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Health

Tea Party Icon Rep. Allen West Defends Key Provisions Of Obamacare

By Scott Keyes on May 28, 2012 at 9:00 am

POMPANO BEACH, Florida — Though Rep. Allen West (R-FL) ran for Congress on a platform of completely scrapping Obamacare, he praised a number of its key provisions on Tuesday, putting him at odds with many House Republicans leading the repeal effort.

In an interview with ThinkProgress, West pointed to three popular provisions of the health care law that he would like to see preserved: allowing parents to keep children on their health insurance plans until 26, ensuring that people with pre-existing conditions aren’t denied insurance, and closing Medicare’s prescription drug donut hole:

KEYES: Say we repeal [Obamacare] tomorrow. Do you think that will then precipitate a drop in insurance premiums?

WEST: Well you’ve got to replace it. You’ve got to replace it with something. If people want to keep their kid on their insurance at 26, fine. We’ve got to make sure no American gets turned back for pre-existing conditions, that’s fine. Keep the donut hole closed, that’s fine. But what I just talked to you about, maybe 20, 25 pages of legislation.

Watch it:

The problem with West’s reasoning is that the pre-existing condition ban can’t function without an individual mandate or some other mechanism for bringing healthy people into the health care system. Without the individual responsibility provision, a death spiral begins whereby only sick people buy insurance and it soon becomes unaffordable for everybody. As the American Prospect’s Pat Caldwell writes, “the preexisting condition ban and the individual mandate are inseparably tied to one another.”

Still, West’s embrace of a few key parts of the Obamacare law puts him to the left of many of his Republican colleagues. As Politico reports, infighting has now broken out among Republicans between hard-liners who favor full repeal and lawmakers like West, who like some parts of the law. Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who is perhaps the man most responsible for Republicans coalescing around the full repeal effort, has long maintained that every piece of Obamacare needs to be scrapped, including the donut hole coverage. “There will always be those who slip through the cracks,” King explained last year.

West isn’t the only Republican who Congress who voted last year to fully repeal Obamacare but now wants to protect some of the health care law’s popular provisions. Salon notes that Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) defended the provision allowing children up to age 26 to stay on their parents’ insurance.

Economy

Allen West Says Stay-At-Home Mothers Should Be Considered Working Moms, So Long As They’re Not On Welfare

By Scott Keyes on May 24, 2012 at 2:05 pm

POMPANO BEACH, Florida — Stay-at-home moms should be considered working moms, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) argued on Tuesday — just so long as they’re not poor.

ThinkProgress discussed the issue with the south Florida congressman on Tuesday following a town hall meeting. West argued that women who stay in the home to raise kids should be considered working mothers. But when asked whether mothers who are on welfare should be allowed to stay home and raise their children, West’s position was remarkably different. Instead of advocating for the work that poor mothers do at home raising kids, West decried the “growth of the entitlement or the nanny state.”

To West, the problem isn’t welfare-to-work, which requires mothers on welfare to work outside the home; it’s “people depending on the federal government”:

KEYES: Is there any question about whether or not stay-at-home moms who are raising kids, whether or not they should be considered working moms?

WEST: [...] Go to any military installation and go on that installation to a stay-at-home mom that is taking care of that family and that household why, or even a husband, a spouse, the primary person that’s deployed, and tell them that they’re not really working. I don’t think you’ll be walking off that military installation the same way that you walked onto it.

KEYES: What about mothers who are on welfare though? Do you think they should be allowed to stay at home and raise their children?

WEST: I think that what we need to do is how do we reduce the growth of the entitlement or the nanny state. Coming from the inner city, a good thing of the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson, I think now you’re talking about second and third and getting towards fourth generation of welfare. And as I showed up there, I don’t want more people depending on the federal government. I want more people to be out there and enjoying the American dream.

Staying at home and raising kids is absolutely work, as any parent will attest. The problem is that conservatives like West will only defend the work of stay-at-home moms when they live in financially secure homes, while backing welfare reforms that prevent lower income mothers from doing the same.

Justice

Allen West Objects To Early Voting Because ‘People See It As An Entitlement’, Suggests It May Be Unconstitutional

By Scott Keyes on May 24, 2012 at 12:40 pm

POMPANO BEACH, Florida — Rep. Allen West (R-FL) took aim at early voting this week, criticizing its proliferation and suggesting that it may be unconstitutional.

