The Bush-McCain-Wolf Economy Continues to Bleed

If you like this, I guess Frank Wolf's your man!

The American economy lost 159,000 jobs in September, the worst month of retrenchment in five years, the government reported on Friday, enhancing fears that an already pronounced downturn had entered a more painful stage that could last well into next year.

Employment has diminished for nine consecutive months, resulting in the elimination of 760,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department report. Most of that occurred before the trauma of recent weeks, when a string of prominent Wall Street institutions nearly collapsed, prompting the government to propose a $700 billion rescue package.

Yeah, Republican economics is really doing wonders for America. Not. The point here, by the way, is not that this dismal situation is all Frank Wolf's fault, or John McCain's fault, or even George W. Bush's fault. The point is that all of those guys have bought into a bankrupt - literally and figuratively - economic philosophy of huge deficits (budget and trade), lax oversight, deregulation, favors to the richest Americans, "trickle down," etc. - that have gotten us into this mess. That's exactly why we need a fundamental change, and that's exactly why Frank Wolf should be replaced by Judy Feder on November 4.

Bush=McCain=Wolf

Frank Wolf "only" votes 88% percent of the time with his fellow Bush-bots, which practically makes him a "maverick!" Ha. :)

Frank Wolf Opposes Voting Integrity

Congressman Frank Wolf apparently does not want any verified records of elections. Given the opportunity to vote with Rep. Davis and 27 other Republicans for passage of a bill that would provide funding for paper trails in the November elections, Rep. Wolf chose to side with the Administration and unverifiable, hackable voting instead.

Here's what the bill's sponsor, Rep. Rush Holt, had to say.

Rep. Rush Holt today strongly criticized House members for blocking legislation – the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008 (H.R. 5036) – that would encourage states to conduct verifiable elections by converting to a paper ballot voting system, offering emergency paper ballots, and conducting hand-counted audits. Two weeks ago, the same legislation passed the House Administration Committee with bipartisan, unanimous support, including from some of those who voted to block the bill’s passage today.

“This bill would represent a real step forward in our effort to protect the accuracy, integrity and security of the November elections,” Holt said. “The bill that the House leadership scheduled for a vote today is the same one that passed two weeks ago without the objection of a single Committee member. There is no reason why this should be a partisan issue but the Republicans evidently have chosen to make it so. The White House issued a statement opposing the bill and 176 of 203 Republicans voted that way.” - Rep. Rush Holt

That's our Representative, Frank Wolf. When George W. Bush says "jump," he replies, "how high?"

What's interesting is that the rationale for his vote - that the bill was to costly - is only applicable when trying to improve our system. If it's a bad idea, like limitless war funding, Rep. Wolf is all for it.

The cost of the voter verification bill? Probably $600 million.

The cost of the Iraq war through November? Probably $600 billion.

Rep. Frank Wolf believes that security in Iraq is one thousand times more important than the security of your vote. Needless to say, we need to elect Judy Feder to Congress and realign our national priorities.

Wolf's Lockstep Support for Bush Threatens DoD Jobs?

According to The Hill, "The Bush administration is threatening to issue layoff notices this week to about 100,000 civilian defense department employees if Congress will not provide money for the Iraq war." Gee, I wonder why that is? Could it be that Bush and his lockstep enablers like Frank Wolf have allowed the situation to get to this point by taking a "my way or the highway" position on Iraq war funding? Could it be that Bush and his enablers like Frank Wolf have rejected any compromise that might set timelines, benchmarks, or anything short of an open-ended engagement in Iraq? Could it be that, as The Hill reports, "House Democrats passed a $50 billion measure to cover the costs of the war for four months," but Republicans rejected it because it "tied [funding] to a December 2008 withdrawal?"

The point here is that Frank Wolf has consistently voted to support George W. Bush's unwillingness to compromise in any way, shape or form on Iraq. And now, we're facing a situation where as many as 100,000 civilian DoD employees might end up furloughed.

Heckuva job, guys.

Bush and Wolf: SCHIP's Off the Ol' Block

Incredibly, George W. Bush is threatening to veto the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, a "national program in the United States designed for families who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, yet cannot afford to buy private insurance." Even more incredibly, Frank Wolf apparently agrees with Bush.

The House of Representatives received a significant amount of praise from people of all political views when it passed the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act — the CHAMP ACT — yesterday. This legislation reauthorized the State Children’s Health and Insurance Program, which was necessary because Bush and his Republican cronies hoped to drastically cut funding to the program, and should help to provide 5 million children throughout the country with health care coverage.

While the CHAMP ACT did pass, it appears as though Congressman Frank Wolf decided that he would vote against ensuring that over 300,000 children in Virginia result proper health care coverage. Luckily, voters from Virginia’s 10th Congressional District will have the opportunity to elect a new representative next November.

In an email statement released by her campaign earlier today, Judy Feder (who ran against Wolf last year and will do so again in ’08) stated that she fully supports the CHAMP Act. Furthermore, the statement continued, Wolf’s vote was “inexcusable” because he “voted against the 137,000 Virginia children who already get their health care coverage through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and the 171,642 other Virginia children who have no health insurance at all.”

George W. Bush and Frank Wolf are apparently "SCHIPs" off the ol' block. Sad.