Congressman Parker Griffith Weekly Republican Address 03/06/10 VIDEO FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

Congressman Parker Griffith Weekly Republican Address 03/06/10 VIDEO FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT.

Weekly remarks by Republican Rep. Dr. Parker Griffith as provided by the Republican National Committee.

Hello, I’m Dr. Parker Griffith, and I have the great privilege to represent Alabama’s 5th Congressional District. In the next 10 days, Democrats in Washington will try and jam through a massive government takeover of healthcare. It would raise taxes, slash Medicare benefits and destroy American jobs.

It would put federal bureaucrats in charge of medical decisions that should be made by patients and doctors. And it must be stopped.
The American people have said loudly and clearly that they do not want this job-killing government takeover of care. They want us to start over with a clean sheet of paper and a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses.

But President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refuse to listen to the American people. For them, healthcare reform has become less about the best reforms and more about what best fits their ‘Washington knows best’ mentality – less about helping patients and more about scoring political points.

This is no idle observation. I’ve witnessed it firsthand.

You see, two Januarys ago, I was sworn into office as an independent, conservative Democrat. But like so many Americans, I became increasingly concerned that the policies being pushed by Democrats in Washington were dangerous for our country and out of step with our values.

Instead of working across the aisle and focusing on creating jobs, Democratic leaders pressed ahead with their partisan, big-government agenda of taxing, spending, and borrowing from our children and grandchildren. The trillion-dollar ‘stimulus,’ the ‘cap-and-trade’ national energy tax, I voted against them.

Still, even as Democrats lost their way, I held out hope that things would be different with healthcare reform, but I was wrong.

Even as public opposition continued to rise, Democrats refused to let up, stuffing these bills with sweetheart deals for lawmakers and giveaways to Washington special interests.

Given all that’s at stake, I realized that being a voice of dissent and a vote of conscience was not enough. Shortly before Christmas, after much thought and prayer, I decided to align myself with House Republicans, who have stood on principle to fight this big-government agenda and offer better solutions to the challenges facing our country.

Republicans understand that the right way to fix healthcare is with a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs. Only Republicans have proposed the kind of healthcare reforms we can afford during this economic downturn, like allowing small businesses to group together to purchase healthcare plans at reasonable costs just as unions do.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the Republican bill would lower premiums for families and small businesses by up to 10%. All of the details are available at HealthCare.GOP.gov.

You know, before coming to Congress, I spent 30 years practicing medicine in North Alabama. The worst thing we could do is have the federal government decide what policies and what procedures would be done in hospitals or in physicians’ offices, what would be paid for, what would not be paid for. This will only cause premiums to rise and the quality of care to go down.

I’ve also run a small business, and I can tell you that healthcare costs have everything to do with the ability to maintain a payroll and hire new workers. The mere threat of this healthcare bill being enacted is freezing employers in their tracks and destroying much-needed jobs.

To get a final bill through without public or bipartisan support, Democrats would have to use a toxic, controversial legislative scheme known as ‘reconciliation.’ Reconciliation would allow Democrats to make a few last-minute backroom deals and rely on only Democratic votes.

Reconciliation is by no means a cure-all that would permit drastic changes to improve the bill. For instance, reconciliation would not address the loophole in the Senate-passed healthcare bill that would lead to taxpayer funding of abortion for the first time in more than 30 years.

If Speaker Pelosi has her way, the loophole will become law as is, so the final battle will be here in the House of Representatives. ###

Chris Christie New Jersey League of Municipalities VIDEO

Governor Chris Christie and Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno attend the meeting of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors at the Woodrow Wilson School on Princeton University Campus in Princeton, N.J. on Tuesday, March 2, 2010. (Governor Photos/Tim Larsen)

Mar. 5, 2010 - In Case You Missed It - New York Post - 'We Have No Choice' For Immediate Release: Contact: Michael Drewniak. Date: Friday, March 5, 2010 609-777-2600, By Governor Chris Christie. New York Post. Last Updated: 4:35 AM, March 5, 2010. Adapted from Gov. Chris Christie's remarks to about 200 mayors at a meeting of the New Jersey League of Municipalities. When I started in office, I had to close a $2.3 billion shortfall in the $29 billion annual budget -- and only $14 billion was left.

Of that $14 billion, $8 billion could not be touched -- because of contracts with public-worker unions, bond covenants and commitments the state made in accepting federal stimulus money.

We had to find a way to save $2.3 billion in a $6 billion pool of money. The treasurer's office presented me with 378 possible freezes and lapses to balance the budget; I accepted 375 of them.

While public pay booms, private-sector work is tough to find: Waiting to speak to recruiters at a Rutgers job fair earlier this year.

There's a great deal of discussion about me doing that by executive action. Every day that went by was a day where money was going out the door such that the $6 billion pool was getting less and less. Something needed to be done -- and the people didn't send me here to talk; they sent me here to do.

As we look ahead three weeks to my fiscal year 2011 budget address, you all need to understand the context from which we operate.

Our citizens are already the most overtaxed in America. You mayors know that the public appetite for ever-increasing taxes has reached an end.

So we're going to reduce spending at the state level -- because we have no choice.

We also have an obligation to work with the Legislature to give mayors the tools to reduce spending at the municipal level. The pension and benefit reform package just passed in the Senate is only a beginning. We need to change the rules of arbitration to level the playing field. The ever-increasing raises being given to public-sector workers as a result of the arbitration system tells us that.

By the same token, I'm tired of hearing superintendents and school-board members complain that there are no other options than raising property taxes. There are other options.

After a two-year negotiation, Marlboro gave teachers a five-year contract with 4.5 percent annual salary increases -- with zero contribution to health-care benefits. Yet I'm sure there are people in Marlboro who've lost their jobs, who've had their homes foreclosed on, who can't keep a roof over their family's head.

There's something wrong.

At some point, there has to be parity between what's happening in the real world, and what's happening in the public-sector world. The money doesn't grow on trees outside government buildings. It comes from the hardworking people of our communities who are hurting right now.

In this instance, the political class (of which all of us here are members) is lagging behind the public. The public is ready to hear that tough choices have to be made.

They're not going to like it. But they're tired of hearing, "Don't worry. I can spare you from the pain." They've been hearing that for a decade, as we have borrowed and spent and taxed our way into oblivion.

State government has done every quick fix in the book. Now we're left holding the bag.

All of you know in your heart that what I am saying is true. You know that we can't afford these raises that are being given to public employees of all stripes. You know the state can't continue to spend money it doesn't have. And you know that the appetite for tax increases among our constituents has come to an end.

So the path to reform and success is clear. We just have to have the courage to go there.

What we're doing is showing people that government can work again for them, not for us. It has worked for the political class for much too long.

There's no time left. We have no room left to borrow. We have no room left to tax.

Forget about the next election, the next newspaper editorial, the next angry letter or phone call from someone who wants something for nothing. It's time for us to show courage and resolve.

We can do it -- because we are from New Jersey. And I have never, in all my travels around the country, met a group of tougher people.

Chris Christie is New Jersey's governor.

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