How Gregg Harper Turned a Sick Child into Greater Corporate Sponsorship of Both Political Parties

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Tuesday April 29, 2014 · 5:32 PM PDT

2014/04/29 · 17:32

A very smart, brave, and outspoken little 9 year old girl from Leesburg, VA was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer in 2012. Her name was Gabriella Miller. After making a trip to Paris, compliments of the Make a Wish Foundation, she explored ways to raise money and awareness for childhood cancer and successfully did both in impressive fashion. She helped 36 other children become recipients of their dream request from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She also discovered that only a small percentage of federally budgeted funds went to childhood cancer research and so she lobbied Congress to do more.

Prior to this, a number of Republicans had been seeking to remove the voluntary Presidential election fund $3 taxes checkoff, including a Congressman from Mississippi named Gregg Harper. This fund was created in the '70s to reduce a candidate's reliance on huge contributions from individuals and special-interest groups. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton. and George W. Bush utilized this big-money tempering fund before opponents of the system killed legislative efforts to update the system, which were needed to keep pace with the evolution of presidential campaigns(1). So, after 2004, the system became prohibitive to use, but remained. Part of the Presidential fund can be used to fund the major political conventions, according to the law. Some in Congress thought that previously unsuccessful attempts at dismantling the voluntary Presidential fund checkoff system may require a more piecemeal approach in order to be successful in removing it. Enter Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor. Cantor was at the helm of hatching a plan to cut the funding of political conventions, which he saw as the most promising way to begin to disassemble the Presidential fund. So he went to Tom Cole, Republican Congressman from Oklahoma, who had previously offered up a bill to cut public funding for political conventions as a stand alone proposal. He asked Tom if he would withdraw his bill, and support a different strategy. Tom liked it (2). Cantor realized that the public funding cut to conventions, which was started after the Watergate scandal to reduce the influence of big money on conventions, was too much vinegar for the Congress to pass. You catch a whole lot more flies with honey, so Cantor surmised that marrying the cut with a different destination for the funds might be just the honey that was needed- money for none other than Gabriella Miller's cancer research cause.

JimLiljebergforCongress

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Wednesday April 09, 2014 · 8:11 PM PDT

2014/04/09 · 20:11

1. Do you support the Medicare You Can Buy Into Act (H.R. 4789, 111th Congress), which would allow all citizens or permanent residents to buy into Medicare?

YES X NO COMMENTS: It’s a great idea. It’s voluntary and people have to pay the required premiums to have it, just like any insurance. If it saves ordinary folks money, I’m in.

2. Do you agree that any immigration reform bill should:

a) Contain a meaningful path to citizenship for law-abiding undocumented immigrants currently in the United States that does not include overly punitive fines or a touchback requirement;

YES NO COMMENTS: If people have worked and paid taxes for 10-12 years. Not amnesty, but rightfully earned citizenship I could agree to.

b) Ensure that expanded legal permanent immigration, rather than expansion of temporary worker programs, serves as the United States' primary external answer to workforce shortages; and

YES NO COMMENTS: We should expand immigration for people who want to come here to work. Hard working folks should be welcome in larger numbers. For the foreign students we are giving a world-class education to, we need to change our laws so they stop leaving with their high-tech jobs and patents to compete with us in other countries!

c) Maintain current caps on the total number of non-agricultural temporary worker visas issued for any non-agricultural temporary worker programs, and also include a meaningful prevailing wage requirement keyed to the Service Contract Act and the Davis-Bacon Act?

YES X NO COMMENTS: America is the land of opportunity. When people come here to WORK they should be given minimal wages according to what anyone in the U.S. would be paid to work at that particular job.

3a. Do you support the Strengthening Social Security Act (H.R. 3118 / S. 567, 113th Congress), which would increase Social Security benefits and strengthen the program's finances?

YES X NO COMMENTS: Many people don’t realize that because of the social security tax cap that people making $220K or more actually pay half the percentage of taxes (or less) than regular folks do. This fixes that. Social Security is NOT going broke- anyone saying so is a liar.

3b. Do you oppose each of the following changes to Social Security and Medicare:

a) Raising the retirement age;

YES X NO COMMENTS: This is limiting benefits instead of fixing the unfair taxing.

b) Eliminating or reducing the cost of living adjustment, including implementing so-called "chained CPI";

YES X NO COMMENTS: This is also limiting the benefits instead of fixing the unfair taxing.

c) Directly reducing benefits;

YES X NO COMMENTS: Nobody on social security is living in luxury. Unnecessary.

d) Means-testing recipients; and

YES X NO COMMENTS: Benefits are paid out fairly in SS. It’s a great thing about the system.

e) Privatization, so-called "personal accounts," and vouchers?

YES X NO COMMENTS: These are methods to dismantle a system that is running a surplus and works well already, even with the current unfair taxation system for average incomes.

4. Do you support the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1409 / S. 560, 111th Congress), including the provision known as "card check"?

YES X NO COMMENTS: Employers should not be able to override a majority decision for employees to unionize.

5. Do you believe that all adults should be allowed to legally marry another adult of their choosing, regardless of that person's sex?

YES NO COMMENTS: It is legal in other states. The Full Faith and Credit Clause applies in Mississippi. A majority in our state do not currently favor gay marriage. The state does have the right to it’s own laws pertaining to marriage.

6. If elected, do you pledge not to join the Blue Dog Coalition or Third Way?

YES X NO COMMENTS: I will not serve corporate and Wall Street interests!

7. If elected to the Senate, do you pledge to restore majority rule to the Senate and both work and vote to end the filibuster?
YES NO COMMENTS: I favor the old (required) talking filibuster Senate rules. That should be restored.

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How Gregg Harper Turned a Sick Child into Greater Corporate Sponsorship of Both Political Parties

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