If It's Good Enough For John Kline....

Since Minnesota Congressman John Kline (R-02) voted last month to repeal Health Care, perhaps he would 'walk the talk' and lead by example: Kline should opt out of his own government provided Health Care before taking ours away. It would go a long way to show his total commitment to this free and open Health Care business market he keeps telling us he supports (but doesn't actually live!).

If it's good enough for John Kline, tell me again...why should we be against it!

Kline Votes To Remove Your Health Care!

Rep. John Kline (MN-R-02) receives some of the best health care benefits in the country, much of it (up to 75%) paid for with taxpayer dollars. Yet he seems unable - or unwilling - to extend similar protections to the rest of America. Despite Kline receiving great Health Care at the taxpayer’s expense, he's done little of nothing on behalf of those who cannot afford or cannot get health care. Currently 1 in 6 adults and 10.6 billion children are without Health Care coverage.

By his vote against HCR this week, John Kline voted to raise our health insurance premiums, take away prescription drug benefits for seniors and lower doctors salaries. In other words, Kline voted to take away those same Health Care protections that he can enjoy. John Kline gets affordable Health Care with protections against insurance companies denying him (or his family) coverage...he has no life time limits, no waiting periods, no annual caps, no pre-existing conditions...in other words, he gets the Health Care coverage that he's denying the rest of us!


Call Rep. John Kline at(202) 225-2271. Let Kline know that the same health care protections he has through Congress is good enough you! That if he's really wants to eliminate Health Care, let him start by eliminating his own Health Care! With his vote against HCR, Kline is allowing the following:

- Allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to 129,000 to 333,000 individuals, including 9,000 to 39,000 children, with pre-existing conditions.

- Rescinding consumer protections for 463,000 individuals who have health insurance through their employer or the market for private insurance.

- Eliminating health care tax credits for up to 19,800 small businesses and 176,000 families.

- Increasing prescription drug costs for 11,700 seniors who hit the Part D drug “donut hole” and denying new preventive care benefits to 122,000 seniors.

- Increasing the costs of early retiree coverage for up to 11,100 early retirees.

- Eliminating new health care coverage options for 3,800 uninsured young adults.

- Increasing the number of people without health insurance by 78,000 individuals.

- Increasing the costs to hospitals of providing uncompensated care by $7 million annually.

While we are asked to sacrifice our affordable Health Care, Kline doesn't mind keeping his.

John Kline Paid To Pick HCR Side!

Health care special interests and lobbyist have invested millions in the campaigns of House and Senate leaders, chairs and ranking members of committees with primary jurisdiction over health care legislation. Minnesota's Second Congressional District Congressman John Kline is among those who has benefited from their money. CREW's (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics) data shows that John Kline has received at least $197,250 from Health Care special interests and lobbyists.

Since the Republicans have been in office, on average, they spend almost half their time trying to pass bills directly related to either repealing all or some of the Affordable Care Act or defunding it so it will fail. While Kline states the HCR is full of backroom deals and that 'the people' are 'imploring us to start over"...it would more accurate if Kline said: 'the people who are lobbyist, special interests and insiders don't want reform and are paying me to change things back before reform '.

Hypocrisy Thou Name Is Congressman John Kline

Hypocrisy: The state of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie.

Example:

Republican Congressman from Minnesota's Second District, John Kline voted today to repeal your health care while retaining his own knowing that the cost of repealing it would add to the federal deficit!

John Kline Increases the Deficit

Conservative Representative John Kline (R-MN-02) has repeatedly voted against extending unemployment benefits to 2.5 million Americans by stating:

"We can't fund everything."

By comparison, Kline supports continuing to fund tax breaks for the richest 2% of American millionaires and billionaires.

Kline is voting to borrow 700 billion dollars and increase the deficit to extend tax cuts to the richest Americans while cutting money away from the poorest. I suppose it's a question of priorities, do you support average working Americans, or the wealthiest among us? Kline decided to support the wealthy and by doing so increases the deficit.

In his fourth term in Congress, Congressman Kline has been a active participant in America's budget and deficit, as he states:

"The Washington’s culture of taxing, borrowing, and spending is doing nothing to stem the tide of lost jobs and economic uncertainty"

Now Kline owns that culture of 'taxing, borrowing and spending' because he supports cut taxes on the wealthy, while increasing the deficit. Kline's loyalties lie with the millionaires and billionaires and not with the average American.

After nearly a decade in office, are you better off today than when Kline took office? No, of course not... unless you are among the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Tell Kline there's a difference between economic well being for all Americans verses economic wealth for a few.