In 2008, more than half of Floridians voted before Election Day, a process that former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush (R) called “wonderful.” Yet early voting has been under attack recently in Florida. Last year, the state legislature passed a voter suppression bill that slashed early voting in the state from two weeks to eight days, including cutting out the Sunday before the election, a day when many congregants in black churches would vote en masse. Worse, this appears to be part of a much larger effort to suppress the vote in Florida. Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL), for example, is currently engaged in a massive effort to remove as many as 180,000 people from the voting rolls.

ThinkProgress spoke with West about this rollback after a town hall meeting Tuesday. West was critical of “this early voting thing,” protesting that “people see it as an entitlement”:

KEYES: Obviously the state legislature rolled back a lot of the early voting days, including cutting out the Sunday before the Tuesday for voting. I’ve been speaking with a lot of voters down here and they have programs called, for instance, “Souls to the Polls” where a lot of black churches and historically Latino churches would go to church on the first Sunday of the month and then go everybody transport and vote. That’s cut out now because now it’s cut off at the Saturday before the Tuesday election. Does that concern you at all, does that bother you?

WEST: No, I think that when you look at our voting process here in the United States of America, it really comes down to you should be able to go out and vote on Election Day. If you cannot get out to vote on Election Day, you get an absentee ballot. I think that this early voting thing was something we provided and now some people see it as an entitlement, which is really not consistent with constitutional voting practices and procedures.

Early voting has no business being a partisan issue. It simply allows people who can’t reach the polls on Election Day to still participate in our democracy. It also eases the burden on election officials who can spread out the process over weeks instead of a single day. West’s opposition to a program that even Jeb Bush admits is “great” and results in “high voter turnout” is inexplicable.

Economy

EXCLUSIVE: Tea Party Icon Allen West Says He’s Willing ‘To Talk About Raising Taxes’ To Lower Debt And Deficit

By Scott Keyes on May 23, 2012 at 9:15 am

POMPANO BEACH, Florida — Perhaps the most beloved member of the freshman Republican class, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) made a startling announcement on Tuesday: he’s willing to discuss raising taxes in order to address the nation’s budget shortfall.

The Tea Party congressman’s concession came at a small town hall meeting in Pompano Beach. West stipulated that before he would consider increasing taxes, he would have to be satisfied that Congress had first “eliminated a lot of that waste, fraud, and abuse.” Once that threshold was met, West said it’d be time “to talk about raising taxes as a means to make sure we keep our debt and our deficit at a manageable level”:

QUESTIONER: How can we balance the budget without raising taxes?

WEST: [...] There are many things we can do in Washington DC. Last year, as a wet-behind-the-ears freshman, by April I found three wasteful programs in the Department of Defense. It saved the American taxpayer $357 million over 10 years. But, the question is this. If every single member in the House of Representatives, every single member in the Senate, went in on the committee of jurisdiction and oversight and they did the same thing, find $350 million in wasteful programs over the next 10 years, get it and eliminate it, think what happens for our budget. We get ourselves on the road to being able to balance this thing . Now, once we get to a point where we have waxed out the federal government, we have eliminated a lot of that waste, fraud, and abuse, then it certainly comes to the American people to talk about raising taxes as a means to make sure we keep our debt and our deficit at a manageable level.

Watch it:

The fact that West’s announcement is so surprising speaks to just how intransigent congressional Republicans have become when addressing tax and budget issues.

One of the primary reasons for their obstinance is because of a single anti-tax crusader in Washington DC, Grover Norquist. Nearly every Republican in Congress has signed Norquist’s pledge to “oppose and vote against tax increases.” Just seven House GOPers and seven in the Senate have refused.

Still, cracks are beginning to appear. Other House Republicans have shown similar angst about Norquist’s pledge recently, despite being signatories. They include Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Timothy Johnson (R-IL), Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Charles Boustany (R-LA), Mike Simpson (R-ID), and Frank Wolf (R-VA).

Economy

HOW BANKS BOUGHT THE TEA PARTY: Cash Transforms Populist Insurgents To Reliable Vote For Financial Industry

By Josh Israel and Adam Peck on May 21, 2012 at 3:45 pm

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) erupts at a constituent who asked about the bank lobby

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) erupts at a constituent who asked about the bank lobby

The 15 freshmen Republican representatives in the House Tea Party Caucus each ran in 2010 on a populist anti-Wall Street message, highlighting their opposition to bank bailouts like the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and criticizing Washington for enabling the banking sector as it became “Too Big to Fail.” After winning, all fifteen received significant PAC contributions from the banking industry — and have become a reliable vote and mouthpiece for the financial industry, a ThinkProgress analysis of campaign contributions, voting records and public statements reveals.

