to curb entitlement (mandatory) spending, particularly Medicaid, developmentally disabled adults and even children are squarely in the cross hairs of President Bush and his fellow "compassionate conservatives" like our own Representative Scott Garrett. Medicaid is a lifeline to roughly 9.9 million people with disabilities and their families, which accounts for 16.5% of Medicaid recipients. The most recent budget proposed by the President and supported by Garrett would cut $28 billion from Medicaid over the next ten years. Here's some of the ways they plan to do it, courtesy of The Arc:

Optional Formulary and Pharmacy Changes: Would adjust pharmacy reimbursement policies and would permit states to operate “closed formularies” that permit states to deny coverage for drugs, even when medically necessary. Under current law, states can restrict access to certain drugs as long as individuals can get
exceptions through prior authorization.

New Limits on IDEA-Related Services: Would phase out Medicaid reimbursement for some services, including some transportation and certain administrative costs related to Medicaid services (e.g. physical, speech, and occupational therapies) provided to special education students;

New Restrictions on Rehabilitation Services: Would define allowable services that can be reimbursed as rehabilitation services (to restrict reimbursement to medical services only). In particular, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to narrow the option to finance medical services only. This approach – which will be incorporated in new regulations later this year – may jeopardize such “habilitative” services as social skills training, employment-related rehabilitation, and some transportation services.

One of the primary goals of any provider of services to the special needs community is to make the lives of those they serve as independent as possible. This varies depending on the individual and their needs, but the cuts outlined above increase the barriers to achieving independence. Transportation, job skills and social skills are integral components of many treatment programs for higher functioning special needs individuals. Eliminating access to certain medications, such as anti-psychotic drugs, can mean the difference between a semi-independent life and being relegated to full-time institutionalization.

It is immoral that Bush and Garrett, among others, see cutting programming to the developmentally disabled as sound fiscal policy. However, if forced to engage the amoral individual, it is also important to point out this is bad fiscal policy. Every family shouldering the burden of these cuts becomes less productive in the workplace, if not having to completely be taken out of the workforce to care for their child or adult child.

Individuals who could live independently or semi-independently with the appropriate training and medical supervision, very well could become wards of the state when their parents die. With the nation's highest autism rate and over 19,000 developmentally disabled adults living with parents over 60 in New Jersey, this should be of very real concern for those watching property taxes. I could go on, but you probably get the point.

We must not continue to balance the budget on the backs of the defenseless simply because they don't have lobbyists. The Constitution empowers Congress to levy taxes to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." While traditional Republicans and Democrats can argue until they're blue in the face over how far that goes, they must unite to stop the conservatives without conscience who are attacking the lifelines of those who can't fight back.

So, rematch in '08?

With Paul Aronsohn's announcement of his intention to announce his intention in late spring, I received a handful of e-mails and a text message asking if the rematch was in store. The answer to that at this point is I don't know. I'm still thinking about what my involvement would look like in '08 (candidate, staffer, party, etc.) to best serve the District. As those who read this blog realize, I'm rather unlikely to work for or vote for Rep. Scott Garrett. I'm equally unlikely to work for or vote for Paul.

Don't get me wrong, Paul's a nice guy. He was always polite to my volunteers that he met, and up until the whole sign stealing thing our campaigns were rather cordial, as I was with Garrett's as well. My reaction to the sign incident was boneheaded; as hard as we worked to raise the money and get the signs out, to have a significant portion of my "war chest" vanish didn't sit well. The boneheadedness was reinforced by the press coverage and subsequent police incident report on a different night that pointed to the BCDO and not Paul's staff directly. While I didn't win the award for dumbest press release, had Stuart Rothenberg known I was alive I might have been in contention.

My objection to Paul comes down to a principle, and for me it's a really big one. It's called Democracy. On both Blue Jersey and Retire Garrett there is a common refrain about the '08 primary.

There should be a vigorous Democratic primary that will encourage the candidates to hone their policy positions and become better candidates to face Garrett in 2008.

Regardless of which party you fall into, the ability to choose your representation is a basic cornerstone of Democracy. If you're running for office, you should be a big fan of the idea. The problem I have with Paul is just that, and it was from a 2005 article from PoliticsNJ.

