The Republican budget proposal that passed the House on Friday would significantly change the way Medicare operates, and those House members who voted for it are taking heat from Democrats and liberal groups. In Duluth, a billboard urges Cravaack not to privatize Medicare, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) says that Bachmann voted to “end Medicare.” But are these claims accurate? 

“Representative Michele Bachmann voted to end Medicare and raise health care costs for Minnesota seniors,” said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in a statement Friday afternoon. “While Representative Michele Bachmann wouldn’t touch taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil companies and tax breaks for the ultra rich, he sold out Minnesota seniors by ending Medicare and leaving them with the bill.”

The Republican budget wouldn’t “end Medicare,” but would instead give seniors vouchers to use to purchase health care insurance on the private market. The plan wouldn’t affect people currently over the age of 65, but would instead phase in the privatization.

According to Joe Baker, President of the Medicare Rights Center, the plan would end Medicare as it currently operates and would end up costing a lot more for seniors.

He told CNN:

There are two primary problems for consumers with a voucher scheme. First, it shifts far higher out of pocket costs onto consumers.

Second, while the voucher is supposed to increase in value each year, in almost all proposals it will not match the rate at which health costs increase, so the voucher over time will become increasingly more inadequate to buy coverage comparable to Medicare, meaning many will be severely underinsured.

The DCCC attack on Bachmann is a bit misleading because Medicare would continue under the Republican budget proposal, but it would be radically different.

The DCCC seems to be taking a move out of the Republicans’ 2010 campaign playbook when Republicans claimed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) cut $500 billion from Medicare. Rep. Erik Paulsen, who voted for Friday’s Republican budget proposal, targeted his opponent with that assertion in television ads last fall.

Of his DFL opponent Jim Meffert, Paulsen said, “Meffert’s for the trillion dollar health care takeover. And a massive $500 billion cut in Medicare.”

WCCO’s Reality Check found that claim to be false. The ACA doesn’t cut Medicare, it cuts Medicare Advantage, an optional Medicare program.

Americans United for Change targeted Cravaack this month on Medicare changes through vehicles including a billboard in Duluth that features a senior citizen urging him not to “privatize my Medicare.”

“Well, today he voted to do just that when he supported Medicare vouchers in the Republican budget,” the group said in a press release on Friday.

“There is nothing courageous or responsible about the Republicans in Congress who are asking millions of seniors, the less fortunate and the disabled to make more sacrifices and the richest among us make less,” said AUC executive director Tom McMahon. “If they have their way, there would be no more guaranteed Medicare benefits for Minnesota seniors, only a guarantee of paying more and more out of pocket for less care after being left to the mercy to the private insurance industry.”

Paulsen’s DFL opponent, Jim Meffert, seized on the news that the DCCC would be targeting Paulsen.

“We are in the midst of the greatest environmental disaster in our nation’s history. Tens of thousands of gallons of oil from BP’s well are spilling into the Gulf every day, destroying homes and businesses throughout the Gulf coast region and beyond,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “Yet the Congressman from our district is busy rubbing elbows with BP’s lobbyists, sitting silent while his colleague apologizes to BP, taking contributions from oil companies, and voting against clean energy. This behavior is beyond the pale.”

A week ago, he called on Paulsen to denounce the comments and ask Barton to “step down step down from his leadership post as the Ranking Member of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.” (Indications were yesterday that Barton’s position there is safe.)

The first salvo in the DCCC’s campaign is targeting Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington. “House Republicans like Representative Dave Reichert are keeping British Petroleum apologist Joe Barton as their top Republican on energy policy and continue to back his unbelievable obstruction to holding British Petroleum accountable for this disaster,” the DCCC said in a statement.

The DCCC is targeting the following Republicans:

Judy Biggert (IL-13) John Boehner (OH-08) Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08) Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11) Erik Paulsen (MN-03) Paul Ryan (WI-01) Aaron Schock (IL-18) Lee Terry (NE-02) Patrick Tiberi (OH-12) Leonard Lance (NJ-07) Tim Murphy (PA-18) Joe Pitts (PA-16) Eric Cantor (VA-07) Mike Pence (IN-06) Pete Sessions (TX-32) Mary Bono Mack (CA-45) Charles Djou (HI-01) Dan Lungren (CA-03) Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) Dave Reichert (WA-08)

MnIndy photo collage

The national Democratic party is wasting no time in attacking Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin ahead of this afternoon’s fundraiser featuring the conservative duo. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched a quiz asking users to identify which quotes match Palin or Bachmann (or sometimes both), and the Democratic National Committee has launched a video with snippets highlighting the pair’s controversial statements.

