The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Messenger-Post has a story on Randy Kuhl's support of HR 4627, a bill that would allow interest-free withdrawals from 401(k) plans to pay for mortgages.  While Kuhl thinks it's a good idea, a financial planner quoted in the story says that it's never a right to take money out of retirement plans.

Far be it from me to question the wisdom of a financial planner, but this bill makes sense to me.  There are a few circumstances, such as someone with good job prospects who's temporarily out of work, where a making mortgage payments from a retirement plan is a good strategy. Unfortunately, there are many other situations where the bill will allow homeowners to double down when they should be cutting their losses. 

In the end, this and other efforts to blunt the impact of the mortgage crisis can't really do much, because the risk of rewarding speculators far outweighs the benefit of rescuing a few legitimate victims.  If the mortgage crisis ends in a bailout, it will engender a new, larger bubble fueled by speculators assuming that government will swoop in to rescue them if the market goes south.  Of course, it isn't politic to point that out, so Kuhl and other politicians will continue to trot out band-aids like this one as the recession deepens.

Randy Kuhl complimented the Democratic leadership for working with Republicans to craft a stimulus package.

I have one question for stimulus supporters of either party:  Will the checks be printed with a picture of Hu Jintao, or is the memo line "I.O.U. - P.R.C" sufficient?

I missed the Massa press conference today. For the near future, I'll attend Massa press conferences if something big comes up, or if I haven't checked in with the Massa camp for a while.  There isn't much going on in the 29th race at the moment, and I'm not going to pretend that there is, nor am I going to insult my readers' intelligence by re-hashing stuff that's already been covered.

In the meantime, Norm Ornstein, who is a center-left expert on Congress, is participating in a conversation on the New Republic site.  I thought Norm captured the last year's follies pretty well in this paragraph:

The Senate is at the root of many of the problems Democrats faced this year. Republicans applied delaying tactics that had never been used before--on highly controversial issues as well as routine ones, and not just by filibustering, but by regularly denying unanimous consent in a body where everything moves, or doesn't, by unanimity. It had the twin effect of raising the bar to 60 on nearly every issue, and slowing down the Senate as if there were gallons of molasses poured onto the roadway. Because a filibuster can be applied as many as three separate times on a bill, and a successful cloture vote allows up to 30 hours of debate after it passes, filibuster efforts, even on widely accepted matters, can take days to resolve. And by raising the bar to 60, it meant that many matters with majority support--like limiting farm subsidy payments to non-millionaires--went by the boards. Combine these delaying tactics with the president's near-universal veto strategy, and you have a formula for gridlock.

As Norm points out, it really doesn't matter what the House does if the Senate passes everything through its sphincter of delay.  The inevitable end result will be bad compromises and kitchen-sink bills that serve petty partisan interests while they delay the inevitable reckoning that's coming on energy policy, our massive deficit, and our seemingly endless involvement in Iraq.  I think the whole exchange between Norm and a couple of other TNR reporters is well worth reading.

Also, those of you who are frustrated by the superficial yet never-ending coverage of the presidential race might want to check out Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece, and Glenn Greenwald's exchange with John King of CNN.

Randy Kuhl's official website won a "Silver Mouse" award from the Congressional Management foundation.  Here's the list of winners, and the Star-Gazette's writeup.

I received the following robo-call yesterday:

This is an urgent message from American Family Voices at 202-293-1128. Congressman Randy Kuhl voted for a $13 billion Christmas present for the oil industry in the way of tax giveaways.  Meanwhile, Congressman Kuhl has taken thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the oil industry.  Why, with oil prices over $100/barrel, and gas prices on their way to $4/gallon this year, why in heavens name should Congressman Kuhl be giving tax giveaways to big oil?

Call Congressman Kuhl at 607-776-9142 and tell him we should be helping Americans at the pump and not rewarding big oil.

WETM, Channel 18 in Elmira, also has a story on the call.  By my count, this is the fourth robo-call from this group.  Other calls concerned unsafe toys, S-CHIP and war with Iran.  According to the non-partisan Public Citizen organization, American Family Voices is a 501(c)(4) funded mainly by AFSCME. 

The Star-Gazette reports that Randy Kuhl is concerned that the Farm Bill hasn't yet gone through the conference committee process, even though the previous bill expired at the end of 2007.   Wonder what happened to that bill?  Well, if you look at the Congressdb summary,  you can see that the bill was passed by the House in July.  After the inevitable cloture vote, the Senate finally passed it in December, almost immediately before adjourning.   So, what Randy is telling us is that we should be upset that the filibuster threats in the Senate have delayed the Farm Bill.  OK, I'm upset.

