Republicans sound off on health care law
President Obama's event in Portland on Thursday to promote the recently enacted health care reform package elicited, not surprisingly, strong responses from Maine's top Republicans.
The strongest rhetoric came from Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster who drafted an open letter to the president "welcoming" him to the state before asking why Obama sought to hurt small businesses, seniors, rural hospitals. Webster also asserted that the law violated the U.S. Constitution and lacked bipartisanship.
“Again, welcome to Maine. Please spend a lot of money at our stores. Our mom and pop shops need the help because they aren't going to get it with your health care reform package,” said Webster at the end of the letter.
Senate Minority Leader Kevin Raye of Perry also chastised Obama's lack of bipartisanship in crafting the new law.
“It’s always an honor to welcome the President of the United States to Maine,” he said in a release. “I do wish, however, that President Obama had the same passion for Maine’s tradition of constructive bipartisanship as he does for campaign-style rallies to sell his health care law after the fact.”
Raye, former chief-of-staff for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, said Obama should have worked harder to get the approval of Maine's pair of moderate Republican senators.
“Maine’s Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have distinguished themselves by their ability to work in a bipartisan fashion. It speaks volumes that the President failed to work constructively with them and other Republicans to pass a bill that could have won support from both sides of the aisle,” Raye said in the release.
And Republican congressional candidates Jason Levesque, running in Maine's 2nd District, and Dean Scontras, running in Maine's 1st District, also sent out news releases criticizing the new law.
“The people do not want a job-killing, tax-hiking, premium-increasing, government-intervening, mandate-filled piece of legislation such as what Mike Michaud voted for and the president signed,” Levesque said in a release. “It is disingenuous to pretend that today’s visit is anything more than a political stunt to attempt to use the star of the President to garner support for a very bad, very unpopular piece of legislation.”
But Levesque also thanked Obama for coming.
“Despite my differences with many of his policies, he is the president of the United States and it is an honor to have him in my home state,” he said.
Scontras said Obama did not sufficiently address the costs associated with the new law.
“During his speech the president joked that, 'Armageddon didn't happen' after he signed the health care bill,” Scontras said in the release. “While the earth may not have trembled last week, we should all quake at the size of our debt and growing annual deficits.”
- Rebekah Metzler
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I challenge you to find
any statement I made that denies them the RIGHT to publish or to speak. All I'm saying is there is nothing new in this article. Why give a voice to people who do not accept reality. Do you silence the village idiot in the town square? No. Do you invite him to speak in your church? No. That was my point. I do not take issue with the SJ's right to publish, just their judgement to print this tripe.
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"Do you silence the village idiot in the town square?" too easy to take a cheap shot at tron.
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cheap shots are the only thing you're capable of. So go right ahead, I wouldn't want to deprive you of your sole ability to entertain yourself, aside from the obvious, of course.
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tron, what you call tripe I call news. What the NYT called news during the Bush Administration, I called tripe. It depends on your perspective.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.OK, let's start with a definition
of tripe:
something poor, worthless, or offensive. It also can mean stomach lining as a food, but I think we both are not talking about that.
NOW, tell me what you find of value in this article. What was worthwhile, new, informative or non offensive? Remember all the world knows that republicans do not like this bill and consider it the Apocalypse. So what do YOU consider newsworthy about it?
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do you read what you post? talk about tripe. everyone of your post are "poor, worthless and offensive"
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I find the article newsworthy as a whole. Now, think back to the '92 election, the MTV report asking then candidate Bill Clinton, "boxers or briefs", somehow that was newsworthy to some, but I don't care what the candidate wears. The information in this article was not covered in another article in the paper. For example, Jason Leveque thanking the President for coming. That is the first coverage of that statement I have seen.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.First Amendment.
The First Amendment allows them. It also allows you the right to answer back. From 2001 to 2009 all we heard was the complaints from the left, now that the right is complaining we should not hear. Are you afraid the if the public hears what those on the right have to say, the public might be come educated and vote those on the left out?
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.LOL..yea right
LOL..yea right
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Hyperbole by a long-shot candidate
for Congress doesn't smack of truth. Now that the legislation has passed, give it a chance. You may learn the reality of it and like it. I doubt it. But then you can vote for the clone running. And you'll be able to goose step your way down the primrose path.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.“The people do not want a
“The people do not want a job-killing, tax-hiking, premium-increasing, government-intervening, mandate-filled piece of legislation such as what Mike Michaud voted for and the president signed." You're damn straight we don't!
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.There is nothing new here
it's the same old canards the republicans have been spewing for months, each point of which has been debunked several times over. It is getting to a point these crybabies just won't accept defeat. But why does the SJ print this tripe. If it were news, that would be one thing, but there's nothing new here.
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