ABC News’ The Note points to the quiz by the DCCC in post titled “Dems Ask: Who is Crazier — Palin or Bachmann?” That’s ABC’s characterization — the DCCC doesn’t use the term “crazier.”

Here’s the description of the quiz users are greeted with after handing their email address over to the DCCC:

The outrageous lies by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin have become the stuff of legend. In anticipation of their big joint appearance at a GOP fundraiser, we thought we’d put our DCCC supporters to the test: Can you tell whether Rep. Bachmann or Fmr. Gov. Palin made these outrageous statements?

The DNC uses some of those statements in a YouTube ad about Bachmann and Palin released on Tuesday:

Ben Smith of the Politico reports that the DNC won’t be paying for media to carry that message — yet — but will begin by sending messages to constituents who are on the Obama campaign email list.

Paulsen may have had in mind preempting such an attack when he released a statement via YouTube about his “no” vote within minutes of having cast it Saturday night.

Paulsen was one of seven GOP lawmakers targeted by a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad campaign over health care last summer. (Another of those seven, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, cast the sole Republican vote in favor of the pending bill.)

The National Republican Congressional Committee earlier put Paulsen on its own list of vulnerable Republicans in Congress.

Paulsen’s latest campaign-finance reports show he raised nearly $1 million this year. Democratic challengers to the first-term Republican are only beginning to emerge.

The DCCC health care campaign is also targeting Republican Reps. Dan Lungren of California, Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, Dave Reichert of Washington, and Pat Tiberi of Ohio.

Here’s the script:

We already know that Congresswoman Bachmann took $180,000 dollars from the insurance industry and Congressman paulsen took nearly $100,000 from the insurance industry. So what do you think Bachmann and Paulsen talk about when they meet with the big insurance companies? How they reap record profits while health care costs skyrocket? Or how the special interests want to stop health reform? Whatever it is that bachmann, paulsen and the insurance comanies talk about. It probably isn’t affordable health care for you or how the special interests want to stop health reform.

We need real reform to lower costs, prevent companies from denying coverage and keep your current coverage if you are happy with it.
Tell Bachmann and Paulsen, it’s not about insurance company profits, it’s about people.

Listen:

(Images: NationalAtlas.gov, Bob Anderson)

Things are heating up in the race to unseat 6th District Rep. Michele Bachmann: Democrat Maureen Reed raised $230,000 in the two months following her announcement to run; past Bachmann challenger Elwyn Tinklenberg says he’ll be in the Democratic primary whether he gets the DFL nod or not; and state Sen. Tarryl Clark is expected to announce her candidacy soon. A new twist: Third-party candidate Bob Anderson — who garnered 10 percent of the vote in the 2008 election — is seriously considering running again.

Last time Anderson ran as an unendorsed Independence Party (IP) candidate; Tinklenberg was cross-endorsed by the DFL and the IP. This time, Anderson says he wants just one endorsement — the IP’s. Coinciding with the IP’s executive committee meeting last weekend, he sent a letter to the party indicating his interest in running. He wouldn’t share the letter, but said his first post on his new campaign blog, launched Sunday, sums it up. He writes that candidates should focus on just one party: “I feel if you need the endorsement of two parties you are not the strongest candidate.”

In an interview with the Minnesota Independent on Thursday, Anderson said he learned a lot during the last campaign and will leverage that experience this time around. But it all hinges on whether the IP will cross-endorse.

“I don’t want to get involved in that again,” he said. “I want the party’s support — I don’t want ‘anti’ support.” Later he said he doesn’t think cross-endorsement helped “anybody,” adding with a chuckle, “It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. ”

The endorsement question

Don’t expect a definitive decision from Anderson soon. He’s waiting for the results of the Independence Party’s October 10 Central Committee Meeting, when the body will vote on whether to continue cross-endorsing.

Party chair Jack Uldrich was hesitant to guess about the outcome of that meeting, but he says he’s heard strong opinions on both sides.

“My personal feeling is it’s going to be a very close vote,” he told the Minnesota Independent. “A lot of people in ’08 were disappointed with how cross-endorsement worked.”

He said there are pros and cons to the practice: On one hand, cross-endorsement improves the odds of a candidate with a platform similar to the IP’s getting elected (although Minnesota law prohibits more than one party affiliation being listed on ballots). On the other, cross-endorsement dilutes the party brand, as Uldrich puts it. “The public might say, ‘Well, what does this party stand for?’”

