13 House Dems vote against HR 22, which would cut House office budgets

[alp227]

The DownWithTyranny blog reports that 13 House Democrats voted against HR 22, a bill "educing the amount authorized for salaries and expenses of Member, committee, and leadership offices in 2011 and 2012." They include 3 from my home state California (Mike Honda, Bob Filner, Barbara Lee) and progressive champions John Conyers and Jan Schakowsky. My representative, Zoe Lofgren, as well as that darned San Francisco liberal and now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, voted for HR 22 though.

The blogger called Rep. Filner:

Because he's a fighter and because he has a reputation as an outspoken straight-shooter I called San Diego area Congressman Bob Filner, one of the 13 NO votes, to ask him to explain his thinking on this one. He must have been in a real mood; did he ever let loose! "This is why we're losing elections," he said. "My colleagues are drink the kool-aid... We're operating out of fear." And he was just getting warmed up. What he told me is that he needs to be in touch with his constituents more, not less, to do an adequate job representing them. "We have serious oversight responsibilities," he continued, suggesting the Republicans are more than happy to see them go by the wayside. "If they were serious about cutting into the deficit, they would start thinking about Afghanistan, not these kinds of cuts which in a thousand years won't make a dent on the deficit."

[BlueDog22]

1. HR22

HR 22 is nothing more then symbolic, and won't do anything to cut deficits in any meaningful way.