Garrett Joining "Protest"

Well, it seems Representative Scott Garrett will be joining in the Republican Falsepromisepaloza going on down in Washington. There's been enough written about the false promise of off-shore drilling's impact at the pump, I shouldn't need to link at this point.

However, despite the facts, Garrett's jumping in with his colleagues anyway. From this week's Gazette:

I have established a special email address, PainAtThePump@mail.house.gov. Email me and tell me about how high gas prices are causing hardships for you and your family. I will share your comments with my colleagues on the House floor.

In addition, I will be on the House floor tomorrow from 11:00am to 1:00pm and I encourage you to join me here in Washington, D.C. I would be happy to escort you on to the floor so you could participate in this effort. Please contact my office at (202) 225-4465 for more information.

I'd still like to know why Garrett's the only Representative from NJ to vote against every major Energy bill since Democrats took control of the House (even the ones Bush signed).

I guess I would like off-shore to make it to the floor, so it can be shot down, and we can move on. This posturing isn't doing any of us any good. However, since the Democrats won't do that, we're stuck with the Republicans doing this.

If this was a real protest, it wouldn't be 20 Reps a day showing off for the tourists like some modern day Colonial Williamsburg. No, the whole Republican Caucus would be there. But, it is what it is. Regardless of it's ineffectiveness, Garrett's going to take his turn with the "protest."

To be honest, I can't believe he'd be missing the NJ State Fair in Sussex for a pointless publicity stunt down in DC. But that's just me.

The Garrett that Cried Debt

In his column on Sunday, Herb Jackson made an interesting point about Representative Scott Garrett:

IF A HOUSING BILL to prop up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ends up being a massive drain on the public treasury, then Rep. Scott Garrett has every right to say, "I told you so."

Garrett's concern that the bail out bill could put taxpayers on the hook is well founded. Some will point to the fact the CBO said we have a better than 50% chance of not owing anything. The companies even have said they don't need the money. But Garrett is still on to something.

The problem is the GSEs are publicly traded and have shareholders. If taking advantage of the taxpayers increases the value of those shares, the GSEs are obligated to take advantage of us. The prospect of owing more money when the Administration has already had to revise the projected deficit next year to an eye popping $482 billion is nothing to be taken lightly.

The problem is, "I told you so" won't help the situation. What we needed was a Representative whose opinion carried enough weight for people to think about this stuff objectively. Unfortunately for us as a District, and potentially America as a whole, we don't have that type of Representative.

There's a pretty good track record of how this happened. Garrett's misleading and patently false assertions on issues like SCHIP and PEPFAR; Garrett's rigid partisanship; as well as ostracizing moderate Republicans on Capitol Hill seems to be coming back to haunt him.

Garrett hasn't released much in the way of misleading information since his new press secretary took over, and I see that as a very good thing (the energy thing is a carry over). Now we have to hope Garrett will realize the cost of what he had been doing.

When we needed him to deliver most, he was at his least effective.

Congrats to Garrett

Representative Scott Garrett was one of the biggest movers up the Power Rankings in Congress for this year. He went from 411, which I wrote about a few times, up to 217. Garrett ranks 51st within the Republican Party in the House. Here's how Knowlegis describes the issues factoring into Garrett's rank:

Too few terms or years in office in Congress to have significant clout;
Successfully passed one or more bills out of committee;
Successfully amended one or more bills on the floor of the House or Senate;
Allowed to offer one or more unsuccessful amendments on the House floor.

As noted here, the bill Garrett passed out of committee is the one which will raise the insurance premiums on homes worth more than $600,000 located within flood zones.

His successful amendments range from prohibiting travel of more than 50 government employees to conferences; to getting an extension for the exemption for smaller publicly traded companies from having to conform with SOX; to increasing funding for the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Garrett's unsuccessful amendments include eliminating funding for the Alaskan Native Education Equity Program; to reducing funding for Rehabilitation Services and Disability Research; to an amendment preventing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from issuing conforming loans to most first time home buyers.

I know I've kicked around Garrett for being ranked so lowly in the last poll, so it's only fair to congratulate him on moving up in the world. As a District, we have to hold him accountable to use this new found influence to get stuff like AMT reform done.