Uldrich implied that Anderson’s chances of getting the endorsement are much better this time around. “The fact that he’s reaching out earlier will work in his favor,” Uldrich said. “Against him is that El Tinklenberg or Maureen Reed will seek the party’s cross-endorsement, too.”

But of Anderson, who addressed the 2008 IP convention, he added, “He’ll be received warmly by the party. Whether that’s enough to garner the endorsement is impossible for me to say.”

The Democratic Party likely wouldn’t welcome an Anderson candidacy, given his take of the vote last time around. But when asked about Anderson’s potential run or the party’s thoughts about cross-endorsement or whether Anderson was a “spoiler” in 2008, Gabby Adler, Midwestern press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), dodged the question.

“Minnesotans are looking for a Representative who reflects their values and will fight to protect jobs, reduce home foreclosures, and promote local economic growth,” she wrote in an email. “We are excited to work with whoever emerges as the DFL nominee next year as they reach out to Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike to build a winning base of support.”

Spoiler?

Anderson calls himself a “right leaning centrist” running in the “most conservative district in the state.” But some call him “spoiler.”

He took 10 percent of the vote in a 2008 election that was decided by a mere 3-percent margin of victory.

“I know I created a lot of stir. I know a lot of the bloggers have been against me, because they think I cost the election,” he said. But he believes he took more votes from Bachmann than Tinklenberg, since he runs as a conservative.

Anderson sees himself as a legitimate alternative to Bachmann and didn’t hesitate to criticize her over, among other issues, the congresswoman’s failure to support the Mental Health Parity bill and her practice of holding mid-day teleconference calls that she bills as town hall meetings. Plus, he calls out media appearances where Bachmann suggested President Obama had “anti-American views” and announced her refusal to fill out the full U.S. Census.

“I think she’d be much better off concentrating on the district,” he said. “She’s got the ability to draw all that news coverage. Why doesn’t she do something less divisive?”

He added, “She’s kind of embarrasing the district. She’s a smart gal and attractive, but she’s got a lot of negatives. She’s got a really strong base, but believe me I hear more people talking negative about her than positive.”

Aubrey Immelman

Aubrey Immelman, a St. John’s University political science professor who ran as a Republican against Bachmann in the 2008 primary, wrote in an email that it’s “empirically unverifiable” whether Anderson lost the election for the Democratic candidate.

He cites numbers he crunched on his website in May that he believes show the primary election results “predicted the outcome” of the general election. In the primary, Tinklenberg won 43.1 percent of the vote, a fraction of a percent less than he got on election day (43.4 percent). Bachmann went from a 47.2 percent share in the primary to 46.4 percent on Nov. 4, whereas Anderson went from a 2 percent share in the primary to 10 percent on election day.

Whether Immelman will join Anderson in the race and challenge Bachmann for the GOP nomination is also up in the air.

“I have not yet decided,” he said. “I’m encountering significant hostility to my open primary strategy — not from Republicans, but from partisan Democrats.”

He cites commenters on liberal blogs, as well as a post by Dave Mindeman at mnpACT, who called Immelman’s primary bid “election trickery” and “foolishness”: “Really, Mr. Immelman — if all you have to recommend you for the 6th District is that you are not Michele Bachmann, then spare us the typeface.”

Whether a vote for Anderson constitutes supporting a “spoiler,” the IP’s Uldrich gave his solution, then his opinion. The Independent Party supports instant-runoff voting (IRV), which allows voters to rank their voting preferences. (Democrats support IRV in their plank, he said, while Republicans oppose it).

“Whenever a voter votes his or her conscience it’s never a wasted vote,” Uldrich said. “That says quite a bit about the caliber of candidates the Republicans and Democrats are putting up.”

paulsenforcongress.com

U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen’s campaign paid his wife more than $10,000 in the last five months of 2008, according to Federal Election Commission records. (No such revelations about his DFL opponent, a bachelor.)

The payments include seven payroll checks from Aug. 27 to Dec. 11, 2008, that total $9,729, as well as a Nov. 12 reimbursement of $728 on Nov. 12 for travel to Washington, D.C.

Carolyn “Kelly” Paulsen managed the campaign office, Paulsen campaign treasurer Reid LeBeau told Democratic blogger Brian Falldin.

The payments don’t violate the law, Polinaut points out. Attempts at banning the practice have failed in Congress, leaving spousal pay for campaign work legal if sometimes controversial.