Rather than campaigning on a typical pro-business platform, the Tea Party freshmen tapped into public resentment of big banks and bailouts. For example, then-candidate Sandy Adams (R-FL) said on her campaign website that she “opposes government bailouts” and “would have voted against TARP and the auto bailout.” Jeff Landry (R-LA) said bailouts of private businesses had “corrupted our free market system by rewarding the irresponsible and penalizing the responsible,” blasting “bank bailouts, which led to taxpayer money directly or indirectly going into multi-million dollar bonuses.”

But in Congress, the Tea Party has toed the line for big banks. Eleven of the 15 have become co-sponsors of H.R. 3461, a top priority for the ABA. According to Americans for Financial Reform, the legislation would “tilt the playing field further in the direction of excessive deference to industry interests and tie the hands of regulators attempting to protect the public interest.” The bill would make it harder for bank examiners to do their job, giving regulatory responsibilities to an industry that’s already shown it can’t police itself.

Here is what happened:

Read more

LGBT

Rep. Allen West Claims LGBT Workplace Discrimination ‘Don’t Happen’ And Doesn’t ‘See That As Being A Big Issue’

By Scott Keyes and Annie-Rose Strasser on May 11, 2012 at 10:20 am

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), no stranger to controversy, declared on Thursday that gay people are never fired because of their sexual orientation in the United States.

“That don’t happen out here in the United States of America,” West told ThinkProgress during an interview on Capitol Hill.

When we pressed the Florida congressman for clarification, he dismissed the importance of protecting LGBT people from discrimination. “I don’t see that as being a big issue with small businesses,” West said.

KEYES: What about something like a law that say that it’s illegal to hire or fire people because they’re gay?

WEST: That don’t happen out here in the United States of America.

KEYES: You don’t think people get fired because they’re gay?

WEST: Well, I don’t see that as being a big issue with small businesses. I sit on the Small Business Committee. You know what they’re concerned about? They’re concerned about onerous tax policy, regulatory policy, and lack of access to capital because Dodd-Frank is absolutely decimating small community banks.

Watch it:

 

Though West may not like to acknowledge it, workplace discrimination against LGBT people is very real. In 29 states, it is perfectly legal to fire you for being gay. (In 34 states you can be fired for being transgender.) This is not a mere prospect. Between eight and 17 percent of gay and transgender workers have been fired or not hired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity; that rate more than doubles for gay and transgender people who have experienced workplace discrimination.

This is not the first time he has made offensive statements regarding the LGBT community. He called talk of equality and fairness “divisive” and “contrary” to American principles, opposed repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell because he reasoned that gay soldiers “can change behavior,” and called LGBT opposition to a speech of his “intolerable.”

Economy

Rep. Allen West On Food Stamps: ‘That’s How You Enslave The American People’

By Scott Keyes on May 9, 2012 at 9:30 am

As if poor people didn’t have enough to worry about, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has given them one more: enslavement.

West, speaking at the Broward County Lincoln Day Dinner this past Saturday, warned the crowd about the danger of food stamps for American society. “In the last 10 years,” West said, the “food stamp program that has gone from about $20.6 billion to over $75 billion.” The Florida congressmen saw this increase not as a society practicing compassion for its most needy, but as a more nefarious plot. “That’s not how you empower the American people,” West declared. “That’s how you enslave the American people.”

WEST: What have we seen happen recently, in the last 10 years? A food stamp program that has gone from about $20.6 billion to over $75 billion in allocation of funds. A 267 percent increase. That’s not how you empower the American people. That’s how you enslave the American people. That’s how you drive toward economic dependence instead of economic freedom.

Watch it:

Of course, there is a very good reason for the rise in demand for food stamps: the Great Recession. The economic downturn threw millions of Americans out of work, and the government has rightfully aided those who are down on their luck. As the economy recovers, the demand for food stamps is projected to decrease.

Far from being a pernicious plot to enslave the American people, food stamps are currently working just as they’re intended to: to ensure that those who live in poverty get enough to eat. As the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, food stamps are a “powerful anti-poverty program” that “lifted about 4 million Americans above the poverty line in 2010, including about 2 million children.”

Still, the situation for these Americans remains perilous, at best. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) is currently trying to slash food stamp funding, a proposal that West voted for.

NEWS FLASH

Allen West: Barney Frank ‘Should Be In A Pink Jumpsuit’ | According to Robert Draper’s new book on Congress, Do Not Ask What Good We Do, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) once told openly-gay retiring Congressman Barney Frank that he should wear a “pink jumpsuit.” Via Dave Weigel:

When Barney Frank mocks the Republicans for a marathon series of amendment votes, West calls him “a guy who for all practical purposes should be in a pink jumpsuit for what he did.”