Granted, Garrett's still a long way from the top of the Republicans, let alone the House in General. However, it was a huge jump. Now it's a matter of what he can do with it this year.

My 200th Post: What's a Guy to Do?

***UPDATED*** See below.

Considering I'm a one man band, I'm pretty pleased to put up my 200th post in less than a year. It's been fun, and I want to thank those of you who stop by.

If the folks over at PoliticsNJ are right, even though Republicans are starting to complain about Representative Scott Garrett, he isn't going anywhere. It seems I'll have him to write about for a while. However, having Garrett stay in office so I can perpetuate this blog is not a goal. I'd still write no matter who was in office, because as a District we have a right to know what our Representative is really doing down in Washington on our behalf.

The biggest issue with Garrett is that he's so ineffective. An example is how Garrett cites that 120,000 taxpayers in our Fifth District (19% of the population) will be subject to the AMT if it's not changed; yet as Herb Jackson recently pointed out in the Record, Garrett wasn't able to get AMT reform bills passed while Republicans were in the majority. How exactly can taxpayers in our District expect him to get anything done while he's in the minority?

Garrett's ineffectiveness extends to a number of critical issues, from health care reform to energy policy. Garrett effectively removes our District from a seat at the table; we will have no meaningful say in what happens, yet inevitably our District will foot a large part of the bill.

This all has to do with the fact that it's impossible for someone philosophically opposed to government governing to play a role in developing effective government. It's basically like asking me to manage the Atlanta Braves against the Mets, the Braves would likely lose every game.

Garrett makes no apologies for his belief the Departments of Education, Energy and Transportation should be eliminated, when some of our biggest current challenges as a NATION fall into these areas. Major reforms are needed, without a doubt, but simply throwing your hands in the air in the face of sagging test scores, an energy crisis, and collapsing bridges is the slacker's way out. Doctor's don't cut off your arm when you break your wrist, but that's Garrett's solution to everything.

A fiscal conservative Garrett is not; fiscal conservatives accept some role of government and look to make it efficient in order to reduce costs and taxes over the long term. A clear example of Garrett's lack of fiscal conservatism is his stance against PAYGO, which was implemented by Republicans in the 1990's to hold spending down and pay down the deficit. It was working before the tax-cut and spend Republicans supplanted the fiscal conservative Republicans.

Garrett also constantly votes to to defend taxpayer funded corporate profit margin guarantees for those serving government contracts, regardless of performance. This flies in the face of getting the most from the taxpayer dollar, and it's downright anti-competitive.

Those who go after Garrett for his views, which often make Pat Buchanan look like a flaming haired liberal, miss the point. As out of the mainstream as Garrett's views are, they make him so ineffective he can't get any of them implemented anyway. Garrett's about as useful to our District as ice cubes are to the Eskimos whose education funding he voted to cut.

Even though I never declared as a Republican, I worked for them for a number of years during college, and the national party has radically departed from the party I knew growing up. My belief in paying down the deficit and making sure that the government's involvement in an individual's life ended at their front doorstep has never changed. In the 1990's, that was Northeast Republican mantra.

Now, thanks to Garrett and those like him, the Republican party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Gov. Tom Kean, and Marge Roukema is seen by many of my fellow unaffiliateds as the fear-mongering, bigoted, anti-Constitution, corporate profit padding party that's mortgaged future generations to score some political points.

With PoliticsNJ reporting Garrett is unlikely to get a Republican primary challenger, I find it disappointing that Republicans in our District are okay with the image Garrett portrays for them. With Garrett going unopposed by a fellow Republican, it will largely be up to the Democrats to mount a challenge.

There are two candidates running for the nomination, each bringing something different to the table, but they both face the same challenges. While FEC reports aren't available just yet for Rabbi Dennis Shulman, Garrett has $332,116 in cash on hand compared to Camille Abate's $36,556. This is a daunting deficit for any campaign. What's more daunting is the vote deficit in the Western part of the District that any Democrat will have to overcome: 18,000 in an off year and 30,000 in a Presidential.

However, each of the Dems know the odds and they're going for it anyway and that should be respected. Whether or not their message will resonate with enough voters in the the Western part of the District to make a difference is another story.