Stirring controversy by keeping campaign cash in the family wasn’t a problem for Paulsen’s Third Congressional District Democratic rival: Ashwin Madia is unmarried.

But Paulsen’s campaign tried to make that fact a problem for Madia last fall. Paulsen ally state Sen. Geoff Michel held a Sept. 30 State Capitol press conference to tar Madia as having inadequate “suburban life experience“:

Raising a family in the district. Sending your kids to the public school. Owning a home. Working in the 3rd District. Paying property taxes in the 3rd District. Erik Paulsen has done all these things, and Ashwin Madia has not.

The next day, Michel appeared again before state Capitol microphones (crashing a Madia news conference), this time joined by state Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey, who expanded on the demographic attack:

Erik Paulsen … really fits the 3rd District so well, as one of them. And so people need to understand that there is a sharp contrast between the candidates. …Erik Paulsen is a very good fit from a philosophical standpoint and a lifestyle standpoint … From a demographic standpoint Erik Paulsen fits the district very well.

False political smears involving Las Vegas? You’d think U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen wouldn’t want to go there after being on the receiving end of a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad last year that took a tortured, six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon route to link him to a Vegas strip club.

Yet in a new report titled “GOP Stimulus Myths,“ FactCheck.org singles out Paulsen for false claims made Friday in a constituent form letter in which the freshman congressman lists seven projects as examples of federal stimulus “spending on many things that are unrelated to saving or creating jobs.” The projects range from golf course amenities to “butterfly gardens” and, yes, “$2 million for neon signs in Las Vegas” — none of which are actually in the stimulus package.

Read an excerpt from the FactCheck.org report and Paulsen’s letter after the jump.

Rather, they represent selections drawn from a laundry list of potential projects that mayors across the country compiled (pdf) — selections that also appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s the full Paulsen portion of the report from FactCheck.org:

In a form letter to constituents (e-mailed to one of our readers on Feb. 20), Rep. Erik Paulsen of Minnesota claimed that the bill (now law) “contains a huge amount of spending on many things that are unrelated to saving or creating jobs.” He said that it “will fund requests such as $2 million for neon signs in Las Vegas, $4.5 million for an eco park featuring butterfly gardens and gopher tortoises, $500,000 for a dog park, $3 million for a municipal golf course clubhouse, $886,000 for a 36-hole disc golf course, $1.8 million for replacement tennis courts, $6 million for three aquatic centers with water slides … the list goes on and on.”

None of these projects are specified in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In fact, golf courses, and many other recreational projects, simply can’t get funding under the law, which stipulates:

ARRA: Sec. 1604: None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used by any State or local government, or any private entity, for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool.

The items Paulsen cites instead are taken from a lengthy wish list of infrastructure projects that the U.S. Conference of Mayors says are “ready to go” and could be funded quickly with federal dollars. The mayors’ report, dated Jan. 17, was compiled to demonstrate to Congress that localities should get a good amount of whatever stimulus money was approved, according to the city of Austin, Texas. In other words, the mayors were lobbying for federal money to come to them. The seven projects Paulsen singles out for ridicule are among 18,750 that the Conference of Mayors compiled through four surveys of U.S. cities conducted over three months. In an e-mail, the Conference of Mayors tells us that “we didn’t make any editing to the information [cities] provided us,” adding that these were just examples and that “the Government will decide what to fund, not us.”

All of Paulsen’s picks are also in a Wall Street Journal article highlighting these seemingly less-than-necessary requests. The Journal said “the bulk of proposals are roads, sewers and similar projects.” But “some localities,” it noted, “are using a kitchen-sink strategy.”

As Paulsen himself said of President Obama’s speech to Congress: “The devil is in the details.”

Here is the text of the email from Paulsen on which FactCheck.org based its report:

From: “Congressman Erik Paulsen”
Date: February 20, 2009
To: (Name deleted)
Subject: Responding to your message

Dear (Name deleted):

Thank you for letting me know of your support for the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the “stimulus bill.”

I strongly believe we need a swift stimulus package to stimulate our struggling economy and create jobs. I had serious concerns, however, about the makeup of this plan. An extremely low percentage of the plan is geared toward job creation, which is where we should be focusing our efforts. In addition, less than half of the stimulus plan will be spent in the next two years and some of the money will not even be spent during the new President’s first term.

In addition, it is unfortunate that the percentage of the bill dedicated to infrastructure spending, another key to stimulating jobs, shrunk to just 6% of the bill.

