Republicans against Patrick McHenry

Patrick McHenry’s House Conservatives Fund, a fund that supposedly goes to fund “good” Conservative campaigns, has been caught performing corrupt back-room deals. That’s right: and McHenry is involved.

The story is fairly simple: Patrick McHenry’s fund sends out questionnaires to Conservative candidates, checking how conservative they are. Recently, they awarded Senator Sam Caligiuri their endorsement over Republican challenger Justin Bernier. This means that Caligiuri was the “better” Republican. But get this- it was an unfair set-up. Caligiuri’s general consultant, Evan Kozlow, was the man checking the questionnaires. And Caligiuri’s opponent, Justin Bernier, was told to send his questionnaire into Caligiuri’s staffer, meaning if he did, it would have been torn up and “lost”. The entire thing was a set-up where Caligiuri could not lose.

Of course, the American Conservative Union is angry at McHenry and his PAC. McHenry’s staffer, Parker Poling, admits he did it, meaning the whole McHenry team knew this was going on. Of course, they say that Kozlow, Caligiuri’s staffer, was left out of the process. You know, everything except making sure his opponent’s questionnaire got where it needed to go.

The best part?

“We took every conceivable step to make sure that the process is fair, and Patrick makes all the decisions,” Poling said.

You read that right: Patrick McHenry made the decision to stack the game and make sure Caligiuri won. Is Caligiuri the better candidate? Who knows.

This is yet again an example of Patrick McHenry working not for his district or for the good of the American people, but an attempt to play career politician and to ensure his buddies up in Congress and the Senate keep their jobs, regardless of how they perform. McHenry is corrupt, his PAC is corrupt, and everything around him is corrupt. This is the kind of behavior that is destroying the Republican party.

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In what appears to be a repeat of last year, the McHenry campaign has been caught lying again. As was true two years ago, McHenry is claiming support from local leaders that do not support his campaign for reelection. On Friday, March 26, the Statesville Record reported that McHenry falsely claimed that an Iredell County Commissioner was a member of his “steering” committee. According to their story, Commissioner Marvin Norman stated that:

he didn’t know his name was on the steering committee list and that he did not give anyone permission to use it for this year’s election. He said he recalls being placed on McHenry’s steering committee list for a prior campaign. “But this time is obviously different,” Norman said. “We have a board member running against him (McHenry) and I just don’t think it’s right to endorse someone else. They (McHenry’s campaign) didn’t call me about this year, but if they did, I would have told them, ‘no.’ “

But that is not the only false statement released by the McHenry campaign. Earlier this week, McHenry sent out another flyer touting his accomplishments. In that flyer he claims he voted against the Congressional automatic pay raise – but as noted in earlier articles, that was not true. McHenry must think he is so popular with the voters that he can say or do anything with impunity. He certainly sounds like some other politician that has been in the news lately with a financially crippling health care bill that promised things that we are now finding out are false!

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In case you are not fortunate enough to receive Patrick McHenry’s spam, Patrick McHenry recently sent out a flyer listing his “bold new vision for a stronger America with more opportunities for us.”

So what is our “hard working” Congressman proposing?

My plan is simple:

Stop making the problem worse by issuing an immediate cease-and-desist order on new taxes and regulation.

Restore investor confidence in our economic future by confronting our deficit.

Reduce the price of doing business in America by increasing our energy supply and lowering business taxes.

Evaluate our foreign trade agreements to make sure that they are fair.

And strengthen the retraining programs across North Carolina’s community college system so that those who want to work our prepared to.

Sound good? Let’s look at the details (or lack thereof).

Immediate cease and desist order on new taxes and regulation. Ironic, considering McHenry just proposed a bill seeking to create another government committee that involves hiring more federal employees and spending more money, which requires more taxes. And, of course, McHenry has yet to draft or co-sponsor a single bill to do anything close to helping our debt. McHenry has done nothing about the debt in his five years as Congressman, and even now, when the people in his district are starving, he’s not going to do anything.

Restore confidence by confronting the debt. Of course, this means nothing. McHenry has done little but sit around as the district has gone down the tubes, and even accepted a $4,700 pay raise, lied about it to try to pretend he voted against it, and then ignored his district when it got incredibly angry about it. He’s doing nothing but taking more money from the government’s pockets.

Increasing energy supply and lowering business taxes. Naturally, McHenry gives no details or proposed legislation. Would he consider drilling off of the NC coast, wind turbines in the mountains or on the coast? He’ll never say – and remember, he’s had five years in Congress to do something about this and he has yet to even give us an idea. Even when given the opportunity to protect us from wild fluctuations in gas prices, McHenry, as usual, voted to support his campaign contributors, not his constituents.

Evaluate foreign trade agreements. Of course, we have no idea what McHenry thinks “fair” is. Remember, this is the man who thought it was “fair” to cheat and have a staffer commit voter fraud to win an election. And, like the above, he has no examples of what he wants to do- just empty words.

Strengthening community college retraining programs. In Western NC, one of the biggest problems is the lack of jobs. Educating the unemployed is commendable, but even an advanced degree does not create a job where one did not exist before. Throwing tax dollars at schools hoping they make jobs is stupid. Remember, the biggest factor in the economic collapse has been the greed in the financial markets and the lack of oversight of the banking and housing markets by McHenry’s congressional committees. With his experience and “power” in Congress, McHenry has done virtually nothing to justify his service to the 10th District, nor to do anything to create jobs within the district.