This all leads me back to what's a guy to do.

As many of you know, I ran against Garrett as the Independent in '06. I've been thinking about what to do next year. There are those who have said I should go again as an Independent or jump in a primary. If I did the latter, which party to pick is the issue; which one would take me is another; and building the infrastructure for a successful campaign in a hurry would be a big challenge.

I'm not walking away from my political views any time soon; however deciding whether or not the Republicans or Democrats best represent my values is still an on-going process. It seems if I go Republican, I'd be what's known in Washington as a Main Streeter; if I went Democratic I'd be closer to a Blue Dog. In other words, I'm a right leaning centrist, who places policy above partisanship, with no place to call a home.

Last time, I wanted voters to have an option between politics as usual and what was being hoisted up by the parties. This time, it would be to hold Garrett accountable to our District. Whether that's best done within a party or as an Indie still needs to be decided, but I will decide in the coming months.

What's a guy to do?

***Update 1*** Based on an e-mail I received, I want to make it clear that I haven't decided whether or not I'm jumping on someone else's campaign or going to run myself. That last paragraph threw somebody for a loop.

***Update 2*** Blue Jersey is reporting that Dennis Shulman outraised Camille Abate in the 3rd Quarter.

Props to Menendez & Garrett

In my earlier post about the '08 hopefuls health care plans, I noted that no one makes a strong case on our behalf about the differences in cost of living when it comes to Federal programing and tax rates. Well, our own Senator Bob Menendez did make the case with regard to the State Children's Health Insurance Program. He distributed a chart showing the differences between several locales and it was reprinted in the Record.

And, for all of you who enjoy Greenwood Lake or rely on it for your business, Representative Scott Garrett secured $250,000 in funding to help clean it up. In his press release he had this to say:

“I’m proud to be a part of this community-wide effort to preserve and protect Greenwood Lake. The growth of the aquatic weeds has reached a critical state, putting the Lake at risk, and with it, the creatures that inhabit it and the businesses that rely on it as a regional tourist attraction.”

On these issues, we have been well served by our representation down in Washington.

Garrett vs. Young - Observations

So Representative Don Young exploded on our Representative Scott Garrett. Young has a reputation as a brawler, and also the King of House Pork. His "my money" thing is how he operates, and the threats are normal for him.

Rolling Stone ranked Young third on their list of 10 Worst Congressmen. From that article:

Such coarseness is a Young hallmark. He once called environmentalists a "self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots" who "are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans." And during a debate on the right of native Alaskans to sell the sex organs of endangered animals as aphrodisiacs, Young whipped out the eighteen-inch penis bone of a walrus and brandished it like a sword on the House floor.

If, in fact, Garrett introduced this amendment without talking with Young about it, a Republican known for this sort of stuff, how could anybody be surprised by his explosion?

What agitates me the most about this isn't Garrett's act to pull the funds; Garrett doesn't want the Federal government involved in education and he hates earmarks, so this action was his standard operating procedure (SOP).

However, this event highlights other SOPs of Garrett that should worry the rest of us:

First, you have the fact he would target a fellow member on the House floor, of his own caucus no less, without giving the courtesy of a heads up. Garrett should have talked to the Representatives of Alaska and Hawaii first, or introduced an amendment to strip all the earmarks.

Second, you have his initial weak, confused and self-centered response. Try as they might, his aides could not take the deer caught in the headlights look off his face. A member of the House slams the reputation of our State and our Congressmen and the first thing Garrett tries to do is defend himself. Give me a break. I appreciated the response that came later, and I'm hoping it had some passion with it as opposed to Garrett's usually flat delivery.

Third, and this is a big one: institutional ignorance. When Young talks about "killing" other Congressmen, he's not kidding. Young is a prolific fundraiser, and he spreads a lot of cash around to other members running for office and the national party. Last election cycle, his campaign committee doled out $231,000, with his Leadership PAC handing out another $159,328; compared to Garrett's $0 from his campaign and not having a Leadership PAC. Also, Young's total does not include the lobbyist directed funds from those lobbyists he has relationships with, such as big oil.

