Luetkemeyer: Left Truly Believes Government Is The Solution

Luetkemeyer:  Left
Truly Believes Government Is The Solution

By Mike Scott

“These are interesting times,” Congressman Blaine
Luetkemeyer told a group of area Republicans gathered for the First District
Lincoln Day Dinner, held Saturday evening in Ewing.

“If you give them all of the power and all of the money, they
truly believe they can solve any problem,” he said. “We have a group of people
in place with a very liberal agenda.”

“The rest of us believe that less government is better,” he
said.  “As individuals, we want to turn
loose the entrepreneurial spirit, raise our families and live our lives without
government intervention.

In comments appealing to the Republican base, Luetkemeyer
discussed several issues being discussed in Washington, D.C.

“The stimulus package is a mess.  It has few tax cuts and a whole lot of spending, “ he said.  “There’s some good stuff, and a whole lot of
bad in it.

Luetkemeyer stated that the true cost of the stimulus plan
is $3.2 trillion over the next 10 years.

Luetkemeyer takes issue with several of the measures
included in the 1000-plus page bill.

“If you’re a contractor who gets money from the government,”
you no longer have to use E-Verify,” he said. 
E-Verify is an online method of verifying employment eligibility.

“This encourages contractor to hear illegal alien workers,”
he said.

“Rationed Health Care” was the next issue on Luetkemeyer’s
list to discuss

“Tom Daschle’s brainchild was to put in money for rationed
health care into the stimulus bill. 
They will decide whether you get to live or die based on the value of
your live versus the cost of treatment. 
This is wrong, it is absolutely the wrong thing to do.  It’s the first step to government picking
who lives and who dies.”

The stimulus contains additional spending for S-CHIP, or the
State Children’s Health Insurance Program.  

“The left wants to expand it by 4 million, and raise the
income eligibility levels,” he said. 
That step would move some 2.4 million children who already have
insurance onto the government insurance roles, as well as many adults.

The Omnibus Spending Bill includes some 8500 earmarks,
including eight billion dollars proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
to build a train, dubbed the “Sin Train”, from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, his
home state.

Luetkemeyer told those gathered that the new budget proposed
by President Obama is full or new taxes and new regulations that will kill
small businesses..

The mortgage bill is “not a bad bill” he said, but he takes
issue with a provision being referred to as “Cramdown” which would allow
bankruptcy judges to change the terms of home loans.

“If you’re a lender, and you think there’s any possibility
that you won’t be paid, you’re going to raise interest rates and be more
restrictive with credit,” Luetkemeyer said. 
“The really bad part is what this will do to contract law.  Some judge 
will use this as precedent to rewrite any contract.  This bill is guarantee’s full employment for
attorneys.”

Other concerns expressed by Luetkemeyer were “Card Check”
legislation, which would allow unions to organize in small business without a
secret ballot, and “Cap and Trade”, which is a carbon tax that he says will
ultimately raise energy costs by 65 percent or more.

“We have two years of really tough times as conservatives,”
Luetkemeyer said.  “We have to be the
party of solutions.  We offered an
alternative plan to the President that would create twice as many jobs at half
the price.”