Sample U.S. House Releases - by Targeted News Service

SPEAKER HASTERT PRAISES MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG PROGRAM

Copyright © HT Media Ltd. 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 -- House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., issued the following statement:

Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) today released the following statement regarding the Department of Health and Human Services announcement that more than 21 million seniors and people with disabilities will receive prescription drug coverage beginning January 1, 2006.

"I am glad to hear Secretary Mike Leavitt's announcement today that over 21 million Americans who need prescription drugs have enrolled with Medicare's prescription drug program. The prescription drug program is beneficial to all seniors who wrestle with the high cost of their drugs. It is a good program that Congress worked hard to pass. I ask that during this Holiday season you check to make sure that your loved ones who may need to enroll in the program, have enrolled."

REP. PELOSI TO SPEAKER HASTERT: DEMOCRATS WILL FIGHT IMMORAL REPUBLICAN BUDGET

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued the text of the following letter:

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Speaker Hastert today in response to his letter requesting unanimous consent to approve the Budget Reconciliation Conference Report, which was changed earlier this week in the Senate. Rep. Pelosi denied the Speaker's request because every single Democrat opposed this immoral budget, which will hurt low- and middle-income families.

Below is the text of Pelosi's letter:

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert

Speaker

United States House of Representatives

H-232, The Capitol

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Speaker Hastert:

I am replying to the letter you sent last night requesting unanimous consent to approve the Budget Reconciliation Conference Report, H.R. 4241.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot grant unanimous consent to bring up such contentious legislation. Contrary to its misleading title claiming to reduce the deficit, this bill will actually add billions of dollars to the deficit when combined with the Tax Reconciliation Conference Report, which you will call on the House to pass next year.

Every single House Democrat opposed this immoral bill because of the harmful cuts in student loans, health care, child support enforcement, and other assistance for seniors and low- and middle-income families.

In fact, many Members on your side of the aisle agreed that the draconian cuts were not justified, which is why the Democratic Motion to Instruct conferees to remove these onerous provisions passed by a large margin, 246 to175; 46 Republicans voted for it, nearly one-fifth of your Conference.

Furthermore, allowing the House to review the legislation again, with the Senate's changes, will give the American people and Members on both sides of the aisle the opportunity to fully scrutinize the massive impact of this bill. As you know, we did not have that opportunity prior to House consideration because we were presented in the dead of night with a 774-page conference report that had been written in private, exclusively by Republican Members. Democrats were given only four hours to review the complex provisions that would have sweeping impacts on millions of our fellow citizens. This is no way to pass legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I implore you to end the repeated abuse of the rules by the Republican majority to ram legislation through in such a secretive and unfair manner.

The Budget Reconciliation Conference Report makes a number of changes to the Medicaid cost sharing and benefits flexibility provisions that are even more painful for families than those contained in the House-passed bill. The conference report adopts even harsher increases in Medicaid co-payments and premiums than the benefit cuts in the House-passed bill. In so doing, parents will be forced to pay even more for their children to go to the doctor.

Millions of Americans needing long-term care will find it much more difficult to qualify for Medicaid because of the asset transfer provisions in the conference report, which is why the AARP strongly opposes this unfair provision.

Democrats stand ready to address the specific concerns cited in your letter. With your support, I am prepared to consider moving by unanimous consent each item mentioned in the second paragraph of your letter as separate legislation. These include measures to help Hurricane Katrina victims; dialysis providers who accept Medicare patients; Medicare beneficiaries; doctors seeking Medicare reimbursements; transitional medical assistance for families who have worked their way off welfare; child care assistance for states; extending the Milk Income Loss Contract Program (MILC) program; and funding for state high risk insurance pools under Medicaid. I agree with you that those provisions should be enacted; the best way to do so is by allowing the House to consider them separately from the numerous harmful provisions of the Reconciliation bill.

I would also note that the physician provisions and the extension of the MILC program, which you now say are urgent, were not even included in the House-passed version of the Budget Reconciliation bill. And I also remind you that an extension of the TANF welfare program, which you noted requires enactment, was adopted by unanimous consent early Monday morning.

The budget is a statement of our national priorities and our values as a nation. Unfortunately, the Budget Reconciliation Conference Report fails the moral test by slashing assistance to the middle class and our most vulnerable citizens for the sole purpose of giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest in our nation.

I urge you to accept my offer to move vital items by unanimous consent, and save the contentious parts of this legislation for the thorough consideration of the House, with a recorded vote scheduled when we return in January.

Sincerely,

Nancy Pelosi

Democratic Leader

REP. FRANK CALLS FOR DELETION OF POORLY DRAWN, OVERBROAD PROVISION AIMED AT PROTECTING BOY SCOUT ANTI-GAY POLICY

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 -- Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. (4th CD), issued the following press release:

Rep. Barney Frank today appealed to conferees on the Armed Services Authorization bill to drop a very broadly-worded provision that was clearly intended to insulate the Boy Scouts of America from any federal actions against their anti-gay policy, but is drafted so broadly as to become an interference with the work of all federal agencies, the great majority of which are, of course, not supposed to be governed by this bill.

Below is the text of Congressman Frank's letter to Senator John Warner (R-VA), Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Ranking Democratic Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the Ranking Democratic Member of the House Armed Services Committee:

December 13, 2005

I have seen the latest draft of a proposal that some are seeking to add to the Defense Authorization bill dealing with federal facilities being made available to a variety of youth organizations, which seems to be motivated in part by the concerns that have been raised over the Boy Scouts. In general, I think it is reasonable to have a policy of federal support for youth organizations, but there are specific parts of this which seem to me to make it wholly unsuitable to be simply added into an authorization of defense spending when it deals with many matters that go far beyond the scope of such a bill.

For example, on page 2 of the most recent draft I have seen, beginning on line 9, the proposed amendment says "No Federal law
shall be construed to limit any Federal agency from providing any form of support for a youth organization
that would result in the Federal agency providing less support to that youth organization
than was provided during the preceding fiscal year to that youth organization." First, why does this defense authorization deal with every single federal agency? And why is it a rule that federal agencies may never reduce the support they give to a wide range of organizations that are listed in this bill from year to year? What we have here is a classic one-way ratchet - whenever any federal agency does anything for any youth organization, that then becomes the floor for the future, and agencies that might have limited resources and wanted, for example, to rotate the extent to which they accommodate organizations would be prevented from doing so. I understand that people are trying to defend the Boy Scouts against those of us - myself included - who are very critical of their blanket exclusion of all gay males, even in the absence of any suggestion whatsoever that any of those males have ever done anything to transgress Boy Scout principles. But while I would myself oppose a narrowly drafted provision, the one that you have goes far beyond this, and seems to me a good example of why it is not useful to put this sort of thing into broader bills when they get no attention. Mandating that every federal agency that ever helps any youth organization must always help that organization - ad infinitum - at the exact same level at least that it had helped it before does not seem to me a very rational policy.

I do note that the legislation courageously argues that the provision I have just quoted "shall not apply to any youth organization that ceases to exist." But what about an organization that has substantially dropped in its membership, level of support, etc.? By excluding only those that have ceased to exist, if you adopt this, you will be insisting that the same level of support be provided even to organizations that have substantially withered, although not to the point of nonexistence. This is another example of why it is a mistake to put something so broad into this bill.