Republicans against Patrick McHenry

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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Not wanting to be forgotten during his bid for reelection, Congressman Patrick McHenry used your tax dollars to mail out another glossy flyer last week. What burning issue was he pushing this time by spending your hard-earned tax dollars? The 2010 Census.

McHenry’s flyer urged voters to ensure they filled out their census form in order to get their “fair share.” Fair share of what? Government spending? Government debt? If you look up the definition of communism you will find it described as: An economic system based on “you put in your fair share; you get your fair share”. If you look up the definition of socialism you will find it described as: An economic system based on “you get a share regardless of your contribution”. Is McHenry beginning to lean left?

According to the 2010 census website, the Census was created by “the founders of our fledgling nation […] to empower the people over their new government. The plan was to count every person living in the newly created United States of America, and to use that count to determine representation in the Congress”- not to get your “fair share” of out-of-control government spending.

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As we’ve been covering on here for some time, Patrick McHenry has recently accepted a $4,700 pay raise despite the recession and the loss of jobs in his district, and even went so far as to have a staffer deliberately lie through careful wording to pretend he never voted for it. Now? He’s the only Republican Congressman from NC who has not supported repealing these automatic pay raises, and people in the 10th District are angry:

I received a letter from Congressman McHenry the other day begging for money.

“Now, liberals want to see me defeated. They don’t want our voice upsetting the status quo. They would prefer a Congressman who goes along to get along… who agrees to tax hikes and bad trade deals and massive bailouts of financial institutions.

“I will never be that Congressman. I have heard your voices loud and clear.”

Yet, according to an article by the John Locke Foundation:

“Early in 2009, three bills were introduced in the House and one in the Senate to deal with this issue. All members of the N.C. delegation were contacted. Of those who responded, most added they would likely support any bill to stop pay raises, should one come up for a vote.

“The first bill, H.R. 156, would prevent members of Congress from receiving any automatic pay adjustment in 2010. N.C. delegation cosponsors are Reps. Walter Jones, R-3rd, Howard Coble, R-6th; Sue Myrick, R-9; Larry Kissell, D-8th; and Heath Shuler, D-11th. Rep. David Price, D-4th, plans to co-sponsor the bill, according to his spokesperson, and added the decision was made prior to being contacted about his position on this issue.

“Rep. Virginia Foxx , R-5th, is a cosponsor of H.R. 346, that would repeal the law that provides automatic pay adjustments for members of Congress.

“Coble is also a co-sponsor of H.R. 201, that would prevent automatic pay raises for members of Congress in the year following a fiscal year in which there was a federal budget deficit.

“S.B. 102 would repeal the law that provides automatic pay adjustments for members of Congress. Deputy Press Secretary David Ward said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has voted against automatic pay increases in the past and would do so again. Colleen Flanagan, a spokesperson for Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said Hagan is opposed to any automatic pay adjustments.

Something is glaringly missing here. Patrick McHenry. Every member of the North Carolina Republican Congressional delegation has co-sponsored one of these bills, including a few Democrats, seemingly except for Patrick McHenry whose name is no where to be found.”

Seems our congressman hasn’t learned a thing in three terms. There’s is only one thing to do; vote him out of office.

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As you likely remember, earlier on this website we covered the fact that Patrick McHenry recently accepted a $4,700 pay raise for himself. Of course, this news leaked out, and a Republican challenger of McHenry, Scott Keadle, mentioned it.

McHenry’s response, via his staffer Josh Kahn?

“He [McHenry] has never voted for a pay raise”.

Well, of course not, McHenry. You don’t have to vote to get a pay raise, you only vote if you BLOCK it. It would be essentially impossible FOR him to vote for a pay raise, only to reject it. But he still accepted, without complaint, without a block, and without a peep. That’s just as bad.

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The 10th District recently received a flyer in the mail from Patrick McHenry last week.  In that expensive glossy full-color flyer paid for by your tax dollars, McHenry states that he has a “different plan” to “save our children from decades of foreign debt.” McHenry wants to create (with your money) a “15 member commission to examine entitlement benefit programs” and report their findings to the President and members of Congress. This newly-created Commission, comprised of members of Congress, will appoint and fix the pay of a director, who gets to pay for additional personnel, procure the services of “experts” and “consultants”, and enter into contracts with money- basically, spend all of the money they think they need. McHenry is basically implying that we need to spend more of our money to help people like him figure out how to not spend our money.

Does this sound like the Obama plan to anyone?

The best part of this commission is that they will be paid to attend mandatory town hall meetings in their districts- meaning you pay them to show up and actually talk to you, which they used to do for free. And they aren’t limited to talking just finance- meaning someone like Patrick McHenry could show up, take your money for showing up, and then ask you for a campaign donation!

Ironically, there already is a commission to do exactly this: the Congressional Budget Office. They waste about $45.2 million a year.

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Despite being entirely willing to talk to the local media about it, reports indicate that Patrick McHenry was too busy texting on his Blackberry to actually pay attention to the State of the Union address. Sure, we may not like Obama either, but McHenry could spare the time to at least pay attention to the President of the United States instead of acting like a teenager in Highschool texting his buddies. This is his job, after all. The vast majority of Republicans, in respect of the office, in value of their job, and to ensure they could retort properly, paid attention during the entire speech.

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Every January 1, Congress gets an automatic pay raise. This is mainly done to account for inflation and presumed bettering of the economy. As you can imagine, this can be somewhat bad: as the economy dips, Congress continues to get more money, and can do so secretly, as they don’t exactly have to vote for it (they just “accept” it). Of course, because the economy is in the toilet, many valiant NC representatives have proposed a bill against it, to be more frugal with money, including Sen. Richard Burr and Rep. Virginia Foxx.

Guess who was the ONLY NC Representative to go along with Democrats and sponsor the pay raise?

Patrick McHenry. Seems rather ironic that he constantly speaks against Democrats until they want to give him more of your money.

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Apparently because Patrick McHenry was “busy” or something of that nature, Patrick McHenry recently decided to just invent a parking spot at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. According to the Gaston Gazette:

A Gazette employee spotted the congressman’s blue Ford Explorer straddling a curb in a parking lot at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport at 4:35 p.m. Sunday, at the end of a row of legally parked cars. The Ford’s front tires were on the curb, while the back tires were in the driving area of the parking lot, with one of them resting atop a yellow speed bump.

So, apparently, according to Patrick McHenry, you can make laws, but you don’t have to follow them, especially if you’re busy!

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