Beyond the obvious signature Republican issue of indefinitely perpetuating deficit-causing tax cuts for top tax-bracket Americans, John Boehner is laying out his priorities for his term as Speaker of the House and three issues are emerging as apparent centerpieces of his platform.
Lately he's spoken a lot about repealing health-care reform. Though it's unlikely that he will be able to accomplish this, recently he made a point of calling “ObamaCare” a “monstrosity.” Also he's made it very clear that he wants to undermine regulation of the financial industry, as passed by the current Congress and last but not least he's proclaimed that cap and trade, will die on the vine if he has anything to say about it.
His website explains his priorities nicely:
"He has been an ardent opponent of jobs killing "cap and trade" national energy tax, and is fighting to repeat repeal ObamaCare and replace it with reforms that will lower costs for families and small businesses, and protect jobs.
Earlier this year, Boehner--who opposed the trillion-dollar "stimulus" that didn't work--crafted an alternative "no-cost" plan to help create new jobs.
As John sees it, one of the biggest threats to the economy right now is uncertainty-uncertainty over taxes, over regulations, over the future. John's plans will help provide job creators with the certainty they need to invest, grow, and hire new workers.”
Boehner has also suggested that his good fortune in the midterm elections happened because the voters had issued "a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the American people.”
This presumably means that Boehner regards himself as a politician who listens to the American people.
I thought would be interesting to see exactly which American people were supporting John Boehner's candidacy financially.
Of course, it turns out that, though Congressman Boehner prides himself on listening to the American people, the vast majority of his $3.7 million campaign war chest comes not from individuals but from various industry sponsored political action committees. While acknowledging that those industry-sponsored political action committees are probably staffed by American people, it seems important to note which PACS have an interest in his legislative initiatives.
It seems PACs that might be interested in health care legislation such as insurance, pharmaceuticals/health products, health professional organizations, hospitals/nursing homes, health services/HMOs seem to represent the largest portion of his contributors, having collectively given Representative Boehner $1,248,440 this year... 34% of his total war chest.
The next "most interested" group of political action committees seem to come from industries affected by financial reform, these include: securities and investment, commercial banking, finance and accounting. Collectively they contributed $706,966 or 19% of the total.
Finally the third most supportive group of political action committees seems to represent industries that would be affected by environmental and energy legislation. These included electrical utilities and oil and gas companies who collectively contributed 9% of the total or $356,850 to the House majority leader's campaign this year.
I know this blog is not going to surprise anyone, but somehow, it seems worthwhile to explicitly confirm what one suspects.
when are the american people going to wake up and take a good long look at the hypocritical crooks they have just put back into office..this is the most depressing election cycle and for real- the country seems to be back to 'business as normal'..oh well, i hope they have deep pockets..
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