NY-20: Gibson stumbles on FEMA 'offsets'

NY-20:-Gibson-stumbles-on-FEMA-offsets   Guest Post: Daily Kos' devtob.


Tea party Republican Chris Gibson, NY-20, represents a far-flung district that was hard-hit by Irene in every one of its 10 counties.
Thousands of his constituents still do not have power, and several major roads and bridges were washed away and are still closed.
Like a professional pol, rookie Gibson was out there getting free media and expressing his concern:

My office is working with the Cuomo administration to ensure we make the strongest case for FEMA assistance and I’m encouraged today to be with the governor and see his priorities, that he’s put on this. This is going to take our very best effort – the federal, state and county level — going forward.

But, like his tea party Republican neighbor to the south, Gibson has a Boehner/Cantor string attached to his support of effective FEMA support for his stricken constituents.
Details, below.

Boehner/Cantor, playing to the GOP's far-right tea party base, have proposed unspecified "offsets" (even more job-killing cuts in federal spending) that will be necessary before the radical House Republicans will provide funding for FEMA to do its basic job of helping victims of Irene, and local governments who need to rebuild scores of roads and bridges, just in NY-20.
Gibson's "very best effort" is constrained by his allegiance to Boehner/Cantor (from the initial link, above):

“We can do offsets,” Gibson said, agreeing with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. “Certainly we can find other places where we can save money, but this is what you need a federal government for — a moment like this — and it has got to be a priority.”

So what will happen when Boehner/Cantor propose a FEMA funding bill for Irene expenses that will inevitably involve cuts in federal programs that Democrats won’t abide?
The Boehner/Cantor bill won’t get a hearing in the Senate, and the issue could drag on for months in yet another radical Republican hostage-taking scheme.
Gibson has said he supports Boehner/Cantor hostage-taking that hurts people in his district.
That should count for something in next year's election.
And Gibson recently told Dutchess County constituents that he stands by his no-new-taxes pledge to Grover Norquist.
So Gibson will not do everything he can to help his Irene-affected constituents.
He will instead do what little he can, and only as much as his political bosses -- Boehner, Cantor and Norquist -- will allow. 

Gibson blames the president for S&P's downgrade

In a stunningly partisan move that fails to take any responsibility for Tea Party brinkmanship, Congressman Gibson released a statement blaming President Obama and the Democrats for the downgrade in America's credit rating.

"This week, Congress passed and the President signed the Budget Control Act, which will cut between $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. This Act averted the immediate crisis of defaulting on roughly 40 percent of our federal debt obligations and influenced two of the three major credit rating agencies - Moody's and Fitch - to preserve our country's AAA credit rating. It was important to take action to avoid the chaos of the Obama Administration trying to sort through which bills to pay and which not to pay - leading to widespread panic across our country and the world. The consequences of this chaos would have been severe, resulting in a double-dip recession and possibly worse - our chances at an economic recovery wrecked. Without question, this bipartisan agreement fell short of what we needed to address our long-term debt crisis, but it was the best agreement that could be reached in a period of divided government. However, with S&P's downgrade of our credit rating to AA+, the Senate and White House must face this new reality and reassess their willingness to implement more comprehensive deficit reduction..."

Really, Congressman Gibson? President Obama was the one who created "chaos"? The fact that the GOP, fueled by the Tea Party, linked raising the debt limit with budget issues had nothing to do with it, right? It was the Democrats who refused to pass a clean bill to only raise the debt limit like it has been done every time before, right? It was Democrats who previously voted to raise the debt limit every time it came up without a peep who suddenly got religion and couldn't raise it again without taking a meat cleaver to social programs?

Reading statements like Congressman Gibson's makes one think they are in Superman's Bizarreo world -where everything is the opposite of reality on Earth.

And the Gibson gets away with it because his Tea Party supporters are low-information voters who believe what they want to believe.

Gibson gets spanked by the Times Union

In its July 27 editorial, the Times Union has called for Rookie Congressman Chris Gibson to “put down the gun and govern.”

