The Washington Independent » RSC

GOP Wants You to Cry for Boeing

Mike Lillis — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:35:11 +0000

The Republican Study Committee just blasted out a release attacking the Democrats’ health care reforms for forcing Boeing, among other large corporations, to pay a $150 million charge based on the bill’s elimination of a corporate tax deduction for employees’ prescription drugs.

“ObamaCare will clip the wings of the American Dream(liner),” the Republicans say, citing estimates that the charge will reduce Boeing’s earnings by 20 cents a share in the first quarter of this year.

But before you shed tears for Boeing, consider some context. Boeing is the second largest government contractor in the country, with almost $11 billion in federal contracts in 2008 alone. It’s well on its way to winning a $40 billion deal to build an Air Force tanker. And Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a long-time supporter of the Seattle-based company, was recently named head of the defense appropriations committee, which controls the purse strings of the Pentagon contracts that have treated Boeing so well.

As a result, the company isn’t exactly suffering. Indeed, its stock went from $35.58 a year ago to $73.53 yesterday — a jump of nearly $38, or 107 percent. Suddenly that 20-cent loss to help fund health reform doesn’t seem so disastrous, particularly considering the extent to which taxpayers have bolstered the company’s earnings over the years.

It’s a nuance that seems to be lost on the RSC.

GOPers: EPA Finding Threatens Kittens, Petunias

Mike Lillis — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:33:38 +0000

There is a thing called thoughtful skepticism, but this release from the Republican Study Committee, condemning the EPA’s finding that greenhouse emissions threaten human health, isn’t it.

“This is good news for all those opposed to the despicable practice of breathing,” the statement reads, “but it may put the rest of humankind in an odd spot.”

Every day, over 6 billion humans and an untold number of puppies, kittens, and other animals produce large quantities of this ubiquitous gas. Should they be required to stop breathing? And every day, trees, flowers, shrubs, and other flora use carbon dioxide to sustain their own existence. Liberals are supposedly more plant-friendly than the rest of us, so why would they try to limit a gas that is essential for plant life? If the rainforests could speak, would they be stunned by this betrayal?

It’s no mystery that Washington is a town most undedicated to nuance, but the willful failure to distinguish between a tailpipe spewing pollutants and a kitten exhaling is extreme even by the standards of this town.

Tom Price is Right

David Weigel — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:31:14 +0000

The conservative vanguard at the Republican Study Committee blasted out a statement announcing that Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia) had officially taken the helm. No surprise—he’d been elected in November. But it’s worth remembering that Rep. John Campbell (R-California), a certified public accountant from Orange County, was the front-runner to be the next RSC chairman until he cast a dastardly “yes” vote for the Wall Street bail-out.

It’s worth reading or re-reading Eve Fairbanks’s great piece on the ideological conviction of the new Republican conference for some perspective on how much career damage Campbell did with that vote. And on the other side of the coin, David Freddoso reports that Rep. Jeff Flake’s (R-Ariz.) too-far pushing against earmarks have made him realize that the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, not the Appropriations Committee, is as high as he can soar right now.