Despite a very heated race for US Senate in 2012 in Pennsylvania, and despite what appeared to be an imminent open primary, Steve Welch (WelchForPA.com) has taken the PA State Republican Committee endorsement. In a vote that appeared to be much closer from the outside, Welch won on the first ballot cast by simple majority. No small feat when you consider that there were 5 candidates vying for the endorsement. The Welch campaign had been gaining momentum with many endorsements from countywide officials over the last few weeks/months. However, an endorsement by Gov. Tom Corbett Friday launched Welch to the top.

However, at a time when we should be united towards one agenda, defeating Bob Casey- Barack Obama lite, 4 candidates had already made clear their intentions of running despite the State Committee endorsement. This will continue to be a race to watch very closely.

For now, the Welch campaign can and should celebrate their huge victory today!

For Steve Welch’s full remarks to the State Committee after the endorsement: Click Here.

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1. David Freed Steps Up, Will He Get Knocked Down?

Campaign finance data for Pennsylvania has been posted online in a new,
user-friendly format, it was announced today.

The data, formerly only available on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s
website in a limited fashion, has been posted on a website with all
available information dating back to 1998.

“The search tools and information provided by the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania Department of State are cumbersome at best,” said David Lynn, a
database programmer based in Northeast Philadelphia. “I wanted to make it
easier for people to review the data. I also wanted to provide more
complete information than the Commonwealth provides at their website.”

Lynn created the files from text files available on the Commonwealth’s
Department of State FTP site. He converted the data into HTML files, and
has posted them on his business website, DAL Services, Inc.

Lynn has also created a Pennsylvania Political Campaign Management Database which can also be found on the DAL Services website.

With increased amounts of public information more and more private individuals and organizations are going to find creative ways of making that data available to the general public. This is transparency in action.

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Guest Post from Leo Knepper, Pennsylvania State Director of Heritage Action for America. He can also be found on on facebook and twitter.

On Wednesday, not one of Pennsylvania’s so-called “conservative” Blue Dog Democrats voted to repeal Obamacare. U.S. Representatives Jason Altmire (PA 4), Mark Critz (PA 12) and Tim Holden (PA 17) all voted to keep Obamacare securely in place. This vote was notable since both Altmire and Holden had sought to distance themselves last year from their party by highlighting their refusal to vote for passage of Obamacare, campaigning as opponents of the law.  Unfortunately, they refused to stand for its repeal when given the chance.

Both men offered similar excuses for not supporting a full repeal. Representative Altmire in an article posted on the TibLive website stated: “But it has been enacted, and I would not support a blanket repeal because it’s, first of all, politically impossible. … From that side alone, it’s a waste of time and taxpayer money.” For someone who purports to be concerned about taxpayer money it seems odd that he wouldn’t support  the repeal of a law which is expected to cost taxpayers  $115 billion in implementation costs alone and $2.6 trillion overall.  On the other hand, Representative Holden told the Republican and Herald that the repeal effort was “political theater” and a “waste of time”.

Impossible?  Waste of time?  It is a fact that Congress has repealed unpopular laws before, such as when the Medicare Catastrophic legislation was repealed in 1989 after only one year and a mutiny by disaffected seniors.  And, the only reason that this important debate over repeal resembles political theater is because members like Altmire and Holden, who claim to oppose the law, have made its repeal a partisan issue.

These men evidently lack the fortitude to say what they really mean. They are unwilling to go against the President and their own party to give voice to their constituents’ desire to see this unabashed expansion of government fully repealed and a fresh start made to reform healthcare (and not just in name only). While they would have their constituents believe they are independent of their party leadership, this vote clearly illustrated how short a leash these Blue Dogs are given.
The next false choice that Rep. Holden offered is that all of the “good” benefits that his constituents enjoy would immediately go away.  Holden specifically mentions the poll-tested and much-hyped mandate that requires insurance companies to cover individuals with preexisting conditions.  Despite the mandate’s apparent popularity, even the left admits that this policy drives up the cost of healthcare for everyone, absent a companion mandate for everyone to purchase health insurance (because otherwise people refuse to purchase healthcare until they’re sick).  In other words, you cannot be for the mandate to cover preexisting conditions without being for the unpopular individual mandate to purchase health insurance, which Holden claims to oppose.  Instead, conservatives have attempted to address the healthcare needs of individuals with preexisting conditions by setting up high-risk pools at the state level.  However, this is a great example of why even the politically popular provisions of Obamacare cannot survive scrutiny and why the entire law needs to be scrapped, allowing Congress to start over with legislation to lower the cost of healthcare.

