• Home
  • About Dana
    • BIO
    • Family
    • Awards
  • Legislative Accomplishments
  • Issues
    • Current Issues
  • News
  • Donate
    • Erik Prince
    • Buzz Aldrin
    • Irish

My Vote Against the Mega Spending Bill

12/12/2014

80 Comments

 
I joined with 206 of my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, in voting against the $1.1 Trillion spending package that, after being signed into law by President Obama, will fund the federal government until next September. The one exception is the Department of Homeland Security funded only to next February.  

My opposition to the bill reflected my dismay at both procedure and policy used to secure its passage.  Over the last two years the Democrat controlled Senate has ignored over two hundred bills passed by the House, which included appropriation bills needed to fund federal departments and agencies. Yes, this vote was needed to keep the federal government open and operating, but it was a bastardization of the democratic process to shove so many different bills into one massive treatise that covers a wide spectrum of unrelated programs and policies.  If no amendments are permitted, which happened in this case, spending and policy will be approved that could never be approved if they were a separate thus accountable vote.  There were many provisions, including funding levels I found to be totally unacceptable, which at least deserved a direct vote.  For example, the bill increased funding levels for efforts concerning illegal immigration that I believe will exacerbate America's illegal immigration problems.  But the vote was all or nothing so I opted for nothing rather than acquiesce to something which will make the illegal immigration situation worse.  

The major decisions addressed by this bill should have been postponed and brought up in January immediately after the new United States Senate is sworn in.  That would certainly have meant that the policies being enacted more closely follow the current will of the American people.  Instead, the House passed a massive bill through Congress that had the support of a significant number of Democrats . . . including President Obama, which tells us something about the fundamentals of this legislative package.  I voted NO realizing there were good things included, but that was not enough to make up for the bill’s bad policy, procedure and spending levels.

80 Comments

H.Res. 758: Making Russia our Enemy

12/8/2014

15 Comments

 
Recently the House overwhelmingly passed H.Res 758, a comprehensive, hard hitting condemnation of Russia under Vladimir Putin. It was so vitriolic that it will be seen as a declaration that Russia under Putin is our enemy and the United States is not interested in any future cooperation between our countries, which I believe was the intent of those who authored H.Res 758.

I was one of only 10 members of the House who refused to jump on board this major step toward reigniting the Cold War. The resolution contained a long list of misdeeds and malicious acts perpetrated by Putin’s Russia. Some of the accusations were accurate, some were exaggerated, some were provocative but wrong. In other words with this resolution the U.S. Congress went out of its way to turn the relationship between Russia and the United States into open hostility . . . this when both of our countries would benefit greatly from cooperation against our common enemies.

 In years passed the Soviet Union was the world’s major threat to democratic government and world peace. I am proud to have been part of the fight against this evil empire from the time I was a teen to the seven years I spent in the White House as Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter and a Special Assistant to the President. But Reagan never believed the Russian people to be our enemy, nor Russia itself. Instead the enemy was the Soviet Union and once Communism was discarded Reagan wanted us to be friends and allies.

 Instead, when Reagan left office, and the walls of tyranny came crashing down, many in the west continued beating the drums of fear and hatred toward Russia. Yes, those people in Eastern Europe who lived under communist tyranny are understandably paranoid about Russia, but that must not be the basis of American policy. Today there are major threats to the United States and the free people of the world and we need Russia actively on our side. Those threats are: Radical Islamic terrorism and an emerging powerful, arrogant and totalitarian China. These two threats are a primary danger not only to us, but to Russia as well.

 Russia has been helping Pro Russian Ukrainian citizens who live in the Eastern part of that country and they annexed Crimea, which was the location of their most important naval base. H. Res 758 calls for the Crimea to be returned to Ukrainian control. It should have called for a supervised election to permit the people of Crimea to determine if they become Ukrainians or Russians. That compromise might help calm things down. Instead Congress chose to poke Russia in the eye and call Putin names.

Well, we need Russia, flawed leader and all, on our side. Instead of one sided attack resolutions we should acknowledge our concerns, but balance them with highlighting areas of mutually beneficial cooperation. We shouldn’t be pushing Russia away, we should be reaching out. We have been treating Russia as if it is still Communist and Putin as if he is Hitler. This is harmful nonsense. It creates barriers to good will rather than pathways to cooperation. We will pay a dear price if we are dragged back into a Cold War.  
15 Comments

National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2015

12/8/2014

18 Comments

 
I was one of the few Republicans to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). While I agree that The United States needs military power and technological superiority if our country is to be safe, this authorization had several flaws too great for me to ignore.

First and foremost my vote reflected outrage of something not in the bill. After struggling for a year to get into the bill language calling for Pakistan to release Dr. Afridi, that provision was stripped from the final draft of the bill. Dr. Afridi is the Pakistani Doctor who risked his life, and that of his family, to bring to justice Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind of the slaughter of 3,000 Americans on 9-11. He has been languishing in a Pakistani dungeon ever since, abandoned by the United States. We should not be giving Pakistan any military assistance or foreign aid if they continue to hold this American hero. That alone was enough to warrant a no vote.

 The NDAA also reflected a commitment to a status quo approach to defense that we the people of the United States can no longer afford. I disagree, for example, that we should again be stationing large contingents of heavy battle tanks, artillery and tens of thousands of military personnel in Europe, nor should we be anxious to involve ourselves in large scale military actions in the far reaches of the planet. The financially sound approach to maintaining our security and the stability of the world is to convince like minded countries, like Japan and India, to shoulder more of the burden themselves. This won’t happen if we just rush ahead to pick up the defense costs for friendly nations all over the world.

 It will also require us to shift away from large expensive weapons to quicker, faster, better and cheaper weapons.

For example, we continue to build massively expensive, huge aircraft carriers which can easily be wiped out with today’s long range missiles.  America has made advances in weaponry like the rail gun, drones, and the predator, that are far most cost effective in today’s world.

And finally, the NDAA included funds for arming a motley gang called the Free Syrian Army, which includes terrorist who are our enemies. The only folks in that wild part of the world who we should be arming or financing are the Kurds, who have been long time friends of the United States and have earned support from the United States. While we are at it the United States should recognize the Kurdish people as a nation.   
18 Comments

    Author

    U.S. Congressman representing CA-48. Former speechwriter for President Reagan. Surfer and father of 10 year old triplets.

    Archives

    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    June 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Paid for by Rohrabacher for Congress
Proudly powered by Weebly
Design by DivTag Templates
✕