WASHINGTON – Congress’ dismal approval ratings haven’t gone unnoticed by Mobile’s third-term incumbent Republican congressman.
Although Rep. Jo Bonner has a solid grasp on that seat, taking no less than 60 percent of the vote in his three elections, the agenda put forth by the Democratic-led Congress seems a little warped to him.
“Last week, there was a bill moving out of committee – transgender sexual protection,” Bonner said to Lagniappe last week. “I don’t have a lot of people in Atmore, or Brewton, or Fairhope or Monroeville calling me saying ‘Jo, we really want you to get out there and fight for transgender protection – that that’s the number one issue on our mind and our hearts.’”
He alluded to other bills including the condemnation of the World War I-era genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire that incensed Turkey, the United States’ only Muslim ally in the Middle East and the tax reform proposal House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) unveiled last month that he referred to as “the mother of all tax hikes.”
“I think this agenda has kind of gotten off skew – that Speaker Pelosi and her team have put forward. I think the American people are realizing that this is not what they were promised by the so-called Democrats for a new direction”
North Mobile County Racetrack was ‘perilously close to getting off track’
It didn’t quite take an act of Congress, just the intervention of a congressman to get the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local officials to overcome environmental obstacles holding up the construction of the racetrack proposed for North Mobile County.
Last month, Bonner and local officials, including Prichard Mayor Ron Davis, Saraland Mayor Ken Williams, Chickasaw Mayor Jim Trout, Mobile County Commissioner Mike Dean and former Mobile Mayor Mike Dow along with Thompson Engineering, met with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to resolve an impasse over environmental concerns.
“I think really our role was more of a facilitator than anything else,” Bonner said.
According to Bonner, the racetrack project is slated to make it possible for the city of Prichard to double its budget. Prichard is Alabama’s 18th largest city.
“Clearly, you don’t want to overlook the environmental concerns, but also you don’t want to discount the economic issues that are involved,” Bonner added.
Commissioner Mike Dean credited Bonner for being a big part of overcoming the environmental difficulties on the October 22 “Uncle Henry Show.”
“I think it was perilously close to getting off track, but I think the developers, the city, county and the federal regulators vis-à-vis through the Corps worked to get it back on track and I think that’s good,” Bonner said.
Democrats and Republicans square off in the S-CHIP Battle Royale
It has been somewhat of a contentious issue for the establishment inside the Beltway, but the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) reauthorization debate has been more of a political game between both sides of the aisle.
Democrats accuse President Bush and Congressional Republicans, including the members of Mobile’s congressional delegation, of being unsympathetic toward children lacking health insurance.
Republicans on the other hand insist this is a political ploy – that’s not only a gateway to socialized medicine, but a political means to smear the president who has repeatedly vetoed the massive expansion bills passed by Congress.
“I am disappointed that it has become a political issue more than a policy issue,” Bonner told Lagniappe. “I don’t know many members of Congress quite frankly, maybe a few, that are not supporters of S-CHIP or more importantly, the philosophy behind S-CHIP and that’s to help insure children whose families are working American families making too much to qualify for Medicaid. This is a help up, not a handout.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions echoed those concerns.
“Republicans and Democrats in Congress are prepared to continue the S-CHIP program as it presently exists and to provide more money for it,” Sessions told Lagniappe on Oct. 31. “The problem is that the proposal pushed by the Democrats will carry this up to upper-middle class people – people making over $60,000 a year would have their family’s health care insurance paid for by the government and that was never part of the plan to help insure low-income children, which is a real problem in America.”
Local feedback has been mixed – some commending Bonner and Sessions for sticking to their guns, others crying foul because they both supported the massive expenditures for the Iraq war, which makes the expansion of the S-CHIP entitlement seem like chump change.
However, Bonner believes most in Congress would support it if a compromise is reached.
“I don’t know, [GOP presidential hopeful and Texas congressman] Ron Paul would probably vote against it, but I would imagine if we could fix these, what I think are legitimate concerns, we could get a bill passed with 375, maybe 400 members of Congress [out of 435] supporting it.”
Contact Jeff Poor at jeffreypoor@yahoo.com.
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