Obamacare represents one of the largest expansions of government authority in over a generation. It’s unfortunate that Jason Altmire and Tim Holden would not stand behind their principles, which they cited when they initially voted against passage of the legislation last March and during their election campaigns. Rep. Altmire when asked about voting against the legislation noted “it would be an even bigger mistake to pass legislation that could compound the problem of skyrocketing health care costs.” On the other hand Rep. Holden stated directly that the legislation “was not in the interest of my constituency.” Both men claimed to recognize the flaws with this legislation then.  Yet, when presented with the opportunity to undo the damage their party had done they clearly lacked the courage to back up their convictions.

Leo Knepper is the Pennsylvania State Director of Heritage Action for America. He can also be found on on facebook and twitter.

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Americans United for Life has released their Pro-Life State rankings. This year Pennsylvania came in 3rd (no change from last year. Visit AUL.org to learn more.

Pennsylvania Ranks 3rd

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Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by Senator Toomey

How to Freeze the Debt Ceiling Without Risking Defaul

Next year, the government will have 10 times more income than it needs to honor its interest obligations.

Senator Toomey

By PAT TOOMEY

As members of Congress debate whether to raise the U.S. debt ceiling—the limit on our government’s debt—we should all agree on at least one thing: Under no circumstances is it acceptable for the U.S. to default on its debt. Not only are we morally obligated to honor our debts, but we benefit greatly from the nearly universal conviction that those who lend to us will always be repaid, on time and in full. We should never undermine that conviction.

Fortunately, even if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, a default on our debt need not follow when our borrowings reach their limit in the next few months. I intend to introduce legislation to make sure of this.

For months, some political leaders and commentators have argued that failure to raise the debt ceiling would necessarily cause the U.S. to default on its debt. President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors chairman, Austan Goolsbee, recently warned, “If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity. I don’t see why anybody’s talking about playing chicken with the debt ceiling.”

In fact, if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling, the federal government will still have far more than enough money to fully service our debt. Next year, for instance, about 6.5% of all projected federal government expenditures will go to interest on our debt, and tax revenue is projected to cover about 67% of all government expenditures. With roughly 10 times more income than needed to honor our debt obligations, why would we ever default?

To make absolutely sure, I intend to introduce legislation that would require the Treasury to make interest payments on our debt its first priority in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised. This would not only ensure the continued confidence of investors at home and abroad, but would enable us to have an honest debate about the consequences of our eventual decision about the debt ceiling.

If we do not raise it, the government’s tax revenue will enable us to fund roughly two-thirds of projected expenditures, including interest payments. Without the ability to borrow the other third, spending cuts would be sudden and severe: Projects would be postponed, some vendor payments would be delayed, certain programs would be suspended, and many government employees might be furloughed. Default would easily be avoided, but these cuts would certainly be disruptive. That’s why I hope we can avoid this scenario.

But it would be even worse simply to raise the debt ceiling without regaining control of federal spending. The recent surge in spending, both in absolute dollars and as a percentage of our GDP, has driven us to record deficits and an explosion of debt. The growth in discretionary spending has been the most dramatic, but in the future mandatory entitlement spending will be the deficit driver. Congress must address both in order to put the government back on a sustainable fiscal path.

The vote on whether to raise the debt ceiling—and, if so, by how much—is our best opportunity to insist that any increase in our nation’s debt be coupled with concrete steps toward fiscal sanity. Congress should make increasing our debt contingent on immediate cuts in spending and effective reforms of the spending process that helped get us into this mess.

For too many years, Congress has ignored or exacerbated the looming fiscal crisis created by overspending. Last fall’s elections were largely a call to finally deal with this imminent threat, and the vote on the debt ceiling is Congress’s opportunity to begin making real progress. We can do so without jeopardizing the full faith and credit of our country—and we should.

Mr. Toomey, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.

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