U.S. Rep. Chris Carney did not spend much time at a seminar sponsored by his office for local businesses on how to land federal contracts monday morning.
The congressman was only at the seminar for a few minutes to greet those attending before he hopped into a car to head back to Washington for the final push before this week’s historic vote on health care reform.
Former U.S. Attorney Tom Marino, meanwhile, is making it clear how he would vote if he were in Carney’s place.
Marino, one of the Republican candidates seeking the nomination to run against Carney in the fall, said Monday that Carney ought to announce his opposition to the health care reform plan.
“If Congress were listening to the American people, they would know that we don’t want government run healthcare because it is going to raise taxes and decrease services for our senior citizens. I promise to put an end to wasteful spending, government takeovers, and backroom deals that protect special interests at the expense — and in this case — the health of everyday citizens,” Marino said.
On the other hand, pro-reform advocates plan to hold a rally Tuesday in Sunbury. The rally, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., at the intersection of Front and Market street is being sponsored by the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, Health Care for America Now, MoveOn, the Service Employees International Union and other groups.
Pennsylvania Health Accesss Network Organizer Alison Hirsch said group members have traveled to Washington to lobby for health reform, but the event Tuesday is meant to convey their message in Carney’s district.
The status quo is unsustainable, with insurance companies hiking premium rates by as much as 100% and reducing benefits at the same time, pushing more people off insurance and adding to the burden of hospitals and taxpayers. The cost of doing nothing is too high for the American people and the economy,” she said. “The Senate health care bill would end destructive insurance company practices such as: excluding people based on pre-existing conditions; rescission, or canceling policies for whatever reason; imposing lifetime caps on payments, forcing people into bankruptcy if they face a serious illness; raising rates far higher than other segments of the economy; and using consumers’ premium dollars to pay for unlimited advertising, lobbying, and sky-high CEO salaries.”
In non-health care reform news, Pat Toomey, who is seeking the Republican Party nomination for U.S. Senate has come out against the most recent jobs bill.
“The so-called Hire Act contains a net tax increase, does not eliminate earmarks, and employs badly designed tax incentives that will do little to create new jobs,” Toomey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
She said that the best way to create jobs would be with broad-based tax cuts, rather than targeted incentives which stimulate jobs that can go away when the stimulus expires. Toomey has called for a payroll tax holiday to help create jobs.
Those comments prompted the Democratic National Committee to fire away, launching a YouTube attack video: “He Doesn’t Support Us.”
“Opposing the Recovery Act and the jobs bill and their tax cutting benefits for middle class Americans and small businesses may play well to the corporate interests funding Toomey’s campaign, but it won’t help the hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians looking for jobs,” said DNC Spokesman Michael Czin. “Pat Toomey stands for a return the same policies that took the economy to the brink of depression.”
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