As wrong as it is, and symbolic of how sick Washington has become, this is where Young derives his power from on the Hill and how he's been able to get all those pork projects at the expense of New Jersey's taxpayers. With Republicans only getting 40% of earmarked funds at this point, now the projects our District needs federal funds for (like the 287 and Rt. 17 exchange renovation) have a bulls eye on them.

Garrett needs to fight for reform, but he has to be smart about it: you don't do it by surprise and you sure don't pick your first fight over funding for poor kids. The manner in which Garrett did this was a first week Freshman Representative's error that our third term Congressman should have had the foresight to realize his actions have the distinct possibility of further hurting our District. Garrett's amendment went down in flames, with even the rest of the New Jersey delegation voting against it. However, the damage this effort could do to our District may last much longer than a ten minute spitting match on the floor of the House.

Thanks, Scott.

Garrett vs. Young - Video and Text

Over at Blue Jersey, Talking Points Memo, The Hill, and a number of other sites, everybody is talking about how Republican Representative Don Young of Alaska verbally smacked Representative Scott Garrett around like a thirdhand ragdoll.








I don't have video of Garrett's response, but his tepid parliamentary inquiry made him look scared (more on that later). Here's the text though, which could be read as being forceful, however that can't be confirmed. It was split due to his allotted time.

As the Representative from the Fifth District of the State of New Jersey, I remind the gentleman from Alaska that the State of New Jersey has 13 congressional Representatives from both sides of the aisle. And so when the gentleman from Alaska makes reference to our Representatives from the State of New Jersey not doing their job and not appropriately representing the people of the State, I remind him that it is an accusation not against simply this one gentleman who is standing at the microphone right now proposing this one amendment, but it is an entire body of 13 gentlemen from both sides of the aisle who I say, and I commend both Representatives from the Democrat and the Republican side of the aisle, for appropriately and admirably representing the good citizens from the State of New Jersey.

My colleagues from the other 12 districts do not need to be defended against these rash accusations by the gentleman from Alaska. But I do come to the floor now to appropriately defend them, nonetheless.

[snip]

I also take up the comment that the gentleman from Texas was just making reference to which the gentleman from Alaska stated in his statement what was ``my money'' or it is Alaska's money. Well, maybe that is the problem we have had in this Congress for too long, even when Republicans were in the majority and now that the Democrats are the majority, too. Too many Members of Congress see the dollars that we appropriate here not as the taxpayers' dollar, but see it as their very own personal checking account. Maybe that is the fundamental problem that we have with why we spend more and more each year.

I remember when the Democrats were running for office this past election. They were railing against the Republican Party, that we were the party out of control, spending more and more and more. If they were elected to office, they would come here and rein things in when it came to spending. And I served on the Budget Committee when the Democrats were in the minority, and how they railed against us from the other side of the aisle. And at times I even agreed with them on some of the charges that they made, that we were spending too much money.

And now when the Democrats take control, what do they do? Give us the largest tax increase in U.S. history, and we see spending continue to go through the roof. Where do those dollars come from? They come from American taxpayers, from the family budgets, from men and women in Alaska and New Jersey and across this country, working hard just to get by, and yet they are being forced by the Democrats' tax increases to send more dollars here to Washington.

When the gentleman from Alaska comes forth and says it is "my money,'' maybe that is why in some respects when there are projects that are appropriated such as bridges to nowhere and the like, the American public says that is our dollars going to Washington, and it shouldn't be looked at for just such frivolous things as this.

The amendment that's before us right now is an appropriate amendment to say that the hard-earned tax dollars should go to programs that are necessary but be spent in an effective manner.

Members from all 50 States see the need to educate our children. Members from all 50 States, including the State of New Jersey, see the need to deal with the issue of Alaska native students, and that is why this administration has already requested appropriations of $1 billion for that, $118 million in other categorical aids such as that. So all we are doing is saying make sure that those dollars that come from New Jersey and elsewhere are spent effectively.

Finally, to close on this point of ``my money,'' maybe the gentleman from Alaska was not listening at the opening of my comments when I said that New Jersey taxpayers send a dollar to Washington and only get 63 cents back on the dollar, whereas his constituents, yes, they do much better. They send a dollar to Washington and then they get $1.80 back.

