A Thick Skin & Determination Keep Boyda Fighting for Us

Another article from another one of Congresswoman Nancy Boyda's Congress on Your Corner events, this one in Humboldt.

The article leads with something about Boyda everyone on both sides of the aisle have learned about her since she took office: She's got a thick skin.

Why? Because even when she does something good for her district, she gets attacked by partisan broadsides- nevermind she helped her constituents back home.

Earmarks are a trickle of money, in comparison to all federal expenditures, from Washington, D.C. that members of Congress, House and Senate, propose for projects within their districts or states. Unlike most others, Boyda released the ones she proposed and they became fodder for political junkies on the 24-hour news channels.

None rivaled the infamous Alaskan “bridge to nowhere,” a $300 million project offered by Alaska Rep. Don Young to build a bridge from Ketchikan, population 8,000, to Gavina, an island where 80 people live, but “I still got a tongue lashing,” Boyda said.

She explained one to Humboldt listeners, a $100,000 proposal to aid construction of a museum in Lansing that would include $2 million to $3 million in private funding.

“There are four prisons there, including a U.S. prison and the U.S. military maximum detention center, and 14 men have given their lives,” working as prison guards, she said. “As a country we want to preserve our heritage and having a museum that documents the history of Lansing and its prisons is, I think, a good idea.”

Everyone knows the Radical Right (like our good friends at Americans for Prosperity) will never ever see that Boyda did in fact do something good for the people of Lansing with that appropriation...but the people of Kansas see it for what it is: their member of Congress caring about what's important to them.

Responding again to false Republican claims she wants to increase taxes on the middle class, Boyda told the crowd exactly what she does (and doesn't) want to do with the tax code.

Boyda is eager to end $18 billion in annual subsidies to the five biggest oil companies particularly in light of them having $181 billion in profits last year, and is critical of similar subsidies to the health insurance industry. Meanwhile, she voted against $22 billion in cuts to domestic programs (that were proposed by President Bush- BB), “including money to Area Agency on Aging, which funds this place (Humboldt’s Senior Center).”

“My opposition to he subsidies and cuts in domestic spending, money that filters down to help local government that has to face unfunded federal mandates, has been reported as me voting for tax increases,” Boyda said. “I’m in favor of keeping the tax cuts in place in for the middle class, but not for the very wealth and corporations” that enjoy huge profits.

“No one thinks tax money should go to subsidize big oil, except in Washington along partisan lines.”

She also mentioned that the top 16 hedge fund managers each made more than $1 billion last year, but none paid income tax.

“They paid 15 percent on capital gains, but no income taxes,” she said. “Does anyone think that’s right?”

She hit on immigration:

Illegal immigration was mentioned by several constituents.

Boyda said she preferred an identification system, through Social Security registration, that would offer better verification “than what we have now, which is a failure and inaccurate as much as 15 percent of the time.”

She has proposed documentation, with a photograph, name and Social Security number, in a computer database that could be checked at the click of a mouse.

“I don’t know the answer to world peace, but I don’t think immigration is that hard,” she said, noting that documenting newcomers and checking employers’ records shouldn’t be difficult.

And, just on a basically heartwarming side, Boyda told the crowd she was there in Humboldt because she didn't want to "go Washington."

“I went to Washington to make life better for everyone. Sometimes I think we can, sometimes I get awfully frustrated,” Boyda told about 40 people who listened to her 90-minute presentation, followed by individual conversations with constituents.

“Good people go off to Washington and change. I worry some about that. I don’t want to ‘go Washington,’” become insulated from the realities of everyday life in the 2nd District.

“Democracy is a contact sport and it also is a team sport. You have to understand what you’re doing” and how it plays out through layers of government, from the federal level to state to local.

“I think changes slowly are changing in Washington,” she said. “You can see it month by month.

We sent Nancy Boyda to Congress in 2006 because the direction or then-current Congressman was leading us was simply wrong. It's sad the Radical Republicans in the Senate along with the President have blocked quality change, but it's encouraging to know we have an advocate like Boyda still fighting the good fight.

Boyda & Moore lead on earmark transparency; Moran and Tiahrt MIA

Following Congresswoman Nancy Boyda's lead, Congressman Dennis Moore from the Kansas 3rd District has released a list of the federal funding he has requested for FY2009.

Republican Congressmen Todd Tiahrt & Jerry Moran have not (typical from the party of "fiscal responsibility). Neither have either of our US Senators.

As we've said before, Boyda has taken the lead on earmark reform, and, hopefully, will succeed in passing legislation to force her Kansas colleagues who are lagging behind to catch up to her.

Under these new, more transparent rules, the total cost of earmarks in the 2008 federal budget dropped by 42% – the first decline in a decade.

Calls for further reform are quickly gaining momentum. One proposal would require Congress to list all earmarks within the text of a bill, rather than in legislative committee reports (as has been a common practice in the past). The idea is worth considering, but it seems to me that shifting earmarks from one venue to another is not enough to end corruption. Instead, we must make the entire budget process more transparent.

That's why I'm sponsoring legislation to require all Member of Congress to post their earmark requests online – not just the earmarks they receive, but every earmark they request. Taxpayers have the right to know how Congress wants to spend their money.

I began holding myself to this standard of accountability last June, when I posted my 2007 earmark requests to my Congressional website. This was a sharp break from the traditional secrecy of the budget process: CNN went so far as to call me a "maverick." Maverick or not, it just makes sense that greater transparency will lead to a more efficient, more effective federal budget.

No one called him a maverick, but CongressmanTiahrt did get a particularly auspicious bit of recognition recently- Citizens Against Government Waste listed him the 34th biggest "porker" in their annual "Congressional Pig Book, " which ranks Members of Congress based on the dollar amount of earmarks they've secured for their district.

This blog doesn't have a problem with earmarks, but we don't mind providing perspective. Tiahrt was 34th, followed by Jerry Moran at 103rd, Congresswoman Boyda at 114th, and Dennis Moore at 367th.

Hopefully Kansas Republicans (and their online minions on the blogs) will remember Boyda and Moore are both out passed in "pork barrel spending" by our two Republican members.