The TU, like the all but the most radical of his constituents, wants Gibson to stop being the Tea Party/Corporate Representative and start representing his whole district.

But it seems Gibson will have none of it, falling in line with the radial far-right freshman class in Congress; voting to kill thousands of FAA jobs in an attempt to strip transportation workers of their collective bargaining rights, focusing on symbolic votes like “light bulb free choice” and the absurd “Cut Cap and Balance” fake vote.

The TU notes that President Obama and the Democrats (much to their Progressive supporters’ dismay) have bent over backwards to meet the GOP’s demands. But as with the rest of the GOTeaParty, Gibson can’t take “yes” for an answer.

In short, the TU has called Gibson what he is – a partisan, ideological hack who will do anything, including bringing the country he claims to love, to the brink of economic disaster.

Here is the full text of the Times Union editorial:

Get off the brink; time to govern

July 27, 2011 at 6:00 am by TU Editorial Board

Our opinion: The House Republicans’ all-or-nothing approach to debt and deficit talks isn’t a negotiating position, but a prescription for gridlock.

If President Obama had come out a few months ago and said that he was willing to reduce federal spending by trillions over the next decade and cut back key social programs like Medicare and Social Security in exchange for ending some tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and corporations, many in his own party might have wondered if he had cut some secret deal with Republicans.

Yet even as Mr. Obama and many Democrats in Congress are ready to accept those very terms, compromising on many of their core positions just to secure a deal to keep this country from defaulting on its debt, House Republicans continue to dig in. While the President has been willing to risk alienating many in his party’s liberal wing, House Speaker John Boehner and his more mainstream colleagues appear to be cowed by a minority of radical freshman whose influence far exceeds their numbers.

They refuse to budge from an anti-tax, anti-government position, holding the nation and its economy hostage. The gun to America’s head is the threat of its first default in history, with potentially disastrous consequences for this country and the world.

With just days to go before the nation reaches its debt limit, it is time for them to end the brinkmanship.

It’s time for them to remember — or perhaps come out of their self-absorption and realize for the first time — that Americans didn’t elect them alone. They didn’t vote to hand the reins of government over to a relatively small bloc of ultra-conservative armchair economists.

Instead, in 2010 they left the Democrats in charge of the Senate and gave the Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives. They elected liberals, conservatives, moderates. They elected newcomers and incumbents. They elected people with different ideas of what the Constitution means, what government is for and how best to fix the economy and create jobs.

In short, they gave no one an absolute mandate.

It is time for intransigent House Republicans, from the tea partiers to the Capital Region’s Chris Gibson and the Hudson Valley’s Nan Hayworth, to accept that nobody gets to win their most extreme position in a negotiation.

It is time for them to heed conservative voices like Mickey Edwards, a former House Republican leader during the years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Mr. Edwards has looked at what Democrats have offered and said that “If I was there, I would say, ‘My God, declare victory.’”

It is time for them to accept a plan that puts the debt limit battle to rest at least through the 2012 elections, not just patch it up for a few months and thrust it into the election season for political gain. 

And if they could stop shouting anti-tax slogans for just a little while, they might see that it’s also time to take advantage of the opportunity before them, right now, to cut the deficit that they supposedly went to Washington to trim.

That would be the responsible thing to do.

But if the Republicans aren’t up to that — if they’re determined to spend this entire session and the rest of this President’s first term doing nothing but campaigning for the next election — next year’s budget deliberations certainly offer another chance to engage in that debate, and in plenty of brinkmanship.

Right now, though, it’s time to put down the gun, step away and govern.

Gibson's puppet show

Rookie Tea Party Rep. Chris Gibson pretends that he cares deeply about the federal deficit, to the point that he is willing to join his fellow radical Republicans in crashing the country's economy by refusing to raise the debt limit.

In this as with most of his votes this year, Gibson is a reliable puppet of Republican House leaders John Boehner and Eric Kantor in refusing to support any tax increases or corporate loophole closings to deal with the alleged debt emergency.

More than that, Gibson is also a puppet of disgraced Republican political operative Grover Norquist -- Gibson has signed Norquist's pledge to never ever raise any tax or close any loophole.

Norquist famously wants a federal government so small that radical Republicans can drown it in a bathtub.

Which would mean the end of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental regulation, VA hospitals, etc.

Gibson did four Independence Day events Monday, and evidently said nothing about his lack of independence as our Member of Congress, since he is more beholden to John Boehner, Eric Kantor, and Grover Norquist than he is to his constituents.

But then puppets never say anything that would upset their puppetmasters.

Gibson votes to kill Medicare - AGAIN

Isn't it just like a Republican to double down on failure? Faced with the loss of NY 26 and overwhelming poll numbers showing how much the American people hate the Ryan Budget and its Medicare-killing provisions, Chris Gibson cast a second vote to kill Medicare and raise health care costs for New York seniors.

But while Gibson is doubling down on the House Republican plan to end Medicare, he is still refusing to end taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil or tax breaks for millionaires. In a procedural move, Gibson voted to accept the House Republicans’ controversial budget which includes the Republican plan to end Medicare. Gibson’s plan is for millionaires to get a $100,000 tax break and seniors to get a $6,400 medical bill.

The move Gibson used to signal his unwavering support for big oil and millionaires and "let them eat cake" attitude toward the rest of us, was his support of a “deeming resolution” in H. Res. 287 which states “the provisions of House Concurrent Resolution 34 […] shall have force and effect […] in the House as though Congress has adopted such concurrent resolution”. [H. Res. 287, Vote #382, 6/1/11]


The result: millionaires get more than a $100,000 tax cut in GOP Budget, while seniors get a $6,400 medical bill. [Tax Policy Center via Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/20/11, 4/07/11]


Gibson voted to end Medicare by supporting the Republican budget. [H Con. Res. 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11]; opposed a measure that could have cut taxpayer subsidies to big oil when he voted to bypass consideration of the Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act of 2011 (H.R. 1689) which would repeal key taxpayer funded subsidies for oil and gas companies. As reported by The Hill newspaper, “House Democrats intend to force a vote on a measure that would eliminate a key oil industry tax break when Republicans bring a bill to expand domestic oil and-gas drilling to the floor Thursday.” [H Res 245, Vote #293, 5/05/11; The Hill, 5/04/11; CBS News, 5/04/11]

But it is not just us saying Gibson wants to kill Medicare. Read what others are saying:

• Wall Street Journal: The House Republican Budget for 2012 Would “Essentially End Medicare.” “The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills.” [Wall Street Journal, 4/4/11
• Nonpartisan Congressional Research Service: Individuals Would Not Be Able to Enroll in Current Medicare Program. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that the Republican budget ends Medicare: “Individuals who become eligible (based either on age or disability) for Medicare in 2022 and later years would not be able to enroll in the current Medicare program. Instead, they would be given the option of enrolling in a private insurance plan through a newly established Medicare exchange.” [CRS Report, 4/13/11]
• NCPSSM: GOP Budget Plan Destroys Medicare and Cuts Social Security Benefits. Max Richtman, executive vice-president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the Republican budget would destroy Medicare: “Over time, this will destroy the only health insurance program available to 47 million Americans.” [NCPSSM press release, 4/5/11]
  

Sadly, his supporters in NY 20 just don't get the implication, preferring to keep their heads buried in the sand, thinking Gibson is doing the right thing for his constituents. 

NY-20: Gibson rallies the tea party

Guest post: was taken from DailyKos where it originally appeared. It is posted here with the permission of the author, blogger devtob.

For a career Army officer, Republican Chris Gibson, who easily won NY-20 in 2010, has become a pretty good politician.

Though he was recruited for NY-20 by the GOP establishment, Gibson knows he has to keep the tea party radicals happy, even if he occasionally upsets them on sideshow issues like NPR funding.

So Wednesday evening, Gibson did a tele-town hall with tea party types, and it was a love fest.


There is a podcast-like recording of the conference call , though it apparently has been edited to remove the first few questions and a probable Gibson colloquoy with Bircher/tea party leader Spyder (the weird cut happens around 17:05, just after the thing really starts).