The Democrat and Chronicle's story on suburban poverty notes that the number of children living in poverty in Rochester's suburbs is on the rise.  One of the school districts mentioned, Wheatland-Chili, is part of the 29th district.  Another, East Rochester, is on the very edge of the district.

Yesterday's results in New Hampshire have Eric Massa fired up and ready to go.   Massa started with three points:

1. The New Hampshire turnout is good news for Democrats. Most of the increase in turnout was among Independents and Democrats.

We are energized. People in this country are absolutely at wits end and fed up with politics as usual in Washington, DC. The go along to get along, good old boy network is not resonating with the American people. Washington DC is broken, and to fix it we have to change it.

2. Randy Kuhl is swimming against this tide. Evidence for this includes his "disingenuous, dishonest and incredibly negative writings in local newspapers, and his spending of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money to sent out glossy two-sided mailers."

Massa's objection to the mailer is that Kuhl's claim that "No child in New York should ever have to live without health coverage" is contradicted by his actions: "He took millions of dollars off of the table. Four million children were blocked from getting access to health care."

3. Kuhl's editorial calling the 110th Congress the "Post Office" Congress didn't acknowledge that Kuhl himself sponsored a bill in the 109th Congress to rename the Scio Post Office after Congressional Medal of Honor winner Jason Dunham. "Frankly, that's a wonderful thing to do [...] I think it's wonderful that we honor our local heroes."

Massa concluded by noting:

I'm going to center my campaign on what we believe in and what we stand for. But I cannot help but point out, and it must be pointed out, that who we have representing us today is a classic example of what is wrong in Washington. Washington is broken, and Randy Kuhl is one of those broken pieces.

After the intro, Rick Miller of the Olean Times-Herald asked some questions about the primaries. The net of them was that Massa is going to vote for Hillary, he doesn't officially endorse anyone, and his supporters are backing different candidates but are unified in their support of Massa.

Bob Recotta of the Corning Leader asked Massa about the perception on the part of the public that Congress is part of the problem, as evidenced by polls. How can the leading Democratic candidates, who are all former or current Senators, distance themselves from that perception?

Massa said that the candidates should

tell people that they need to change Congress. When a sitting Member of Congress calls his colleagues a 'Post-Office Congress' but he's one of the guys setting up a bill naming a Post Office, then he's part of the problem. We need people to work across party lines. I used to be a Republican. I'm bi-lingual. I speak donkey and elephant, eat carrots and peanuts. We need to elect people who don't judge their fellow Americans by the party they're part of.

Recotta also asked how Massa's campaign will tap into the energy coming from the Presidential contest.

I like to think some of that energy is coming from our campaign. We're like a can of Coke that's been shook up. We see more volunteers, more activity and more excitement. I don't think it's an Iowa or New Hampshire phenomenon -- it's a national phenomenon.

Rob Montana of the Hornell Evening Tribune asked what Massa's biggest problem was with Kuhl's editorial.

Massa said that the easiest way to see what was wrong with the editorial was to set it beside his New Year's message. Massa contrasted his "clear message of what I stand for" with Kuhl's negativity. Massa also noted that "it's wrong for a Member of Congress to misuse his position to attack the other side for actions he took", referring to the Post Office naming.

I asked Massa his take on the Republican talking point that the surge is working and that it won't be an issue in the '08 election.

My answer is great, time to leave. I was not in favor of going into Iraq, and I continue to be in opposition to our occupation in Iraq. We were sold a bill of goods. We were told there would be a Summer surge. Last time I checked, there was snow outside, and Iraqi soldiers were shooting American soldiers in the back. The surge was supposed to create a functioning Iraqi democracy. That hasn't happened. It's time for us to look at the President and say 'You don't get to keep 150,000 Americans in Iraq.'

Today I received a glossy, one-page mailer [pdf] from Randy Kuhl. The mailer has one purpose: to emphasize Kuhl's "Yes" vote on the S-CHIP extension. Under Kuhl's picture, the words "I VOTED YES" are repeated three times. The mailer was sent using Kuhl's franking privilege.

Reader Elmer sends Randy Kuhl's Op-Ed [pdf] in today's Corning Leader.  Kuhl highlights the lack of progress in Congress and his vote for S-CHIP continuation.

Kuhl's office has also sent out the latest version of the Kuhl Khronicle, which is his monthly email newsletter.  I can't find it on his website, so here's a local copy. 

Frequent commenter Elmer asked some interesting questions of Eric Massa over at Rochesterturning, and Massa has responded in the comments.

On other Q&A fronts, I haven't been able to attend the last couple of Massa press conferences, but I hope to get back in the habit next week.