What does this flyer teach us? Patrick McHenry is only interesting in telling his district vague lies, because Patrick McHenry only interested in his own welfare—not his constituents.

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Patrick McHenry has always promised jobs and a better economy- but has he really delivered on that promise? When he took office in 2005, for example, the unemployment rate in the most populated county, Catawba, was 6.9%. It remained in that general range for several years. By Dec. 2009, however, that number had more than doubled to 14.4%. McHenry claims that free trade agreements are to blame. (“Bad trade deals have been the cause of the significant job losses experienced in our region over the last 15 years”) – but where does the banking and the real estate collapse, which led to double-digit unemployment rates during the last year, factor into his explanation?

According to his websites, Patrick McHenry is a member of the “powerful” House Financial Services Committee, “which deals with legislation related to banking, insurance and real estate.” Since McHenry is a “powerful member”, doesn’t that make him pretty responsible for Congress’ part in the banking/real estate collapse? Should he have not at least worked to prevent this crash, or at least mention some of the issues beforehand?

Patrick McHenry also claims that as a member of said committee, he “plans to capitalize on western North Carolina’s strong ties to banking in order to bring new financial services jobs to the district.” Have you noticed new “financial service” jobs – or any other jobs – created in the 10th District recently? One thing we do know for sure, McHenry has received thousands of dollars in contributions from banking and real estate interests during his tenure in Congress. The only “capitalizing” he’s done with NC’s strong ties to banking have been to line his own pocket. No matter how Patrick McHenry spins it, the citizens of the 10th District are far worse off now than when he took office in 2005.

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In what would be called a welcomed surprise, The Hill reports that “Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) is raising the bar on freezing lawmaker salaries this week as she continues her push to garner support for her bill that would cut congressional pay by $8,700 next year on top of denying members their automatic cost-of-living increase.” (H.R.4720 “To provide for a 5 percent reduction in the rates of basic pay for Members of Congress.”) A pretty fiscally conservative bill, ironically coming from a Democrat. Her bill has garnered 21 co-sponsors- both Democrats and Republicans- to date.

Of course, Patrick McHenry has largely ignored the bill. As we revealed earlier, Mr. McHenry failed to vote against the automatic pay raise for members of Congress, then subsequently obfuscated the truth to look like he didn’t vote “for” a pay raise. Apparently, it is fine for Patrick McHenry’s constituents to suffer financially during his tenure in Congress as long as he gets his pay increase and hefty benefits.

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Fox News recently published an article on their website attacking McHenry in the same manner we have done over his absolutely pointless campaign to reform the $50. Some highlights:

With the economy as bad as it is, and unemployment as high as it is, most Americans want their elected officials to figure out better ways to make and save money – not ways to decorate it. [...] But McHenry wants us to think about a doodle? Right now, we don’t care who’s on our bills – we just want more of them. Frankly, if the federal government keeps up all of this spending, we might be carrying around little pictures of Chairman Mao in the not so distant future.

If Reagan were alive today, I wager that he’d politely tell Rep. McHenry “Thanks, but no thanks.” He’d be more concerned about restoring the free markets and putting Americans to work than getting his portrait into circulation. Silly initiatives like this are why the American people are frustrated with government – and when election time rolls around they will not discriminate between Republicans and Democrats. A dumb idea is a dumb idea.

[F]or the sake of his constituents, I beg [McHenry] to refocus his priorities, and forget about who’s on our paper.

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Patrick McHenry recently decided that, to possibly ingratiate himself with Republican voters, he would put forward a bill to get Reagan’s face on the $50 bill. Naturally, this change would come at the expense of the taxpayer: in a world where even re-designing the penny would waste the taxpayer $70 million, re-designing a $50 would likely bankrupt the government. Of course, this has sparked a huge amount of outrage in the 10th district where 13.6 percent of our neighbors don’t have a $50 bill to look at, all because McHenry has been too busy being a career politician to help his starving district.

Outside of political stunts, McHenry’s legislative abilities have been non-existent during his 5+ years in office. Though he claims to be a good Republican, McHenry has demonstrated little independent thought or initiative while Democrats have all but run Congress for him. Despite what propaganda spews from the McHenry campaign, even the least informed voter understands that Mr. McHenry’s actions are purely self-centered: redesigning the $50 would only let McHenry look good in Congress, not help anyone in his district or anyone in the US. One thing Mr. McHenry has proven during his tenure is that his style and lack of initiative will never produce anything constructive for the 10th District.

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During the recent Toyota debacle in House Oversight Committee, several of the committee members were like foxes guarding the hen house. According to the Washington Post, Several lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is holding a hearing Wednesday on the Toyota recalls, have Toyota factories and offices in their states or even their districts- which has potentially led them to defend Toyota’s blatant endangering of lives. Who is one of those Congressmen? Patrick McHenry.

Patrick McHenry has taken money from a local Toyota dealer and now is sitting in “judgment” of Toyota’s issues. Of course, McHenry has not taken himself off of the staff, nor has he mentioned it at all- he’s perfectly happy to take Toyota money and to possibly protect Toyota or condemn it, pretending to actually care. Basically, McHenry has directly profited off of Toyota’s endangering of consumers, and now he’s in charge of “punishing” them- if he will at all. Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.

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