I wonder what that's about.

After the cut, Gibson is asked about Ron Paul's bill to audit the Federal Reserve.

Gibson said he was a cosponsor, adding:

"Ron Paul's becoming a friend, he's had me over for dinner, I go to his office to chat."

Gibson is not a Bircher, but he knows his small audience here, which generally supports the Bircher candidate for the GOP presidential nomination -- Ron Paul.

There was no explicit discussion of how Gibson voted to end Medicare, after saying he opposed vouchers during the campaign. Presumably none of the Bircher/tea partiers cared that Gibson lied, because they think Medicare is unconstitutional.

But Medicare did come up implicitly in a brief discussion of the NY-26 debacle for the House GOP.

Gibson offered banal talking points, rallying the troops, and never mentioning Medicare (at 27 to 28):

"Let me just say this, don't lose heart about what happened in NY-26.

Do not take counsel of your fears, there's a myriad of explanations. But at the end of the day, we go forward.

We've got the right plan, the only plan out there that meets the vision, we've got the only plan that is pro-growth and fiscally responsible, that's gonna put America back to work and begin to move us back towards a balanced budget, that pays down the debt over time.

Join me at the barricade, and this country will go forward."

When Gibson said "pro-growth and fiscally responsible," he slowed down and almost whispered.

Like a pro.

The dog whistle in that word salad is that Gibson wholeheartedly supports the radical Ryan Republican budget, which would eliminate Medicare, decimate Medicaid, cut taxes even more for the wealthy and corporations, and do little to reduce the deficit, let alone pay back the debt, for 10 years.

Bircher/tea partiers on the call surely heard the dog whistle, and presumably lapped it up.

In his farewell, Gibson said he would remain true to working for "job creation, deficit reduction and protection of freedoms."

Of course, no one asked what he had done for job creation, other than what Republicans always do, to little real effect -- cut taxes for the rich even more, while decrying the deficit and the debt largely caused by tax cuts.

And, in this instance, Gibson's vote to help needy billionaires had ZERO effect, since the radical Ryan Republican budget will not be enacted in this Congress.

Naturally, Gibson told his far-right base that he looks "forward to interacting" with them "as we go forward."

IMHO, Gibson will be tough to beat next year, in whatever district he gets after redistricting.

Sure, he's lying about Medicare, and speaking in inoffensive GOP cliches that mask the real Republican platform -- lower taxes for the rich and fewer services/programs for the non-rich.

But he's become an accomplished political liar, repeating Boehner talking points with Boy Scout conviction, and I fear that act will convince too many voters.

Another Gibson lie about Medicare

Rookie Rep.Chris Gibson voted to kill Medicare, and substitute a voucher program that will impoverish future seniors.

Gibson has dutifully lied that he voted to "preserve and protect" Medicare by killing it, and he has also lied, at every opportunity, that the Ryan/Boehner Republican plan to kill Medicare would have no impact on current (and some future) Medicare beneficiaries.

Gibson knows next to nothing about Medicare, and is only repeating Boehner/Ryan talking points on how to lie to his constituents.

Unlike Gibson, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.does know quite a bit about Medicare.

Also unlike Gibson, Sebelius is not a serial liar.

Sebelius noted today that the Ryan/Boehner Republican plan to kill Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, will indeed affect current beneficiaries:

"The Affordable Care Act takes a huge step in closing the donut hole, 50 percent this year of the cost of drugs purchased in the coverage gap would disappear, and over time the whole coverage gap would disappear. Seniors now qualify for screenings -- cancer screenings, mammograms, a variety of preventive care without copays out of pocket. That would disappear."

So, current Medicare beneficiaries would pay a lot more for drugs and preventive care under the Ryan/Boehner Republican plan to kill Medicare.

But, naturally, seniors of limited means who rely on Medicaid and Medicare will suffer more -- that's the Republican way.

