Title 18, GOP bribery & Medicare prescri ption bill

“TITLE 18 - PART I - CHAPTER 11 -
Sec. 201. - Bribery of public officials and witnesses

(b) Whoever -

(1) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent -

(A) to influence any official act






GOP pulled no punches in struggle for Medicare bill

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.

Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

The bill providing prescription drug benefits under Medicare would have been easily defeated by Republicans save for the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history. Although President Bush had to be awakened to collect the last two votes, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Majority Whip Roy Blunt made it that close. ''DeLay the Hammer'' on Saturday morning was hammering fellow conservatives.

Last Friday night, Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania hosted a dinner at the Hunan restaurant on Capitol Hill for 30 Republicans opposed to the bill. They agreed on a scaled-down plan devised by Toomey and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. It would cover only seniors without private prescription drug insurance, while retaining the bill's authorization of private health savings accounts. First, they had to defeat their president and their congressional leadership.

They almost did. There were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to House members.

Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him.

Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a ''no'' vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more.

Feeney held firm against the bill. So did DeMint and Akin. And so did Nick Smith. A steadfast party regular, he has pioneered private Social Security accounts. But he could not swallow the unfunded liabilities in this Medicare bill. The 69-year-old former dairy farmer this week was still reeling from the threat to his son. ''It was absolutely too personal,'' he told me. Over the telephone from Michigan on Saturday, Brad Smith urged his father to vote his conscience.

However, the leadership was picking off Republican dissenters, including eight of 13 House members who signed a Sept. 17 letter authored by Toomey pledging to support only a Medicare bill very different from the measure on the floor Saturday. That raised the Republican total to 216, still two votes short.

The president took to the phone, but at least two Republicans turned him down. Finally, Bush talked Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona (a ninth defector from the Toomey letter) and Butch Otter of Idaho -- into voting ''yes.'' They were warned that if this measure failed, the much more liberal Democratic bill would be brought up and passed.

The conservative Club for Growth's Steve Moore, writing to the organization's directors and founders, said defeat of the Medicare bill ''would have been a shot across the bow at the Republican establishment that conservatives are sick of the spending splurge that is going on inside Washington these last few years.''

Hammering the conservatives to prevent that may have been only a short-term triumph.”

“The House passed a deeply flawed Medicare prescription drug bill by a vote of 220-215 at 6:00am, November 22. Votes in the House usually last 15 minutes plus a traditional two minute cushion. But because the leadership did not have the votes to prevail, this vote was held open for a record two-hours-and-51-minutes as bribes and special deals were offered to convince members to vote yes.

I was targeted by lobbyists and the congressional leadership to change my vote, being a fiscal conservative and being on record as a no vote. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert talked to me for a long time about the bill and about why I should vote yes. Other members and groups made offers of extensive financial campaign support and endorsements for my son Brad who is running for my seat. They also made threats of working against Brad if I voted no. Brad heard about what was going on and called me to say he didn't want to get to Congress that way and that I should do the right thing. That added to my resolve.

http://www.house.gov/nicksmith/col31123.htm”

“Smith said it on tape.

Time to name names.”

“FBI Examining Smith Medicare Allegations

By John Bresnahan Roll Call

Three months after a controversial floor vote propelled Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) into the national spotlight, FBI agents are looking into alleged attempts to sway the Michigan Republican during a tense Nov. 22 showdown on Medicare reform, according to sources.

Smith declined to comment on whether he has had discussions with the FBI, and it is unclear if agents have actually interviewed him yet. But sources said Smith has indicated he will not seek protection under the Speech or Debate Clause, which restricts lawmakers from being questioned about legislative activity.

The injection of federal law enforcement officials into the mix raises the stakes in a controversy that has simmered since the late November vote on adding a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program.

Smith, who is retiring at the end of this session, has already met with the top Republican and Democrat on the House ethics committee, Reps. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) and Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), to discuss the events surrounding the Nov. 22 vote.

The ethics committee met Wednesday for the first time since October and the Smith case was expected to be discussed. Top House Democrats have insisted that the ethics committee must begin a full investigation of the Smith allegations on its own or they will file a formal complaint requiring the panel to do so.

If Democrats were to do that, it would end a seven-year ethics truce between the two parties and could ignite a larger ethics war if Republicans retaliate.

In the days following the November vote, Smith claimed he was offered $100,000 in campaign contributions for his son, Bradley Smith, who is seeking to succeed him in the House. Smith has changed his position somewhat now, although he continues to insist that he was offered "significant financial support" for Bradley Smith if he switched his vote.

Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) left open the Medicare vote for nearly three hours as top Republicans and White House officials tried frantically to convince GOP lawmakers to support the $400 billion Medicare prescription drug package, a major legislative initiative for President Bush and the party leadership.

The day after the vote, Smith, who opposed the bill despite extensive lobbying from Hastert and other top Republicans, charged that unnamed party leaders used "bribes and special deals" to convince wayward GOP lawmakers to support the proposal. The Medicare bill passed by a 220-215 vote.

Just over a week later, Smith told a Michigan radio station that he was offered $100,000 for Brad Smith's campaign if he voted "yes," and syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported that Smith was taunted by other Members, including Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.), after casting his no vote.

These Members allegedly told Smith that his son would never make it to Congress because of his vote on the Medicare bill.

Several weeks ago, Smith modified his story again, telling The Detroit News: "Nobody mentioned any dollar amount — Members of Congress are really too smart to come up to you on the floor and say, 'We'll give you so many dollars for this.'"”

“Can anything good come of this?

Let's hope so! FRY THEM ALL!

Err... Sorry.”

“Inquiry Ordered on Medicare Official's Charge

By ROBERT PEAR and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, March 16 — Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, ordered an internal investigation on Tuesday into accusations that the Bush administration had threatened to fire a top Medicare official if he gave data to Congress showing the high cost of the legislation that created prescription drug benefits for the elderly.

"There seems to be a cloud over this department because of this," Mr. Thompson said. "We have nothing to hide. So I want to make darn sure that everything comes out."

Mr. Thompson commented amid growing concern over statements by the chief actuary of the Medicare program, Richard S. Foster, who says he was told to withhold estimates of the cost of the legislation. Mr. Foster has said Thomas A. Scully, who was administrator of the program, threatened to dismiss him in June if he provided the information to Congress.

On Tuesday, Mr. Thompson told Dara Corrigan, the acting principal deputy inspector general of the department, to investigate.

Democrats have expressed outrage about the actuary's accusations. On Tuesday, two prominent Republican senators, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, demanded that the administration explain what it knew about the Medicare numbers.

"This is very troubling and disturbing," Ms. Snowe, a strong supporter of the new law, said. "You undermine the credibility and integrity of the legislative process any time you deliberately withhold information from Congress. You hamstring our ability to do the best job we can."

The senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, said he and his aides knew in June that Mr. Foster was "under severe pressure" to withhold information from Congress. The Democrats remained silent, Mr. Rangel said, because of fear that Mr. Foster would lose his post.

Mr. Thompson said the inspector general's office would investigate two questions, whether cost estimates were improperly withheld and whether Mr. Scully threatened Mr. Foster.

Mr. Foster conducted many analyses of the Medicare bill, estimating that the drug benefits would cost $500 billion to $600 billion over 10 years. If his figures had been known, some conservative Republicans might not have voted for the bill, and the measure might not have passed in the form that President Bush signed into law on Dec. 8.

continued...”

“WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - The Bush administration offered a new estimate of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit on Tuesday, saying it would cost $720 billion in the next 10 years.

That is much more than the $400 billion Congress assumed when it passed legislation creating the benefit in late 2003.

But administration officials said the numbers were not comparable. The original estimate was for the years 2004 to 2013. The new estimate covers the period from 2006, when the drug benefit becomes available, to 2015.

The higher figure, which provides the first glimpse of the true cost of the drug benefit, could touch off a political uproar in Congress, where conservative Republicans were already expressing alarm about the costs of Medicare, including the drug benefit.
<snip>
Representative Pete Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said: "I told you so. We can't trust numbers provided by administration officials. They'll say anything to get a bill passed. And if the new drug benefit costs more, the extra money goes to their friends in the pharmaceutical industry, not to senior citizens."
<snip>
Assumptions about the cost of the Medicare drug benefit were included in the budget that Mr. Bush unveiled on Monday. A table in one volume of the budget, titled "Analytical Perspectives," shows the drug benefit as costing $345 billion from 2005 to 2010.

Lawmakers said they were shocked to see that number because it was close to the $400 billion figure they had previously been given as the price tag for a full decade. Estimates prepared by the chief Medicare actuary show that the spending for the prescription drug benefit will total $1.2 trillion from 2006 to 2015, before taking account of income that will offset some of that cost.
<snip>

source”

“Isn’t lying to Congress grounds for impeachment?”

“Are you nutz?

I believe filling body bags for fun and profit should take precedence over that.

Get in line!!”

“Yeah, you're a real moderate there ain't ya Wavy Gravy? LOL!”

“Your definition of moderate must be "war-monger" and those who desire peace are blood-thirsty killers, Benito.

Is calling for the impeachment of a liar somehow extreme?”

“You didn't say that Mark. What you said is, "I believe filling body bags for fun and profit should take precedence over that.".

If you can't recognize this as extreme then you are in some real mental trouble. Doesn't matter if it's from a left or a right view. It's extreme as well as shamefull.”

“Dubya is filling body bags, 'kay?

Body bags are being filled as a result of Dubya's order to invade.

Body bags are being filled and Friends Of Dubya are raking in our money.

Even Stevie Wonder could see that!

I guess I've gotta spell it out for ya.

Impeachment for filling body bags should take precedence over impeachment for lying to Congress.

"Shameful", from you is like squeamishness from Jack The Ripper.
last edited: 2/09/05 11:55:32 AM”

“Hey, rationalize it any way you see fit Mark. They're your words not mine. I think those words say more than I could ever hope to use to condemn you. At least have the honesty to not try to pass your self as a ‘moderate’. If you believe the things you say so much then simply own them.

Don’t try to piss down our leg and say it’s rain.”

“Go ahead and quote me out of context all you want.

You've been trained well by the right-wing media.

“Isn’t lying to Congress grounds for impeachment?”
viOliN
11:28:35 AM
2/09/05

“Are you nutz?

I believe filling body bags for fun and profit should take precedence over that.

Get in line!!”
MarkO
11:34:43 AM
2/09/05”

“Did any of you fools really think that a prescription drug benefit in medicare would not expand to eat the entire economy?”

“It's not out of context Mark. You are suggesting that we are doing what do because filling body bags is fun and we're doing it for profit.

It's shltty no matter what context you try to put it in.”

“Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) will soon relinquish many of his properties and his freedom after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy, but he will keep his government pension and could retain the privileges enjoyed by other former members of Congress.

Cunningham has served in the House 17 years, and his right to his federal pension will not be affected by his crimes, according to a senior House aide familiar with the rules.

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/113005/news1.html”

“Who would have thought that a bill concieved as a handout to corporate donors and passed in such a corrupt manner would have turned out so poorly?

Last I heard, public health emergencies have been declared in twelve states.”