Witnessing History

First things first, I need to thank Representative Scott Garrett and staff for even making this post possible. I honestly couldn't believe I ended up with a ticket for the Inauguration, but I did.

So here are a few pictures I took on this amazing day:

This is as I'm getting out of the Metro at about 5:15 AM.

The sun coming up by Blue Gate. At this point, I had no feeling in my toes. Other than that, things were great.

Getting ready to head in, wearing my newly minted PickAmerican.com hat.

Getting settled...

President Obama arriving...

The Oath and Address

You can see him, center of the picture.

The crowd as I'm heading out

President Bush flying away

PickAmerican.com

So, I've started a new website: PickAmerican.com.

It's a Wiki intended to let people find products large and small that are Made in the USA.

The idea is that we need to get back to basics. People look back at the 80's as a glorious time economically. Republicans, particularly will point to Reagan's tax cuts as the cause. While that can be debated by economists, one thing was certain, there was a push for Made in the USA products. The demand created the jobs that fueled the economy.

So, this is my little effort to help a bit. We'll see if it catches on. Personally, I like how easy it is to use (especially on the Blackberry when standing in the store). Give it a spin and let me know what you think.

Garrett Authors Alternative Stimulus

Representative Scott Garrett has answered the call of Representative Eric Cantor to introduce alternative economic stimulus packages. As with Garrett's previous piece, there is a 10% tax cut for corporations. However, this piece seems to be a vast improvement over his last set of proposals, including more tax cuts for families and individuals.

There's been a ton of press already, but The National Review lists off some of the things most people would agree are a good idea:

— An increase in the child tax credit from $1,000 to $5,000.
— An increase in the deduction for college expenses from $4,000 to $6,000,
and in the income threshold at which the deduction can be taken.
— An end to mandatory IRA withdrawals at age 70 1/2.
— The plan would also let people of any age draw down their IRA money
without taxes or penalties in calendar 2009.

The only big issue with this is what it does to the deficit. Garrett "pays" for the program with a 1% cut across the board on non-defense discretionary spending. Depending on whether or not War on Terror funds are included, this cut represents a savings between $4 to $6 billion. The corporate tax cut could reduce revenues upwards of $30 billion alone.

While the math may not add up now, Garrett adding more than simply corporate tax cuts to his proposal shows he's taken heed of the criticisms leveled at his last effort. It's a positive step forward for our Congressman, and I wouldn't be surprised to see several of these proposals included in President-Elect Obama's final proposal.

Will Garrett Be Full of SCHIP again?

Update: The SCHIP expansion was approved, and it was a 12 to Garrett vote among the New Jersey Delegation.

It sounds like the SCHIP expansion legislation may come to a vote today. The Courier Post gives a nice summary of the program:

It is meant to enroll children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor, but too little to afford private health insurance if employer-provided coverage is unavailable.

Those of you who have been reading for a while got to witness me shred Representative Scott Garrett for his misrepresentations of the truth and flat out lies about what the program does and who it serves.

Now, as expanding SCHIP will likely sail to passage yet again; we have to expect Garrett to vote no, again.

Garrett is philosophically opposed to SCHIP, which he has the right to be. Unfortunately, Garrett used falsehoods and fear to try and get people to see things his way. Basically, he and his colleagues attacked children using lies.

The question is what, if any, explanation or speech he will give when he votes no this time. Garrett has replaced key staff since 2007, and the hope is they won't stuff him full of bad information. The greater hope is that he won't regurgitate the bad information he received last time. We'll have to see, but for the quarter of a million families on SCHIP, it should be comforting that Garrett will once again be in the minority.

Garrett's Big Break

As those that follow the news know by now, Representative Scott Garrett has been named the Ranking Member (aka Vice Chairman) on the sub-committee that oversees the credit markets, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The official title of the Committee is the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

It seems that the political capital he got during the first bailout bill, and continued to build with the subsequent hand outs has paid off for him. It should be interesting to watch what Garrett does with this opportunity.

Garrett's made no secret of the fact he'd like to see the GSE's broken up, and more deregulation in the insurance and credit market sectors of our economy. Regardless of whether he can get any traction on these beliefs, being the Ranking Member will let him speak longer at hearings and likely get more invitations to speak with the press.

If nothing else, that will give me more source material.

Heal Thyself...

Happy New Year! To say I've been working so hard I didn't know what's going on is an understatement; my mother told me Eric Mangini was fired, and I'm fairly certain she didn't know who he was until he was fired.

However, now that I'm coming out of the blur, it's nice to know some things haven't changed. Representative Scott Garrett took to the House floor last night with several other Republicans to lay out their economic recovery plan.

Here it is: Heal Thyself.

Here's part of what Garrett said:

Finally, she made a good point as well, and I will close on this, market, heal thyself, is what she said. Likewise here, whether it's the credit market, the financial market or the unemployment market, we can allow the private sector, with the assist of the government getting out of the way for the market to heal thyself in those situations as well in the appropriate manner.

Now, I'm not in favor of forking over tons of taxpayer cash to CEOs who ran their companies into the ground; but doing nothing really can't be considered an option either.

The idea that the real economy functions in the ideological vacuum some seem to believe in is a bit dangerous. The government is going to have to address the lobbyist written tax policies that helped create this mess. The government is going to have to get it's own house in order in terms of waste and abuse of taxpayers. The government is going to have to figure out a way to undo the education, health care, and trade policies that have put us at a competitive disadvantage.

"Heal thyself" is a bit simplistic for what we face. My hope is that Garrett won't stick his head in the sand on this one, and actually play a constructive part. We'll have to see.

Bailouts, no. Smart, real world policy, yes.

Taking (most of) December Off

I'm working on a new website right now, so I'm going to be putting most of my energy and sparse spare time into that for the coming month. I'll be back sporadically with news and commentary, with an eye toward climbing back in the saddle regularly around January 5th.