The Medicaid cuts in the Ryan/Boehner budget would affect poor seniors immediately, according to Sebelius:

"Medicaid cuts would start right away, so those seniors would be the first to be impacted. The voucher plan doesn't hit for 10 years, but not only do the new benefits for every senior go away, but the dually-qualified seniors -- the poorest, oldest, sickest seniors, who are often in nursing homes, would have their benefits cut immediately."

The Ryan/Boehner Republican budget that Gibson supports and lies 24/7 about will not become law, because there is a Democratic Senate and President, for now.

But Gibson's constituents must be reminded that he voted to kill Medicare via a voucher system he said he opposed during the campaign.

And that, coupled with his vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Gibson supports today's seniors paying a lot more for their health care.

Gibson will surely lie a lot more about his plan to kill Medicare, cripple Medicaid, and screw current and future seniors from now until Nov. 6, 2012.

He should be called on it every time.

Gibson's fake jobs vote ~ a Guest Post by Mark Berger, Nassau Democratic Chairman

Last week my wife received a mailer, sent at taxpayer’s expense, from Congressman Chris Gibson. I guess he doesn’t consider male Democrats as part of his constituency.

Since jobs are issue number one in our country, Gibson leads off by saying he voted for “creating jobs by removing impediments to growth.” Did he vote for a jobs bill? No, he did not. After 4 months control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans have yet to put forth a single jobs bill.

The phrase “impediments to growth” is Republican code for regulation. In this case, the Republicans want to require a job impact study before the EPA adopts any environmental regulation. Their goal is to stifle the EPA by pitting employment against environmental protection. This is not a jobs bill, because it will not have any impact on the level of unemployment we are experiencing.

Gibson’s vote has nothing really to do with jobs, and, from my perspective, it has everything to do with making the Koch Brothers and Carl Rove happy. Rove and the Koch’s are absolutely opposed to the EPA. Remember, they poured over $600,000 into campaign ads that attacked Scott Murphy, which helped Gibson win. Might he owe them one?

If the Republicans were interested in keeping America competitive in the world economy they would be supporting the president’s green economy and education initiatives. But they are not.

Gibson and his fellow Republicans keep marching out their bogus claim that regulation is what’s hurting American businesses. The truth is some regulations work and others don’t. But one thing is certain: without regulation, we get toxic waste sites, unsafe work places, and unsavory financial products. Think Dewey Loeffel, think black lung disease, think climate change, think the financial meltdown of 2008, the savings and loan collapse of the 80’s, and the Great Depression.

After the worldwide financial collapse in 2008, free market guru and Bush’s fed chair, Alan Greenspan admitted he was wrong to believe that the directors and managers of the large banks and investment houses would honor their fiduciary responsibilities and, thus, would never back worthless securities nor push marginal mortgages. His philosophical position of free trade did not work in the real world where organized greed and a hands-off policy on regulation nearly brought on the second great depression. Did the real world conform to Greenspan’s philosophical viewpoint, no, it did not and we are still picking up the pieces of this misguided political philosophy.

Back to Gibson. In his mailing, he points to his vote against the use of “un-elected” agency czars as if that is something that matters. As he knows and so do we, we do not elect agency heads, we elect the president and he makes appointments with the advice and consent of congress. Bush appointed so-call czars for homeland security and drug enforcement and so has Obama. With all the serious problems that confront our country why waste time on this?

Ironically, the one place where Mr. Gibson can control federal spending is in the running of his office. Here I expected big cuts, just like the Republicans are calling for all over the place. Yet all Gibson was able to cut was 5% of his office budget. Is Congressman Gibson realizing that running an efficient and responsive government office costs money? Does he realize that making across the board cuts often creates more problems than it solves?

I hope Chris Gibson takes the time to learn history’s lessons rather than becoming a victim of a philosophy which fails in the world in which we live

Gibson lies again – this time about restricting access to abortion services

It is the same theme over and over: “Gibson lies.” For a “man of honor,” he does a lot of lying in order to toe the Tea Party Line and also try to convince his moderate constituents that he is not such a radical guy.