I would ask the gentleman from Alaska and other Members from the Democrat side of the aisle, where do they think that other 80 cents on the dollar is coming from? I will tell you it's coming from the good, hardworking taxpayers from the State of New Jersey and Connecticut and New York that are donor States to States like Alaska, that we are subsidizing their programs.

I would ask the gentleman from Alaska to refrain from, therefore, referring to it as his money. It is the taxpayers in the Fifth Congressional District and the rest of New Jersey, whether you're in a Democrat district or Republican district, who are helping fund these programs.

Garrett's Floor Speech Against COPS

As promised, here's Garrett's floor speech from yesterday. My observations are below.

I am deeply disappointed that the Democratic leadership has chosen to bring up H.R. 1700, the COPS Improvement Act of 2007, under suspension. While the Committee on Judiciary reported the bill out without objection, I am concerned that the hundreds of Members not on the committee will not have any opportunity to offer any improvements to the bill.

Had I been allowed the opportunity, I would have introduced an amendment to more fairly allot grants by State. According to last year's funding statistics, small States received a disproportionate amount of funds. In fact, in some cases small States have received more funds than States more than five times their population. For instance, Alabama gets more assistance than California.

My home State, New Jersey, a densely populated State nestled between the major metropolitan centers of New York City and Philadelphia and also home to a heavily trafficked drug corridor and its own inner-cities, receives less than 2 percent of all grants.

As if this imbalance weren't bad enough, the Office Management and Budget's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) graded COPS as ``not performing: results not demonstrated.'' The bill authorizes $1.15 billion for this program next fiscal year and another $4.6 billion over the next 4 years. With so much taxpayer money at stake, and so few positive results demonstrated, why is the House missing this opportunity to fully consider how we might improve a program that is failing despite its good intentions?

The people of New Jersey watch a disproportionate share of their Federal taxes go to Washington to carry out this unproven program in other States. And for these reasons, I regret that I simply could not support this bill on the floor today.

This may be the best speech Garrett has ever given articulating his reasons for voting against a Bill. I have three thoughts on it:

1. With Garrett's recent history of misrepresenting the truth and making up sources on the House Floor, I'll have to fact check it, which I won't be able to do for a day or two. I'm not saying he's not telling it like it is, I'm just saying we can't take his arguments at face value.

2. If reforming the system was needed, and considering what Congress did to meth prevention funding it probably needs reform, why didn't Garrett push for these changes before he fell from 144 to 411 in influence over the last two years? When 92% of Congress liked this Bill, what hope does he now have of being heard? What other initiatives wasn't he pro-actively trying to fix on which he now must take a hopelessly defensive stance?

3. If this Bill really is such a raw deal for NJ, then why did the rest of the Delegation vote for it?

Let the Sunshine In

At times, trying to keep up with Representative Scott Garrett is draining. Commonsense stuff and decisions of principle should be no-brainers for Representatives, but not Garrett. Good government practices and openness are things Garrett talks a lot about, but as is often the case when given a chance to back up his words with votes he falls flat on his face. Voters should have guessed something was up when he chose to talk about arranging tours in his weekly newsletter, instead of discussing anything of substance. Now, I've been told when he has time he's gracious enough to conduct the tours himself, but he could have used the newsletter space to discuss why he voted against the clean water bills last week or would vote against the majority of accountability measures that came up this week. The disconnect really brings up one of the fundamental issues I have with his tenure as our Representative: An almost complete lack of accountability.

Maybe I'm too big of an idealist, but this is the information age and the people paying the salary of a Congressman and his staff have a right to know what's going on and more than enough tools exist for him to provide the information. During moments of the campaign when I actually allowed myself to think I might win (these were few), I often thought about the accountability issue. I basically thought about how my Saturdays and Mondays and the allotted District work periods would be spent in the District. Townhall meetings, regional mayors meetings, regional chamber of commerce meetings, visiting every school in the District, etc. Those are the old school techniques with which I'm familiar and are standard (not sure if Garrett does them, but all the good Congresspeople I've known have).