Rep. Kline Pleads For....Earmarks?

Rep. John Kline (R-MN-02) sent a letter to the Labor Secretary asking they use "all appropriate resources" in assisting Lockheed Martin employees that will soon be laid off when the Eagan plant closes. As Kline points out, a lost of this magnitude (1000 jobs) will threaten the overall economic well being of Eagan.

Most of the lost jobs are higher paying engineering level positions that will have a devastating domino affect on the local community. From the lost of homes, jobs and services, Eagan will have a difficult time recovering. The closing of the Eagan Lockheed Martin plant will see millions in lost revenue for the local community.

"I am deeply concerned by the implications of closing the Eagan facility. Job loss of this magnitude not only threatens the economic well-being of the workers currently employed at the facility, it also threatens the economic well-being of the broader Eagan community and the state of Minnesota."

Given Kline's anti-earmark stance, one wonders just what Kline is asking for from the Labor Secretary? It's no secret that Kline will be chairing the House Education and Labor committee starting January, so we will have an opportunity to see first hand how Kline's 'no earmarks' and 'no government involvement in business' will play out in private businesses like the Eagan Lockheed Martin plant closing that threaten the economic health of the community. Especially if that community is in Rep. John Kline's district!

Does John Kline's letter to the Labor Secretary signal a change of values for Kline, or just so much expected lip letter service when something of this magnitude happens locally? Perhaps Kline is willing to host another job fair to address his economic concern! (laugh out loud here) In the past, Kline has presented these low paying, entry level job fairs as part of his solution to the high unemployment rate.

Will Kline be mindful of his administrations ballooning budget deficit that gives tax breaks to the wealthy, but denies unemployment benefits to millions of Americans? In the last two years John Kline has repeatedly voted to deny extending unemployment benefits to millions of Americans but vows to support all of Bush's tax breaks including those for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

With Kline's strong stances against earmarks, it's hard to imagine that he would support any additional or 'special' incentives for a local community but his letter seems to imply just that by asking for immediate attention and special treatment from big brother government.

Will Rep. John Kline Continue To Cut Taxes For The Wealthiest 2%

Representative John Kline (R-MN-02), needs to make a decision... Will he be voting to continue to cut taxes on the wealthiest 2% while taxpayers pick up the tab, or will he allow them to pay their fair share like the rest of us?

The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of this year if Congress does nothing. Some of those tax cuts allow the wealthiest two percent of Americans to not pay their fair share like the rest of us. The theory was what they didn't pay in taxes would 'trickle down' to the rest of us in the way of more jobs, less costs, and magical wands we could wave during parades...but it hasn't worked and it won't ever work...

We have lots of independent studies that show there is no trickle down, just bigger windfalls for the greedy and less Americans able to work. Over a decade plus of 'trickle down' has show that reality is: Large companies making large profits that benefited fewer and fewer Americans.

Take for example any oil company operating in the United States, the larger ones made billions ($000,000,000) in profits but most didn't pay taxes. Exxon/Mobil paid zero (0) taxes in the United States for 2009. In spite of record profits for Corporations and incredible CEO pay increases, rest of us Americans declined in wealth substantially in wealth.

The price tag ($700 billion) for extending the Bush cuts for the wealthy is more than 16 times the cost of Obama’s infrastructure proposal. That $700 billion is what the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates it would cost the Treasury to continue tax cuts for top earners over 10 years. That's a lot of taxpayers supporting the very wealthy and polls show a majority of Americans are against this.

Cutting the existing tax breaks for the wealthy (or letting them lapse back to pre-2001 level) would save billions of dollars and also pay for the middle class and poor to continue their tax breaks...

One of the most common objections to letting the cuts expire for those in the highest tax brackets is that it would hurt small businesses. As Rep. John Kline likes to point out often because facts don't matter, allowing the cuts to lapse would amount to a job-killing tax hike on small business....

But this often repeated Kline claim is false and misleading at best. If, as proposed, the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire for the highest earners, the vast majority of small businesses will be unaffected. Less than 2 percent of tax returns reporting small-business income are filed by taxpayers in the top two income brackets -- individuals earning more than about $170,000 a year and families earning more than about $210,000 a year.

According to the Washington Post: If the objective is to help small businesses, continuing the Bush tax cuts on high-income taxpayers isn't the way to go -- it would miss more than 98 percent of small-business owners and would primarily help people who don't make most of their money off those businesses.

Voters will soon know if Rep. Kline represents them or just the wealthiest 2% of Americans by his vote on Bush's tax cuts as his 'hurt small business' argument is just more elitist manure.