This time, in trying to tamp down a flurry of dissent on this Facebook page over H.R. 3 re-defining rape, Gibson chided those who disagree with him and insisted there are no restrictions beyond the Hyde Amendment in H.R. 3. This is his post, written by him, not a staff member. When posts are written by his staff member, they are always signed by that staff member according to information on Gobson's page: "Both I and my spokeswoman Stephanie Valle will post on this page. Posts that come from my spokeswoman will be designated at the end as such."

Congressman Chris Gibson

Re H.R. 3, there's misinformation on this page that the bill redefined the word rape. That's incorrect. While a previous version of the bill contained different language, what we voted on contained the same language as the Hyde Amendment. This bill is about making sure taxpayer funds aren't used to pay for abortions but doesn't affect the use of private funds -- we're codifying the Hyde Amendment in the tax code.

One individual, Leo Geoffrion took Gibson to task with this post:

The Republican party has billed H.R.3 as making the Hyde amendment permanent but if you compare the Hyde Amendment to H.R.3, it is clear that they've moved the line considerably further. Where the Hyde Amendment explicitly exempted private insurance plans H.R.3 explicitly bans abortion from any tax-exempt health plan. Since it's crazy to purchase a health insurance plan that is not tax-exempt, this effectively bans abortion from ALL health insurance plans -- even those with no Federal funding. So, why mess up the long-standing compromise between the pro-life and pro-choice advocates? Let's deal with the deficit and not re-fight the social battles of the 90's.

So far, Congressman Gibson has not responded to Geoffrion’s statement. Nor do we expect him to. He does not know how to respond when he is caught in a lie. 

Which seems to happen with incredible frequency.

Guest Post - Gibson lies about the EPA

We snagged this post from DailyKos and got permission for the author to post it here. 
 

NY-20: Gibson lies about his lie, 'That's a fact' 

(click to see post at DailyKos.)

by devtob

Tea party Republican Chris Gibson has a wholesome image -- clean-cut, well-spoken, church-going Catholic, veteran, Ph.D., hometown hero, family guy, etc. -- but he has become quite the shameless liar in his first few months in Congress.

Like every Republican, Gibson repeats the Boehner talking-points Big Lie that the Ryan Republican budget does not propose a voucher plan in place of Medicare and will not affect current Medicare recipients.

And Gibson lies about federal spending -- when challenged at a recent town hall to explain why the only federal budget surplus in decades occurred when income tax rates for billionaires were higher in the Clinton administration, he ignored the question and told a whopper about the EPA budget.
 
Here's the video, courtesy of the GibsonWatch website of Democracy for the Greater Glens Falls Area, an active DFA outfit:

The video catches Gibson in another BIG LIE:

"This level of spending is something we can't sustain.I'll just give you just one example, the Environmental Protection Agency, that budget went up, from 2008, it went up 131 percent. That's a fact."

Well, no, it's not.
Not. Even. Close.
 
The EPA budget was $7.2 billion in FY 2008, it went up to $10.3 billion in FY 2010, then down to $10 billion in FY 2011. The Obama EPA budget for 2012, which Gibson and other tea party radicals in the House will surely slash away at, proposes $9 billion.

Let's give a liar a break, and take the EPA's high budget watermark, the $10.3 billion in FY 2010. That's 43 percent more than FY 2008, not Gibson's weirdly precise 131 percent.

And it's less than 43 percent now, and will be even less in FY 2012.

Gibson is not just a liar about EPA, he's also a hypocrite.

While Gibson votes with the radical Republicans to cut EPA even more, he "applauds" the EPA spending federal money to investigate (and hopefully clean up) the notorious Dewey Loeffel chemical waste landfill in his district (Nassau, Rensselaer County).

The EPA budget under Obama has gone up substantially, which makes sense to those who care about the environment and recognize that EPA had been handcuffed under the Bush/Cheney administration.

Gibson could use a truthful number -- 43 percent from 2008 to 2010 -- to make his point, but he decided that telling a lie about a bigger number would impress his low-information constituents about the allegedly awful federal spending problem.

