Republicans against Patrick McHenry

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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Just got a lovely comment on our blog:

Just another lib in sheeps clothing slinging cow manure!

The problem? The poster tried (somewhat futilely, I might add) to hide their location- and ended up, out of the stupidity of their IT team, making the post look like it came from Uruguay. Given our (ever growing) popularity and site statistics, it’s fairly clear that it was someone from DC. Try harder, staffers. You at least have to pretend to be real people. I do better than you and I don’t even get paid.

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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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According to Patrick McHenry at his little self-promoting town halls, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the American Clean Energy and Security Act would cost Americans $1,400 annually. This was a lie. In fact, the CBO stated it would only be $175 anally. That’s a big difference.

Ironically, this was stated to his very constituents in a way to convince them- among other things- he knows what’s going on in Congress. Though we may not agree with/support the American Clean Energy and Security Act, lying to your constituents is unacceptable, period.

Read the full article here.

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Regarding taxes on his new website, accessed 8/14/09:

Congressman McHenry believes in lowering the tax burden on American workers, families and small businesses.

Time Magazine, 5/7/09:

“Marginal tax rates are the lowest they’ve been in generations, and all we can talk about is tax cuts… The people’s desires have changed, but we’re still stuck in our old issue set.”

Cute way to tell the people one thing and really do something else, McNugget.

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