Even if they are both hell-bent on running, there could be a way for Wolfe and Aronsohn to settle their contest without incurring the costs of a full-scale primary. Aronsohn said he'd be willing to abide by the verdict of the Bergen County Democratic convention, which will take place next February or March. But Wolfe indicated she probably wouldn't, saying she didn't want to leave the district's other three counties out of the process.

This shouldn't even be in a candidate's mind. Even if the reporter planted the idea, or offered it as a possible solution to the primary quandary, there should be a soul shaking voice that screams no at the thought of excluding people from voting. I had a chance to ask Paul about this at one point. Due to the fact I don't have the conversation recorded I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I can say his response didn't change my mind. While his direct involvement in the BCDO is a question mark, being willing to leave the decision for an entire Congressional District in the hands of a man who actively tries to boot those who don't work with him is highly suspect.

I won't ever work or vote for someone who would vote or act against the principle right so many have fought and died to achieve and protect. When Garrett voted against re-authorizing the Voting Rights Act I called it deplorable, and I feel the same way about Paul being willing to skip the Primary. For me, or anyone else for that matter, having to choose between the two is a terrible choice to have to make.

Where are the fiscal conservatives on Iraq?

A few weeks ago, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did an outstanding breakout of the cost of the Iraq War to date, at $400 billion and counting it's $1,333 for every citizen of the United States.

For that kind of money, you could run the Wisconsin state government - current annual budget around $27 billion - for around a decade and a half.

Or, if you're a budding Donald Trump, you could scoop up all of the taxable property in the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County - homes, offices and factories - and still have around $337 billion in change, according to estimated taxable values.

Now that the perspective is in place, let's talk about a major reason for both increased cost and continued instability. As reported by the AP, contractors in Iraq face death and injury the same as our soldiers, but many of the contractors are making at least $100,000 a year (an ad in last week's Economist was offering at least $150,000). With 120,000 civilian contractors in Iraq, the price tag is at least $12 billion a year. That $12 billion is before the contractor's company's mark-up on the labor, which if it is the 20% standard rate for stateside work, taxpayers are forking over at least $2.4 billion in fees.

While there are some jobs in Iraq that are highly specialised, many of the jobs are ones soldiers used to do or the Iraqi people could themselves. Of the 501 jobs in Iraq that KBR (one of the largest contractors, bringing in $12 billion themselves from Iraq in 2006) is trying to fill, many are for carpenters, cooks, plumbers, truck drivers and auto mechanics.

With the Iraq Study Group finding unemployment ranging from 20-60%, it is no wonder employment in the militias is appealing. Even in an editorial from The Korea Times saying providing increased employment will not quell the violence, there is this little nugget of truth:

Many young Iraqis join militias because that is where the money is. They can earn more hanging around with a gun in their hands than by working in construction or trade. Supporters of the insurgency are happy to plant a roadside bomb in exchange for extra cash. Instead of focusing on a large jobs program, the US could do more to bring peace to Iraq by reducing the money from Iraqi government coffers and smuggling activities that funds the payrolls of the insurgents and militias.

I don't know what the average member of the Mahdi Army is making, but I doubt it's $100,000. Our soldiers and contractors are dying, in part, because we're being outbid for the economic loyalty of young Iraqis. While the aforementioned AP story highlights the resentment felt by soldiers working side by side with contractors making five times what they do, the resentment toward the contractors from the Iraqis is much higher and with a fatal cost.

If we are going to be borrowing and paying interest on money from places like China to invest in Iraqi reconstruction, we at the very least could be doing it wisely. The financial mismanagement in Iraq is going to haunt the unborn grandchildren of my unborn children. Real fiscal conservatives would have been hopping up and down about this waste years ago, however Congress had been silent before the Iraq debate. Now various forms of waste are being highlighted by members of Congress and the Government Accountability Office on a regular basis. The hiring of contractors is one area that can be remedied quickly. Taxpayers should not be funding corporate profits filling jobs the Iraqis can do themselves and at a lower cost.