The $787 billion stimulus bill essentially turned into a supplemental spending bill and contains a huge amount of spending on many things that are unrelated to saving or creating jobs. The bill will fund requests such as $2 million for neon signs in Las Vegas, $4.5 million for an eco park featuring butterfly gardens and gopher tortoises, $500,000 for a dog park, $3 million for a municipal golf course clubhouse, $886,000 for a 36-hole disc golf course, $1.8 million for replacement tennis courts, $6 million for three aquatic centers with water slides .. the list goes on and on. Clearly, we should not be spending more on these programs than on helping small businesses create jobs.

One of my top priorities in Congress is to be responsible with the taxpayers’ money. The federal budget deficit is already projected to reach more than $1.2 trillion this year. Congress has more than doubled the national debt over the past few years, and after this bill, the annual deficit will reach more than $2 trillion.

I supported an alternative stimulus plan that would provide relief for Minnesota families and create jobs. The proposal contained a variety of incentives for small businesses to create jobs, including a 20% tax deduction for small businesses; a health insurance premium deduction for those who do not get health insurance from their employers; an improved homebuyer tax credit; an exemption to make unemployment benefits tax-free; and a variety of other initiatives that would help jumpstart our economy. In fact, analysis showed it would create twice the jobs at half the cost.

You can be sure of my continued effort to find bipartisan solutions to grow the economy and put people back to work.

Thanks again for sharing your concerns, as I appreciate hearing from you. Please let me know whenever I can be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Erik Paulsen
Member of Congress

Here’s a final (?) irony from Paulsen’s list, for close watchers of the Third District race to replace the retiring Rep. Jim Ramstad. During the campaign, State Sen. Geoff Michel told about the day that news of Ramstad’s retirement broke. Michel said he was with three other potential Republican contenders for the suddenly open seat — at, of all places, a golf course. All action stopped, Michel said, while each member of the foursome madly mashed his personal digital assistant, consulting contacts on the political calculus.

Her statements on the rich, ACORN, the stimulus package and health care led to rounds of debunking.

When the Republican congresswoman wrote, “We are running out of rich people in this country,” she really meant:

The Democrats claim they just want the “rich” to pay their fair share. But, we all know their definition of rich includes more and more middle class Americans each year…

The Democrats’ wealth redistribution scheme can’t continue on this runaway path. Sooner or later, they’ll be coming after you too.

And, because I dare to say so, they’re targeting all their resources to defeat me. They’ll stop at nothing to take your voice away in Congress.

Full text of her e-mail fund-raising pitch after the jump. …

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is after me again — mailing nationwide to raise $50,000 by Wednesday to use against me and other principled Members of Congress who are standing up to runaway spending in Washington.

DCCC Attacks Bachmann

The text of their email — sent to thousands of their liberal supporters — and signed by one of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s political masterminds — is reprinted for you below.

Contribute Now and Show Them You Won’t Be Silenced!

They just don’t get it, do they?

President Obama wasn’t in office a full month before he pushed through Congress a $792-billion spending bill cleverly packaged as a so-called “economic stimulus” package. But, the facts are startlingly clear: This was about spending on liberal policy agenda items, not about stimulating the economy.

From the Los Angeles Times to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), respected news sources and independent analysts said that the money they were spending would come long after the economic recovery has begun; that the bill’s priorities were skewed in favor of programs that have little to no stimulative value.

Commentators across the nation pointed to provisions of the bill that literally stripped away restrictions that Congress passed only months earlier to keep ACORN from getting billions in federal funding.

And, Republicans offered alternatives to redirect spending to shovel-ready transportation projects that are proven to create jobs and to small business and family tax relief with a history of getting an economy going. Our alternative would have created twice the jobs at half the cost.

The Democrats rejected these commonsense proposals and pushed through their profligate spending. And, as a result, government spending on this recession has reached $9.7 trillion in the last year, placing an incredible burden not only on today’s taxpayers, but on taxpayers for generations.

The Democrats claim they just want the “rich” to pay their fair share. But, we all know their definition of rich includes more and more middle class Americans each year. Just ask any struggling family farmer who worries about the cost of the death tax. Or ask any middle class family that suddenly realizes it has to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

The Democrats’ wealth redistribution scheme can’t continue on this runaway path. Sooner or later, they’ll be coming after you too.

And, because I dare to say so, they’re targeting all their resources to defeat me. They’ll stop at nothing to take your voice away in Congress.

Please send what you can today. I need you to show them that we will not be silenced. Click here to make a secure donation:

I want to help, Michele!

Thank you for your generous support and your prayers.

Sincerely,

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann