Where is this history coming from?

Tell me, Representative, at what point in history did government spending cuts lead to economic growth? Your logic doesn't make sense. Period.

Blackburn and gay?

Congressman Blackburn and her gay sidekick. The Hillary aide is right on target... passing hatred off as patriotism is just plain sad.

Blackburn is not the 7th

From the Jackson Sun...

Blackburn, Republicans want to destroy Social Security
11:00 PM, Jun. 15, 2011

Rep. Marsha Blackburn is not one of us. She lives in a Brentwood mansion in Williamson County, one of the wealthiest in the country. She paid her children hundreds of thousands to manage an unopposed campaign. She thinks nothing of spending thousands on opera tickets. When she stoops to visit constituents, it's brief, on short notice and when most people can't attend.

Last year while Nashville was under water and tornadoes ripped through her district wreaking havoc and costing lives, she sponsored "spa day" at a posh D.C. hotel rather than checking on us. She doesn't know what it means to work hard for a living only to make ends meet. She draws a salary of $174,000 a year plus expenses. She won't have to depend on Social Security in her old age. Unlike many of our elderly and sick, she will never have to make a choice between eating and buying her medicine.

No wonder Blackburn co-sponsored Paul Ryan's plan to abolish Medicare and replace it with a "shop-your-own-insurance" voucher. No wonder Blackburn, along with six other Republicans, introduced legislation last week that allows workers to opt out of Social Security.

The SAFE (Savings Account for Every American) Act is anything but safe. Workers would be allowed to take the 6.2 percent they currently contribute to Social Security and throw it to the whims of the market in a privatized account. After 15 years, employers could also privatize their 6.2 percent match.

Reforms are needed to sustain this safety net for the aged and disabled, but diverting monies into privatized accounts means death to Social Security. Social Security will be there for us as it has been for the past 75 years, if we continue to contribute to it. If Blackburn and other GOP culprits get their way, they will destroy Social Security and Medicare for those whose very lives depend on it.

Meryl Rice
Whiteville

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Speaking of... this is where you can find our Rep. Blackburn on June 29...

New York Young Republicans Club 99th Annual Dinner
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
6:30PM – 10:00PM
Manhattan Penthouse – 80 5th Avenue (at 14th Street)

Includes passed hors d’oeuvres, open bar, and three course dinner.

The NYYRC is celebrating our 100 year anniversary! Last year’s annual dinner was our most successful annual dinner to date with over 180 attendees and this year being our 100th anniversary will be bigger and better than ever.

This event will feature Congressman Marsha Blackburn and Monica Crowley as a guest speakers, and Curtis Sliwa as emcee.

Inspiring, to say the least

One of the first pictures of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords post-shooting...

TN Legislator wrap-up

A good wrap-up from MetroPulse out of Knoxville...

Bullshit from Blackburn

The Nashville Scene calls out Blackburn on her stale ideas, and the Tennessean for praising them...

How Serious Is The GOP About Reforming Health Care?
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 1:41 PM

The answer: Not very serious, if a bill advanced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn is any indication. Read this story to find out why.

But in the meantime, I'll give you the CliffsNotes. Blackburn has proposed a piece of legislation, the Health Care Choice Act, that would mandate that states allow the interstate sale of health insurance — something that's currently illegal. It's the classic GOP free-market argument, the theory being that it would spur competition and drive down prices, thereby decreasing the shamefully massive number of uninsured Americans.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that's some seriously wishful thinking — or at least it said so back in 2005. That's when Blackburn's bill was essentially proposed before, word-for-word, by Arizona Republican John Shadegg.

We were motivated to write about this by a story in The Tennessean, which proclaimed the bill as "another advance in Blackburn's profile as a policymaker in Congress." Respectfully, we call bullshit. Read on and you'll see why.

First, we got a response from a Blackburn spokesman that didn't make it into the story. When asked about worries that states with fewer insurance regulations would poach healthier people from states with more protections, consequently depleting the counterbalance that keeps rates relatively stable, he said Blackburn's bill has an answer for that. The bill leaves intact state high-risk pools, he said.

The more Pith thought about it, the less satisfactory we found that answer.

For starters, not every state has a high-risk pool. A 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation estimate puts the number at 34, with a paltry 222,000 enrollees. Why is the number so low, you ask? Because they're a well-intentioned but failed experiment. They're too damned expensive, for obvious reasons. What can you expect from an insurance pool composed of nothing but people in various states of disrepair?

Of course, this is all merely a philosophical exercise. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell the Senate will pass a repeal measure, and it could be sometime yet before the U.S. Supreme Court gets its hands on the various legal challenges wending their way through federal district and appeals courts. And don't get us started on that.