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Apr 26, 2012 at 12:05 pm

Security

Allen West: The FBI Is Participating In ‘Cultural Suicide’

By Eli Clifton on Apr 23, 2012 at 2:03 pm

Two weeks ago, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) announced that “there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.” While West has refused to name names or provide evidence, today he moved on to claiming to have uncovered another vast conspiracy.

Appearing on Fox & Friends, West criticized the FBI for reportedly removing Islamophobic training material. The culling of FBI training materials comes after Wired’s Danger Room found that counterterrorism agents at the FBI’s training center in Quantico, VA were taught that “devout” Muslims are more likely to be “violent” and that Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers. The works of notorious anti-Islam writers Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were found in the FBI’s library and FBI counterterrorism “expert” William Gawthrop was shown telling an audience at an FBI sponsored event that Islam bore similarities to the Star Wars Death Star.

But West, whose own experience in counterterrorism includes mock executiing an Iraqi whom he suspected of witholding information about an ambush on his men, has decided that removing Islamophobic material from the FBI’s training facilities amounts to a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy. He told Brian Kilmeade:

WEST: Well I think we have to understand that when tolerance becomes a one-way street it will lead to cultural suicide. And we should not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or associated groups to be influencing our national security strategy.

KILMEADE: Do you believe they are?

WEST: Oh absolutely. When you go and look at the Fort Hood report of Major Malik Nadal Hassan, you will find that it makes no reference to Islamic jihadism, Muslim extremism, it doesn’t talk about his association with al Alwaki and it is classified as workplace violence. [...] If we continue to be recalcitrant in identifying who the enemy is to be less offensive to them, then we’re going to put ourselves in a bad situation. [...] Now you have an environment of political correctness which precludes these agents from doing their proper job and due diligence to go after the perceived threat.

Watch it:

While West is slow to provide evidence backing the conspiracies he claims to uncover, he is quick to link his political opponents to vast conspiracies to undermine the security of the United States. Indeed, scapegoating Muslims has become a go-to talking point for West.

Politics

Allen West Says Congressional Progressive Caucus Is Communist But Won’t Name Names

By Josh Israel on Apr 19, 2012 at 10:00 am

Rep. Allen West (R-FL)

Rep. Allen West (R-FL)

The fallout over Rep. Allen West’s (R-FL) Joe McCarthy-style accusation that “there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party” continues. West has not backed down from his ludicrous assertion that membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus is akin to Marxism and has even sent out a fundraising letter bragging about the comments and asking for donations to help him fight the “distortions of the corrupt liberal media.”

This morning, in an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, West repeated the charges but refused to identify which members he believed to be Communists:

O’BRIEN: So name names for me. Which? Start naming the 78 to 81.

WEST: Oh we don’t have to do that…

O’BRIEN: No, no, we do, I’m dying to know.

WEST: You can go look up the Congressional Progressive Caucus. You can go look up the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

O’BRIEN: I’ve got them right here.

WEST: Well then you’ve got the names.

O’BRIEN: So [Minnesota Democratic Rep.] Keith Ellison is a Communist?

WEST: Soledad, Soledad you know something…

O’BRIEN: [Arizona Democratic Rep.] Raúl Grijalva is a Communist?

WEST: Well look, I’m just talking about the fact that the ideologies, the principles you believe in.

O’BRIEN: [Wisconsin Democratic Rep.] Tammy Baldwin is a Communist? [California Democratic Rep.] Judy Chu is a Communist?

WEST: You can call it whatever you want. You can call it whatever you want. I’m talking about their beliefs.

O’BRIEN: No but I want to know what you’re calling it.

WEST: I’m calling it this: Communist, Progressive, Marxist, Socialist, Statist — which is another term that’s been used. I’m looking at the ideologies.

Watch the video:

West repeated his previous claims in the interview that, “at the turn of the century…American Communists renamed themselves ‘Progressive,’” and that the Congressional Progressive Caucus “actually wanted to have a constitutional amendment to redistribute wealth in the United States of America.” The amendment to which he apparently refers merely called for a progressive tax system — an idea so radical that even Mitt Romney has embraced it. And even if West’s take on early 20th century history were correct, his argument would be analogous to saying all Floridians are racist because a hundred years ago some racist people moved to Florida.

In 1950, then-Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI) famously claimed to have in his hand a list 205 known members of the Communist Party working in the U.S. Department of State. But McCarthy never made the list of names public and the list he waved during that speech was reportedly his own laundry list. It seems fitting that, like McCarthy, West is happy to launch accusations but unwilling to actually name names.

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