Tag: Washington DC

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman's spokesman, Tyler Q. Houlton, issued the following statement to the Colorado Independent on Thursday afternoon in response to the story "Coffman cites nonexistent CBO study as reason to vote against stimulus."

"Regardless of how the Congressional Budget Office estimates have been changed or suppressed over the past few days, it does not alleviate the problems of the spending package. The fact is Congressional Democrats and President Obama have increased spending by $604 billion over the next 10 years with very little of it being spent this fiscal year. It is hard to fathom how appropriating spending packages for 2019 will help our economic crisis of today.”

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in recent days has dampened the hopes of state lawmakers who are pushing to revive Colorado’s long-dormant oil shale industry.

Just after Rep. Mike Coffman voted, along with all the other House Republicans, against the $816 billion stimulus package -- the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, by its proper name -- the Aurora lawmaker blasted a statement to the press explaining his reasoning. "The American people deserve better than this pork-laden spending frenzy masquerading as a ‘stimulus package’," Coffman said. He drew on no less an authority than a Congressional Budget Office report to make the point that the spending would reach the economy too slowly to do the job. Problem is, the CBO report doesn't exist, and another, actual CBO report comes to very different conclusions.

Kristi Burton, the tireless force behind Colorado's Amendment 48, was the toast of the nation's antiabortion elite at the American Life League annual conference Friday. So much so that they even swiped the ballot measure's "personhood" moniker as the confab's title.

On the same day a West Virginia lawmaker is expected to introduce the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2009, the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining today released a report finding industry subsidies could cost American taxpayers up to $1.6 billion dollars in the coming decade.

Being a serial plagiarist may no longer be the professional equivalent of a hair shirt. Look at Vice President Joe Biden. Good thing for ex-Bush administration political operative Tim Goeglein too. He's been named the top Washington, D.C., lobbyist for Focus on the Family, according to a little-noticed "comings and goings" political column in the Fort Wayne, Ind., Journal Gazette. UPDATE: Focus on the Family Action responds to our post below the fold.

Even as we learn embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich considered appointing Oprah Winfrey to fill Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat -- Oprah was glad she wasn't on her treadmill when she heard the news -- and New York Gov. David Paterson raised the ire of the Kennedy clan by finally naming an obscure, upstate congresswoman to take Hillary Clinton's place, Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold plans to introduce a constitutional amendment that would require U.S. Senate vacancies be filled by special elections instead of gubernatorial appointments. Feingold, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, released the following statement Sunday: