Eric Massa on N.S.: A Losing Congress and a Winning Hand

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Eric Massa on National Security: A Losing Congress and a Winning Hand Hotlist
by Eric Massa
Sun Jul 16, 2006 at 12:00:56 PM PDT

Last week I discussed attempts by the leadership in the Democratic Party to force an open and honest vote on raising the federal minimum wage. In the week that followed we saw several attempts by the leaders of the Democratic party to bring an amendment to the floor of the House to force an open and fair debate on the minimum wage increase. Every time, voting along Party lines, my opponent, Randy Kuhl, joined the Tom Delay legacy and struck the amendment from the potential of floor debate.

To make matters even more vile, my opponent claimed to support raising the minimum wage, then he took the "bold" step of voting for a non-binding motion to instruct (translation: recommend) to the conferees of the Senate and the House that they consider the possibility of raising the minimum wage for jobs covered under a federal jobs training program -- all this while the Congress voted themselves yet another pay increase.

Nothing more clearly captures the inefficiency, the two faced-nature and the down right destruction of this far right wing rubber stamping Republican Congress than this two faced flip flopping for political purposes.

Incidentally, in the nine years the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to address the minimum wage, Congress has received a cumulative raise that amounts to more than the median household income in the 29th Congressional District.

This week, we can expect the Congress to address such issues as the Pledge of Allegiance and the protection of marriage, while the people in upstate New York continue to struggle to fill their gas tanks and the Middle East situation escalates beyond our control.

But while Rome burns, the band plays on, and Randy Kuhl is the lead trumpet. While Congress' approval rating drops to 25%, he tells the Buffalo News that "he hasn't seen any major problems with how Congress functions" and thinks the charges that the House is a rubber stamp are "complete nonsense." (link)

But even former Speaker Newt Gingrich thinks the current Congress is irreparably broken. Speaking alongside former political foe, former Speaker Tom Foley, on a panel at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Gingrich said the American people need to "just start firing people."

Unfortunately, this political manipulation of the Congressional agenda does not stop with issues such as the minimum wage. No, it's actually much, much worse. Recently the federal Homeland Security funding was slashed for cities like New York and Washington, D.C. - including almost 40% of the monies allocated to New York City. The reason given for these cuts: there are more terrorist targets in places like Indiana than there are in New York City and Washington, DC. (link)

We have all heard the suggestion that the Department of Homeland Security merely asked each state to list its own assets and just accepted the list it was given, with Indiana, for instance, just doing a more thorough job of reporting than other states. (link) But the more likely truth is that the list was just a manufactured excuse to divert money to specific Congressional Districts where Republican members are seen in danger of losing their seats. In other words, the Republican leadership of the House is using the federal budget - at the expense of the security of the City and people of New York - to bolster the re-election of endangered Republican Representatives.

Of course, my opponent voted with his Tom Delay legacy masters to hurt the very people of New York state that he is charged to represent. That he allowed New York City to be stripped of such a large percentage of its homeland defense funding, and then voted against restoring the funding (link), is both irrefutable and unforgivable. But that's just the beginning of the story. Let's look beyond the naked partisanship of my two-faced opponent to the entirety of the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress. They are all willing to pretend to be merely inept to hide their true political motivations.

Simply put, Republicans are playing politics with our National Security. The Homeland Security funding gambit mentioned above is just one example. Another game they play is to pretend to have caught master terrorists when what they really have are obvious amateurs. A recent example of this little game is the group who was supposedly going to flood a tunnel in New York City with a body water that was actually below the level of the tunnel. (link) Yet, because of the ability of the Bush administration and its allies to manipulate our national media, that story has been widely accepted as a genuine threat that was averted.

Because of these and other successful games they play, National Security is the only area in which Republicans have a lead over Democrats in the most recent USA Today/Gallup Poll. (link) Of course, Homeland Security is just one component of National Security. Other components are military preparedness, the war on terror, Iraq and energy independence. (See Democratic plan for Real Security in pdf form here. See discussion by Bob Burnett here.)

The top issue on voters' minds, according the recent Gallup poll, is Iraq. Many people have suggested that the "cut and run" rhetoric employed against those who challenge the President and Republicans on Iraq is just another dirty Republican game akin to the one used against John McCain in 2000 or the one used against John Kerry in 2004. (link) Incidentally, Randy Kuhl has started using the "cut and run" phrase to try and label me. He used it at an event yesterday. I know the label won't stick to me and the Gallup poll showed that Democrats in congress are more trusted to handle Iraq than Republicans. So the phrase doesn't seem to be sticking to others either.

The tide seemed to turn recently when Zarqawi was killed and Rove's strategy seemed to be getting some traction. But recent events have demonstrated Iraq might be spinning out of control in spite of Zarqawi's death. (link) Google "Iraq violence" and you definitely get a sense that things are getting worse instead of better. We all want success in Iraq but all the Bush administration offers is more of the same. At least Democrats have managed to force some debate of his "stay the course" nonsense. Although they have not gotten the respect from the media they deserve, the efforts by Democratic leaders on Iraq seem to be bearing fruit anyway if the Gallup poll is a good indicator.

Democrats have also called for more diplomacy. A recent survey of Foreign Policy experts () and the recent developments in the Middle East have once again made obvious the lack of sufficient diplomacy by the Bush administration. Six years ago President Clinton left us with hope of peace in the Middle East. Under President Bush, that now seems more and more unlikely. He seems content to merely blame Hezbollah (link) even as Lebanon is making an appeal to the United Nations.

These and other related National Security issues favor Democrats. They need to re-emphasize their Real Security Plan and take away the one remaining issue where Republicans are more "trusted" than the Democrats. At this point, Democrats already hold a bigger advantage on the generic ballot than Republicans held in 1994. That year the two parties were tied in July. (link) If we can expose the games Republicans are playing with our National Security, at every level, we will have a much better chance of taking back control of Congress in November.