The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Reader Elmer sends two articles from today's Corning Leader. The longer piece [pdf] covers the controversy over a Massa campaign mailer which highlighted Randy Kuhl's use of a SUV to travel between DC and the district.

The Massa campaign pointed out that Kuhl's use of the SUV cost taxpayers over $15K. Kuhl's spokesman says that he's reimbursed for mileage, not gas, so the kind of car he drives doesn't matter. Until one of the two is featured on "Pimp My Ride", I don't think this will have a big impact on the Fall campaign.

The front-page story [pdf] involves the Corning sewage treatment plant, which is being upgraded due to a grant "obtained by" Randy Kuhl.

That story illustrates the payback from the constant deluge of press releases from Congressional offices. As I've explained before, Randy Kuhl or any other Member of Congress cannot obtain a grant. But Kuhl's drumbeat of grant announcements often leaves the impression that he's pulling all the strings in DC.

Update: Thanks to the anonymous reader who pointed out that the grant is what sounds like an earmark. Here's the 2005 press release which calls it a grant but says that it was specifically appropriated in a bill.

The Olean Times-Herald has a story on Randy Kuhl's call for more drilling. It contains an interesting fact: 75% of the calls coming into his office are about gas prices

In addition that facts, Kuhl goes over the same drilling territory he's covered before. He also says that wind and nuclear must be part of the energy solution. That's a difference with Massa, who opposes expansion of nuclear power and has been critical of wind projects in the 29th, where those projects have faced local opposition.

Kuhl also says that Massa's energy plan will raise the price of gas because it raises taxes. He leaves the impression that Massa wants to raise taxes on gas by saying that Massa wants to "raise taxes on a product." Massa wants to raise taxes on oil company profits. It doesn't follow that the price of gas will go up if oil company profits are taxed more than the .28% (that's point 28 percent) they are now.

Today's Massa press conference talked about the housing crisis, energy and which alter he worships at. Click "read more" to read more.

Massa began by quoting some housing statistics. Housing prices are down 15.3%, which is the largest drop in U.S. history. Massa believes that the reason is that "the mortgage crisis isn't even halfway over yet." He wants to focus on solutions.

Massa listed some bills he thinks are steps in the right direction. The first is HR 1852, which passed in the House last Fall (with Randy Kuhl's support). According to Massa, the bill offers a "series of fair-play rules" which allow the FHA to assist homeowners in ensuring they can stay in their homes. That bill is waiting on Senate action.

Massa also mentioned two other bills, HR 2895 and HR 3609. The first bill, which also passed with Kuhl's support, establishes an affordable housing trust fund. It is in Senate committee. The final bill, which was reported out of committee in the House last December, requires timely notice of additional fees by mortgage holders once a borrower goes into bankruptcy.

Massa contrasted the action on these bills in the House with the current rhetoric in Washington:

Instead we have Washington insiders talking about passing legislation that they promise will lower the price of gas to $2 and change. Everyone knows it is a false political ploy -- it will do nothing to help anybody [and result in] another broken promise.

Massa referenced Randy Kuhl's leadership in the discharge petition on HR 5656 as another example of political ploys. He likened this type of posturing to "fiddling while Rome burns."

Bob Recotta of the Corning Leader, who was on the call along with Brian O'Neill of WLEA and Grievous Angel of Rochesterturning, asked Massa if he knew how his opponent voted on those bills. Massa said he wanted to focus on positive change, not his opponent, unlike Kuhl, who called him a socialist like Nancy Pelosi in a recent press article.

Speaking of Nancy Pelosi, Recotta asked about the FISA compromis, which Massa opposes and Pelosi brokered. Massa said:

It's a shame that vote passed. It had nothing to do with national security and everything to do with ignoring the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The reality is that telecommunications companies spent millions of dollars making contributions to those persons in both parties who voted for it. I'm against it [...] and that puts me at odds with many very powerful people in the Democratic party.

I asked Massa for the specifics of his energy plan's promise to put a hybrid in every middle-class garage.

Massa pointed out that the $2000 tax rebate for SUV buying initiated by the Bush Administration stimulated the manufacture of SUVs, was very good for Detroit, and a catastrophic failure of national policy. He wants to learn from that lesson:

I looked at the difference between the cost of a hybrid sedan and a conventional counterpart. It's about $6,000. I propose $3,000 of immediate tax relief to the consumer, and $3,000 to the American manufacturer of every sedan hybrid built in this country. Within 10 years, we could literally replace an entire fleet of conventional automobiles.

Massa characterized his plan as:

using tax policy not to solve America's problems, but so America can solve its own problems. It's not the responsibility of the US Government to solve all of our problems. We need a government that sets up systems to solve our own. If you incentivize hybrid manufacturers and purchasers, you've created a more realistic stimulus package [than borrowing $150 billion from the Chinese].

I asked Massa if it was U.S.-owned manufacturers. He clarified that it is U.S.-manufactured hybrids.

I also asked him about Boehner's "worshipping at the altar of environmentalism" comment:

I follow the lead of a great Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, perhaps one of the greatest worshippers of the environment in this nation. His whole philosophy [and he took on polluters] was that we owe it to our children to give them a cleaner, healthier and safer environment than we have. I don't put the concerns of my children second to anyone.

Massa noted that the current energy policy is basically architected by big oil and Dick Cheney, and countered by asking "Why does Mr. Boehner worship at the altar of big oil?"

Bob Recotta asked about John McCain's proposal to offer a cash prize to anyone who comes up with a better battery for electric cars and hybrids. Massa said he wasn't sure if it's perfectly appropriate for government, but noted other prizes like the X prize which stimulated civilian space flight, and even the prize that got Lindbergh to cross the Atlantic. "Anything that leads to innovation is a good idea [...] I applaud Senator McCain for thinking outside the box."

Welcome to the new, somewhat improved, and slightly different Fighting29th.

Other than the appearance, the main changes are the comment procedure, and the earmarks and significant votes sections.

Comments are now "threaded" so you can hit the "reply" link to reply to a previous comment. Also, you should only be asked the "CAPTCHA" question once, and then your email and name will be remembered for a while. The security question is now a little simple math. Since few were using logins, I didn't bother re-implementing them in this version.

Earmarks and Significant Votes are now linked to pages in CongressDB that contain data from Taxpayers for Common Sense and Project VoteSmart. Both of those are new CongressDB features, by the way. You can look up other legislator's 2007 earmarks and their Key Votes (according to Project VoteSmart) if you're interested.

An old friend used to say "all change is decline". That's not my intention, so please send me an email if you see anything amiss.

Eric Massa is quoted in today's Messenger-Post, calling the Iraq war operations vote "disappointing". Randy Kuhl supported the bill, and his press release is here.

Massa also explains, in detail, why he'd have voted against the FISA bill that recently passed the House, with Randy Kuhl's vote. Massa's reasoning has to do with the Fourth Amendment, which is only taken seriously by 128 Democrats and one Republican in the House. Randy Kuhl's excuse for his vote is posted here.