Tom Marino Marches to Johah Goldberg

Pot Meet Kettle

Both Congressman Tom Marino and syndicated comlumnist Jonah Goldberg talk about "Ideology."  When will the new regime begin to talk about jobs?

Tom Marino's Staff Takes Shape....What is Wrong With This?

New elected 10th Congressional Rep. Tom Marino has filled out staff positions of political director and deputy political director with Jason Fitzagerald and Leshelle Gretzula.  Fitgerald was Marino's campaign manager.

Where the story gets complicated is Fitzgerald and Gretzula are employees of JDM Consultants and engineering and consulting firm owned by John Moran located in Watsontown, PA.  These two will be paid by Marino's PAC called Marino for Congress.

JDM and Moran are looking to develop the former Celotex site in Sunbury for the expansion of the natural gas industry.  Although both are hired to direct a political agenda, who's agenda will be promoted first.

Sea of Change?

January ushers in a new era in politics both on the state and national levels.  Locally, Lynda Schlegal-Culver (R-108th) and Kurt Masser (R-107th) take over for retiring Merle Phillips and Robert Belfanti.  Both Belfanti and Phillips served their districts for 30 years. This is the first elected office for Culver and Masser moves to the state level after serving as Northumberland County commissioner for 7 years.

The Commonwealth faces some pretty stiff challenges when Tom Corbett is sworn in as governor on January 18th.  The gorilla in the room is the 4 billion dollar budget gap.  New elected state speaker tip his hand a bit in a speech that included the mention of selling off the LCB and "education costs ie the teacher union."

Corbett who campaigned on no new taxes, cutting spending and balancing the budget faces reality come January 19th.  When it comes to gas industry, this doesn't add up at all?  Corbett's top contributors were from the gas coalition.

Turning over to the federal government, PA's 10th and 11th district have freshmen congressmen in Tom Marino and Lou Barletta both from the GOP.

The first order of business for the new GOP House Majority will be a vote on the repeal of the Healthcare Act of 2010.  The GOP want to trim down 100 billion from spending and start by cutting 35 million from the congressional budget by the way is .004% of the budget.

The GOP have been very good at memory loss over the campaign trail.  While they talk about saving the world for the children and grandchildren by cutting spending in Social Security and Medicare, they tend to forget there were two wars going on for the past 8 years.  2011 will mark (yes it has been) 10 YEARS in Afghanistan and March will mark the 8th year for the war in Iraq. 

Most of the payments for these wars were off budget items but were accrued to the national debt. They were their own spending bills.

It seems like every generation is called upon to "visit hell".  Their families are asked to sacrifice and upon return resume a normal life.  For our investment in war on two fronts, what is our return? 

They latest fiasco of governance on the horizon is a possible shut down and default on debt obligations.  Could you say financial murder-suicide?

Cribbing from Dr. Robert Reich, GM now makes more cars in China than the US.  Two-thirds of GM sales now come from outside the US.  GM boasted when it became public again that half of their cars made around the world will be made with labor of $15 per hour or less.

In 2010, while most of the US were hurting, the Dow Jones and NASDAQ came in with over 10 percent returns.  This was good for  401k's provided you had a job to contribute to one.

I do have one prediction for 2011.  Investment in bootstraps should be high.

Does Tom Marino Hate College Students?

Marino talks about his mission to repeal HCR in the Daily-Item, but this little diddy caught my eye:

Marino said there was an earmark in the bill that addressed federal student loans.

"What," he asked, "does that have to do with health care?"

Although attached to HCR, it cuts out the middleman(banks and fees) in the student loan process.  The CBO estimates that  61 billion would be saved over 10 years with 36 billion going back into Pell Grants (students). The other monies would to reducing the deficit and other Democratic educational priorities.

It was a nice gravy train for lending institutions who made the profit without assuming the risk.

The Letter by Tom Marino

Tom Marino is now for the truth before he was against it. Republican 10th Congressional candidate Tom Marino has been taking some flack over a letter he claimed to have from the Justice Department allowing him to be reference for a convicted felon.  In the end no such letter exists.

Gort has a good run down of what happened here.

Pure Bunkdum who is on the right of Atilla the Hun, has given up on Tom.

There are many employees of the Justice Department in the 10th.  Seeking approval for letters like this is not an everyday occurrence.  Your reputation is on the line endorsing a convicted felon.  For 250K and two homes in Florida, maybe reputation has a price.

By the way, what was that stench in Lewisburg yesterday?

Carney Receives Thumbs Up!!!!

Local leaders and law enforcement gather in Sunbury's Cameron Park to endorse Congressman Chris Carney 3rd term reelection bid.

Carney was recently attacked by Republican challenger Tom Marino on Carney's long time stance on abortion.

Borrowing from Bob Cesca,

It's also worth noting at this point that the Republican plan for fixing the economy is, 1) Muslims can't be trusted, 2) Mexican babies can't be trust, and 3) Married gay people can't be trusted.