But his choosing to lie about EPA, as an example of "outrageous" federal spending, is essentially absurd, given that the EPA's share of total federal spending is well less than 1 percent. Gibson is a rookie, and gets his budget lies from Randroid Ryan, who is more experienced in Congress, and at lying with numbers.

Indeed, Ryan has been claiming that EPA spending has more than doubled by including stimulus money, about $7 billion over two years.

All of that money, save $20 million for administration and oversight, went to jobs-producing water and sewer projects, cleaning up hazardous waste sites, and reducing diesel pollution. 

So, EPA's basic budget is really up some 30 percent or so from 2008, not the 131 percent Gibson parrots from Ryan.

In repeating House Republican lies, Gibson has become just another Republican who lies on behalf of billionaires to bamboozle his constituents.

And there is nothing wholesome about that.

Who's funding Gibson?

Rookie Rep. Chris Gibson had a relatively mediocre first quarter in fund-raising, according to this diary at Daily Kos.

Follow the link in the diary, and you'll find who's funding our Congressman who wants to eliminate Medicare.

There are the usual local Republicans, developers and builders mostly, and lots of PACs and lobbyists interested in Gibson's committee assignments (Agriculture and Armed Services).

Highlights include:

Longtime county GOP operative Rich Crist, who lies about his employment, gave $500.

Former county resident. and state and county GOP chair, Bill Powers, who now lives in Massachusetts, gave $250, and his kids gave another $950.

Mike Russo, a union guy who worked for Kirsten Gillibrand when she held this seat and now does PR for Global Foundries, gave $500.

Gerry Solomon's widow, in for $500 from her government entitlements.

Lots of money from sugar-related PACS -- American Sugarbeet Growers Association ($500), Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group PAC ($2,000), Great Lakes Sugarbeet Growers PAC ($1,000), Snake River Sugar Co, ($1,000), Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative ($1,000), South Texas Sugar Cane Producers ($125), Florida Sugar Cane League PAC ($375), Alexander And Baldwin Federal PAC ($62.50), and the American Crystal Sugar PAC ($5,000).

Lots more from special interests who agree with Gibson on killing Medicare -- Covidien PAC ($1,000), Independent Insurance Agents And Brokers ($2,000), MVP Health Care Federal PAC ($1,500), New York Life Insurance Company PAC ($5,000), Rain And Hail Insurance Society ($1,000), and Blue Cross/Blue Sheild South Carolina ($385).

The military industrial complex has bought instant access to Gibson -- BAE Systems PAC ($1,000), Boeing Company PAC ($2,000), Honeywell International PAC ($6,134.38), ITT Corporation PAC ($1,000), Lockheed Martin Corporation Employees' PAC ($2,000), Rockwell Collins Good Government Commitee ($1,000), and, last but not least, General Electric Co. PAC ($1.000).

These lists are necessarily incomplete, because some contributors have no doubt, like Rich Crist, decided to disguise the real reason they are giving to Gibson.

But one thing is crystal clear -- Gibson is and will be more interested in public policies that benefit his benefactors than he ever was in representing the interests of the working people of the 20th Congressional District.

His voting record so far has shown that in spades, and will continue to do so for what remains of his one term in Congress.

Guest Post from Daily Kos - Town Halls, then and now

The following post was grabbed from Daily Kos, with the permission of the author, devtob.

 Back in the summer of 2009, tea partiers, egged on by the Republican cable "news" channel and Republican astroturf groups, turned out en masse to disrupt town hall meetings, shout down Democratic Members of Congress, and denounce the pending health care reform bill.

Paul Tonko, a solid progressive who was then a freshman representing NY-21, got the treatment at Elm Avenue Park in Bethlehem, just south of Albany -- lots of delusional Constitution questions and the sign at right.

Tonko more than held his own, explaining the obvious need for HCR and liberally citing the general welfare clause, to the frustration of the tea partiers.

About 600 people attended that town hall, about equally divided between tea partiers and HCR supporters.

Today, Tonko held a town hall in East Greenbush (just east of Albany), and the scene was very different -- about 100 people in a firehouse, only a handful of them tea partiers.