There were also the little things I wanted to do to harness the Internet and bring young folks into the fold. These are things Representatives could and should be doing in this day and age, but painfully few are. After running into so many folks my age and younger who have given up on the process after only having the right to vote for a small number of years, I wanted to find ways to engage more people in the process instead of promoting the institutional indifference we seem to be stuck with. Our generation is getting closer to running the show with each election cycle, and the fewer people engaged in the process, the fewer good leadership choices we'll have down the road and the worse off our nation will be.

While the consistency of his voting makes it relatively easy to guess which way Garrett will vote on our behalf, usually there are no quotes in the Congressional Record, no statements on his website, and no interview with the press explaining why. Other than a parody of his recent votes against increasing protections for whistle blowers, against increasing accountability of the Executive Branch, and against increasing ease of access to information about our government, there is precious little to go on.

To Garrett's credit, he did vote for increasing the transparency of who donates funds to Presidential Libraries (a slick way around the ban on foreign and corporate campaign donations) and for better federal contracting accountability. Unfortunately, I can't even give him a pat on the back for saying the right thing along with doing the right thing (a rarity these days). I'm sure there will be spin forthcoming about protecting taxpayers with his two votes, but what about the other three? On such a fundamental issue as accountability, batting .400 for the week is unlikely to get you into the Hall of Fame and it makes one question whether you believe in a government "for the people, by the people" being accountable to the people.

If Garrett opened up I still wouldn't like the rigidity of his politics, the effect he's having on our District, or the fact he has a blatant disregard for the opinions of the majority of voters in our District. That said, if he opened up and the folks of our District still embraced him, I wouldn't feel like the only reason he's in office is his being a practitioner of the sins of omission and evasion.

Partisanship Incarnate

Part of the problem with Rep. Scott Garrett is that he sees everything in Republican party against Democratic party terms. In response to the President's State of the Union Address, Rep. Scott Garrett had the following to say:

"He did not pander to the Democrats and independents as some thought he would," said New Jersey Rep. Scott Garrett, a conservative Republican who told The Washington Times that his House colleagues expressed a similar assessment.

The blatant hypocrisy in his statement is the fact that in order to fend off Aronsohn painting him as "too conservative" for the district, Garrett's campaign ripped me off by claiming he was "An Independent Voice". This amused me then, but to see him magnanimously complimenting the President on not "pandering" to people like me or the vast majority of our district is particularly disingenuous.

If our District is to have a voice in Congress, Scott needs to get off his high partisan horse and get to work at crossing the aisle. The Republican majority, particularly the 109th Congress, did very little to actually help the majority of the people in our District. The majority of the tax breaks they passed, which are targeted at our District's income levels, are lost because of the AMT. Nothing was done about the rising cost of college tuition. On top of all of this, our annual return on the tax dollar went down every year he's been in office.

That was all while Scott was in the majority. Now that our "voice" in Congress is in the minority, his stands on issues, his highly partisan comments, and the rigidity of his partisan voting are going to cost us in a very real sense. The issues we face are not Republican or Democratic. Gas prices, health care shortfalls being picked up by the state (which raise property taxes), unfunded mandates for education (which raise property taxes), and the war in Iraq need solutions more than they need rhetoric. Personally, I don't care which party comes up with the way to actually fix the pinch most people feel, like most folks I just want it fixed.

For a guy who represents a District where Independents outnumber Republicans and Democrats combined, he might not want to discount what we want to hear. But more than what we want to hear, it is about the results that we want to see that he should be most concerned about. Sitting on his hands with a continued indifference to the Independents and Democrats will be what undoes him, simply because an awful lot of Republicans in our District already think beyond partisanship. The majority of the Republicans in our District fall into a results oriented, fiscally conservative and socially liberal category. It's this philosophy that is part of the reason Rudy Guilliani's social views (pro-choice, pro-moderate gun control, pro-gay rights), while repugnant to Scott, have Rudy leading the polls in New Jersey for the Republican nomination for President even though he hasn't declared he's running.

Scott better watch it with his rhetoric, or someone in the '08 primary or general is going to nail him with it, make it stick, and send him back to his "farm." There are a lot of Republicans in our District who are unhappy with Garrett, and statements like the one above coupled with continued ineffectiveness, will not help him if he faces a sensible moderate or commonsense conservative in the Republican the primary. And if he doesn't, and the Democrats put up something other than a sock puppet, they might find themselves winning the seat.