Op-ed: Who is "us"?

I'm sure Lynn Elliot is wondering why the "economy boosting" tax cuts Wally voted for wouldn't help pay for the social programs he helped cut. But I'm sure most people know how wasteful programs like "nursing homes, spending on home care for those on Medicaid, and decrease food stamps" really are. Oh...and student loan programs too. Talk about your budget fat!

Budget Woes

Wally and Senator Feinstein are working together to help out some of the northern counties here in California.

Budgets could lose funds: "School officials like French and road maintenance workers are watching nervously to see if President Bush and federal lawmakers reinstate a bill that provides funding to road maintenance and schools in many rural counties in California, Oregon and Washington. The funds compensate for lost logging revenue after large portions of old-growth forests were closed to timber harvest when the Northern Spotted Owl was listed as a federally protected species in 1990."

To Wally and Staff

Have a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I'll see you on the flip side.

Appropriations?

I remember that one of the criticisms that Wally ran into in the last election was that he wasn't effective in getting Federal money for his district. California's 2nd District has levees, roads, schools, bridges, and all the other things that taxes pay for. It's not like we're asking for a bridge to nowhere. The Oroville Mercury-Register Online ran a story about how Doolittle (R CA-4) got $450,000 for projects in Oroville. I'm not sure if the last graph was a dig at Wally or what.

It couldn't be determined Wednesday whether Rep. Wally Herger, R-Chico, had inserted money for local projects in the appropriations bill.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like something a staffer in Wally's office might know...I'm just sayin'.

Anchor Babies

Immigration is a nice distraction from Iraq. Almost every place in the country you can look around and see people not speaking English. It's almost un-American...as long as you don't count the whole "give us your tired, your poor, etc., etc." nonsense.

From the SacBee we learn that Wally is backing a bill that would deny citizenship to babies born in the US if their parents are not here legally. Apparently the fact that this would violate the 14th Amendment is not lost on our duly elected representatives in Washington.

"We do have an ongoing problem with these 'anchor' babies," (Devin) Nunes said, "but we also have a tough time with changing the law."

It's not just "the law," it's the Constitution. I'm sure the irony that this country was founded by immigrants is, in fact, lost on our representatives in Washington. Maybe they should just propose a bill that would place all financial burden of the illegal parents on the "anchor baby." It could work just like the national debt.

To be honest I'm a bit surprised that Wally is backing this bill since he is a "friend" of the farmer here in the north state. Cheap manual labor around here is traditionally done by immigrant workers. I'm not saying that the immigrant worker population is here illegally, I'm just saying I doubt many people are keeping up with the checking of paperwork. You gotta keep those prices down you know.

Update: The LA Times picks up on the story as well. No mention of Wally though.

Paradise Lost

A horrible pun, I apologize. But it seems Jamie O'Neil from Paradise is none too happy with Wally's latest mailer to us, his constituents. Well, you can't make everyone happy.

Welfare Reform

No...not for corporations, for poor people! Or, as the Wall Street Journal likes to call them, "Lucky Duckies."

Too bad that while welfare is on the chopping block (and yes, making sure fewer people can be on welfare is chopping it) that wages are going down.

Oh well, the stock market is back to around where it was when Bush started his term. Yay for fiscal responsibility!

Wally Strikes Back at Bee

Wally, along with Doolittle and Pombo, take issue with a SacBee editorial (which I failed to link to previously).

Other Sites

Definately check out Take Back Red California.