Heath Shuler

Politico reports Heath Shuler and the rest of the Blue Dogs are ready to kill the jobs bill because it requires a waver of the pay-go rules and would slightly increase the deficit. I guess Heath thinks that a decade of double digit unemployment is better than growing the deficit. He must have flunked Macro Econ in college. The Blue Dogs and the rest of the neo-Hooverites are determined to replay the Great Depression.

P.S. There are plenty of economist who are saying that a short term increase of the deficit by a jobs bill will actually decrease the deficit in the long run, by putting people back to work and returning tax revenues back to normal. Don't forget that 1/3 to 1/2 of the existing deficit is from decreased tax revenues caused by the economy cratering.

It becomes more and more obvious that health care reform is needed. In just one short Google search on the NC 11th Congressional district the following information was found. It is appalling that the amount of uninsured in the district. In a quick search of Congressman Shuler’s official website (http://shuler.house.gov/ or http://shuler.house.gov/legislation-all.shtml) I found nothing related to the current debate on health care reform. Maybe you can find it. The handwringing and nay saying in Congress must stop. We elected these folks to pass progressive legislation. We lived with eight years of screw you politics and we see what that got us. Two wars and a huge debt.

One of the best articles I've read on Blue Dogs appeared recently in The Nation. Here's a couple brief excerpts:

The Blue Dogs come largely from rural and Southern districts, and often campaign by distancing themselves from the national party. Their support comes from voters who are conservative on social issues like guns and abortion. But on bread-and-butter concerns, these legislators are voting with their contributors, not their constituents.

Jobs were cut in all but two sectors of North Carolina’s economy last month, causing the unemployment rate to jump to an all-time high of 11.1%, according to May numbers released by the state Employment Security Commission. It was reported that 508,834 people were seeking jobs in our state last month.

Another jobs report was released last week by the Pew Center on the States that provides a realistic solution for our ongoing unemployment woes, showing that North Carolina is poised to capitalize on the emerging clean energy economy. The report lists North Carolina as among the top dozen states in growing “clean energy economy jobs.” North Carolina clean energy jobs grew two times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007.

The report clearly indicates that North Carolina's struggling economy would receive a massive boost from the comprehensive clean energy bill that the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on later this week, on either Friday or Saturday.

Shuler opposes Bush plan to sell forest land

Amen.

As the Citizen-Times reports...

"(Congressman Shuler) is absolutely opposed to the sale of national forest lands in the 11th District and across North Carolina,” Shuler spokesman Andrew Whalen said. ...when things get tight around the house, you don’t sell off the front yard."

This week's column is on the weird two-headed system that governs the state education policy. Cross-posted from Ex.

One suspects that as of this writing, State Superintendent of Education June Atkinson and her public affairs staff are huddled somewhere writing a response to a recent Winston-Salem Journal editorial that says her duties are so light, she "goes to work every day, maintaining her trademark cheerful and positive attitude about life, while the deputy state superintendent of public instruction runs the department."

This, as the Journal points out, is due to a sharp reduction in the super's duties mandated in the mid-'90s by the then-GOP-led House after a row with then-state super Bob Etheridge.

Now, Atkinson, who had to fight a long court battle over a recount of the 2004 election to win her seat, is even pulling down $25K a year less than said deputy, J.B. Buxton, a former education advisor to Gov. Mike Easley, who was hired last week by the State Board of Education. And Buxton, defeated by Atkinson in the '04 primary, reports to the board, not Atkinson.

Heath Shuler's being sworn in today, and it looks like he's already got his hands full. Taylor's folks wiped out the information on the office's computers.

"They've been just as difficult as they can be," Shuler's chief of staff, Hayden Rogers, told the Citizen-Times.

Rogers said it's not just a question of his Democratic boss being inconvenienced by the outgoing eight-term Republican's staff. He said constituents who had asked their congressman for help will now have to start all over.

"We have no case files. We don't even have knowledge that casework was being done for individuals," he said. "To clean off the operating systems,

I sat at west Asheville's Tastee Diner, a downhome bastion of old school Republicans, to peruse the Asheville Citizen-Times post election analysis. I'll excerpt a few pieces here, italicizing those bits I found insightful or salient and boldfacing those bits that ought to have been mentioned before voters went to the polls.

From the editors:

"Democrat Heath Shuler’s solid win over Republican Charles Taylor reflected a national revolt against a Congress mired in scandals and ineffective - at exercising oversight of the war in Iraq and at establishing tax, trade and health care policies that support a healthy middle class."
[...]
"Though a political novice, he has the natural gifts to be an effective voice in Congress. In a time when voters hunger for authenticity and integrity, he will be well served by remaining true to the mountain values he has espoused during his campaign."