ALERT:On February 24, [Congressman] Boren sent out a release that he would vote against the health care bill as it "raises taxes on businesses, creates job-killing mandates, grows the size of government, and cuts services to seniors."
And now today (March 3) Boren is sending out statements all over calling on Charlie Rangel to step down from his position as the House Ways and Means Chairman - the head of the powerful committee that sets tax and budget policies, because "I feel that all members of Congress should be held to the highest ethical standards and these preliminary findings are very troubling."THE FACTS:
Last October 7, after a long investigation already into Rangel's activities which included shaking down an oil company's CEO, and allegations of tax evasion and failure to report income, a resolution came to the floor of Congress to remove Rangel from his place due to the severity of the claims against him. (These are detailed well in the [following] link). However, Dan Boren voted when it counted to KEEP Rangel in place, just sending the resolution back to the ethics committee to continue investigating while not removing Rangel - despite the fact that the committee had been investigating Rangel for well over a year before that and revelations of Rangel hiding at least 500,000 in assets, investment properties not reported, getting sweetheart deals from the IRS in not paying penalties or interests and others.
What did Boren's crucial vote at that time allow Rangel to do? Right after Boren voted to keep Rangel in the Chairmanship, Rangel then facilitated the adjustment of the Health Care bill to allow more of it to fall under the "Nuclear Option" - which will allow the bill to pass Reconciliation in the Senate to cram the vote through with only 50 votes. The news story on this is in the [following] article.
Boren's actual vote - not what he is saying at home - is helping to facilitate the passage of the federal takeover on health care. We need to be informed and very careful about holding him to his actual record in DC - he is getting very savvy at voting no in highly publicized things, but when no one is looking, voting to facilitate the movement forward of legislation that still promotes Obama/Pelosi's plans to grow government.
The Bryan County GOP brought up Boren's October vote up in one of their meetings late last fall. With the results from Public Policy Polling's survey, is Boren going to be vulnerable to inconsistencies like these?
Funny how you put "Facts" in quotations on this post, because you clearly don't have the "facts."
ReplyDelete1.) The report and findings hadn't been released by the House Ethics Committee in October when the resolution asking Rangel to step down had been put before the House. So all you were hearing was rumors on what Rangel did. The consensus was "let's see what the report states, then we will proceed accordingly." Seems like a rational position to me.
2.) It's usually customary to allow an investigation to take place before you throw out the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty?
3.) Asking that the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the Chief tax writing committee in the United States Congress, to step down is a big deal, so it's usually a good idea to make sure the guy did what he was accused off before you send out a press release telling him to "resign."
4.) If you take a look at the vote in October, nine Republicans voted against it - meaning they voted WITH the Democrats and with Dan Boren! That means nine Republicans said "lets wait for the ethics committee to release its report."
Names like Ron Paul from Texas (can't say he is liberal), Dana Rohrabacher from CA, Steve King from NY, Walter Jones from NC....surely not "moderate" Republicans looking to cozy up. These guys are on the right flank of the Republican party.
5.) Furthermore, Dan Boren was one of about 10 Democrats to go out on the plank this past week and ask Rangel to quit before the full findings had even been released. That's about ten out of about 250 Democrats if you're keeping score behind this blog. Not exactly a comfortable position.
So please, do me a favor, try a little research before you post junk like this.
Maybe a better title for this blog might be "The Musings of a Right Wing Republican."
Shalom,
Ari