Response to Urgent Request Call by Channel One

11/10/2005

Hi folks,

I’m a Rochester native working for a Democratic House member from a different state, and I wanted to echo Lynn’s request.  These calls really do matter.  At noon Wednesday, my boss was talking to one of the Republican members who admitted that they don’t yet have the votes to pass this budget reconciliation bill.  It’d be great if some of the “yes” votes like Gil started to get nervous.

The Republican leadership has this routine worked out perfectly: they call one of these very contentious votes for the night before we go out of session and then they hold the vote open into the middle of the night so that no one sees what’s going on, and they twist their members’ arms until they break.  They pass out billions of dollars in projects and make obscene promises (which they often later break) in order to buy members’ votes.  And as soon as they get the minimum possible majority, they slam the vote shut and get out of town.  That’s the way they passed CAFTA last summer and the way they passed the Medicare prescription drug bill too.  Well, guess what--Friday is Veterans Day and all of the members have events planned back in their districts, so they’re dying to get out of town.  This is the classic setup--you can guess what’s coming next.

Incidentally, people who depend on food stamps are just one of the groups that would be hurt by this bill.  It cuts $54 billion from child support enforcement, student loans, foster children, Social Security disability payments, and Medicaid--all to pay for $70 billion in tax cuts that disproportionately go to the wealthiest people in the country in the form of dividend and capital gains tax cuts.  You can do the math there--those spending cuts are smaller than the tax cuts.  So if we did smaller tax cuts, we wouldn’t have to sustain these program cuts.  Plus, in addition to the fact that their tax cuts are badly targeted, this budget reconcilation bill would actually make the budget deficit WORSE by $16 billion!


There really is a chance to beat this bill, but it’ll take a lot of pressure from constituents.  If you place one call to his office once this year, tomorrow ought to be the day.  If you have any trouble getting through on the toll free number that Lynn passed along, you can always call the Capitol switchboard directly at 202.224.3121 and ask for Gutknecht’s office.

Good luck!
Peg McGlinch