Tonko was at the Clinton Heights firehouse to announce an $87,000 federal grant for portable radios, a thermal imaging camera, and other emergency services equipment, and to present a flag that flew over the Capitol.

But mostly he discussed what's happening in the new Republican-dominated House.

Tonko noted that he's on a new committee -- Budget -- so he's on the front line of the current Continuing Resolution battles. 

There is a proposal in the House to cut spending by $100 billion that has raised concerns for many. The original package presented by Speaker Boehner was for about $32 billion. There is a group, primarily newer elected officials if not the newest, that suggested it should be deeper than $32 billion, it should rise to $100 billion.And if you ask a number of people, why $100 billion, many will suggest it's a number they tossed out in their campaigns.

My problem with that is this was done in a whimsical fashion, there was no calculus, they had not served in Congress, but a three-digit number like 100, billion sounded good. But we have to be careful, because those cuts can be rocking the comeback of the economy.

Since March of last year, we have added 1.5 million private sector jobs. The think tanks around this country are suggesting that the $100 billion cut in domestic programs could cause unemployment of 700,000 to 800,000. So that would wipe out half of the progress made. Setting us back 700,000 to 800,00 jobs is a frightening thought.

Tonko added that the cuts would come entirely from domestic discretionary spending (a small percentage of the overall budget) -- cuts to all forms of education aid, cuts to technological innovation, cuts to public safety, cuts to clean air/clean water regulations, etc.

He noted that the Ryan Roadmap, named after the new Budget Committee chairman who proposed it, is the still GOP's budget blueprint, and that it would privatize Social Security and turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher program (at $11,000 annually, growing by just 2 percent a year, and impoverishing sick seniors).

Tonko said that his top priority is job creation, since he believes that our lingering high unemployment "drives our deficit" and the only effective way to reduce the deficit is to create jobs.

He noted that House Republicans have not introduced even one jobs bill in any committee.

Tonko also explained that the Republicans have not proposed any cuts to the tens of billions spent on military contractors, and have proposed nothing to limit the $100 billion (that number again) in special tax treatment for oil companies, or the tax policies that encourage outsourcing of American jobs.

In the Q&A, most questions reflected concerns over what the radical House Republicans are up to, but there was one bona fide tea party question, asked, naturally, by a guy who obviously receives Social Security and Medicare benefits.

It was long and rambling, deficit/debt/grandchildren blah blah, but here's the essence: 

I find it incredible that out of a $3 trillion budget, we can't find $100 billion to cut.

Tonko replied:

We need to make certain we look at waste, inefficiency, outmoded programs. We need to look at the handouts to oil companies, we need to look at corporate loopholes, we need to look at the Defense Department. I agree with you there are ways to reduce the budget, but in significantly less painful ways. When we start cutting some of these programs they announced, ... 700,000 to 800,000 jobs lost is not what we need right now.

We need to do it in a way that doesn't take an ax to the budget, but a scalpel.
As to our children, the greatest burden we're placing on them is unemployment. Because without a job, there is no hope.

Tea party types tried, albeit half-heartedly, to turn out people to today's town hall.

It's probably natural, after winning the House majority and six (almost seven) seats in New York alone, that tea partiers are just less white-hot angry now than they were in the summer of 2009.

They still don't like Tonko at all, but realize that their candidate against him got trounced in 2010, and that berating Tonko in public would do little to change that result next year.

Indeed, some of them seem more annoyed with their 2010 darling, Chris Gibson of NY-20, than they are with Tonko.

After all, they don't expect Tonko to ever vote the way they want, but they expect Gibson to be with them on every vote.

And when he's not, he's accused of having: 

a fast and loose a la carte interpretation of the Constitution as evidenced by yesterday’s bizarre support for unconstitutional NPR funding and previous support for continued arts funding.

There really is no pleasing hard-core tea partiers until Ron Paul is President, with Paulite supermajorities in both Houses of Congress, and they all drown the federal government in Grover Norquist's bathtub.

Which will never happen.