In conjunction with the release of 2010 financial disclosure statements for members of Congress, the Washington Post published a story highlighting seven freshmen lawmakers with credit debt exceeding $15,000. That included Farenthold, who, according to the Post, “has pressed for major action to control the national debt. Earlier this year, Farenthold issued a statement rejecting any increase in the debt limit without major spending cuts.”

The forms show Farenthold has outstanding credit card debt of $45,000 to $150,000. A spokesperson didn’t give a comment to the Post before the story ran.

In early March, Farenthold (the grandson of legendary Texas Democrat Sissy Farenthold) figured in a Politico story on the “millionaires club” that is the freshman class of U.S. lawmakers. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Farenthold was among the wealthiest of the new congressmen, holding more than $20 million in assets ($35.8 million to be precise).

According to the Post at the time, Farenthold’s office sent out a statement saying the rumors of his wealth were “grossly exaggerated” — attributing the skewed data to the fact that Farenthold only partially owns many of the listed assets, together with family members.

“I wish I were worth as much as the reports imply, I could use a new car!” Farenthold said in a statement to the Post.

Following up with aides, the Post reported that Farenthold’s true wealth is somewhere in the $5 million to $7 million range. The Post’s response: “Still enough for a new car, congressman.”

According to his disclosure statements, Farenthold incurred the credit card debt (spread out among three cards) in December 2010. The debt is classified as being held jointly between Farenthold and his spouse.

Since Farenthold claimed he still needed a new car, what did he use those credit cards to purchase? Perhaps it was to help secure his new job.

Farenthold loaned his campaign about $138,000 in all, according reports from theFederal Election Commission. About $6,500 of that was in the form of unpaid credit card expenses by Farenthold for his campaign. His campaign had about $163,500 in the bank as of April 15, still owing more than $125,000 in debts and obligations — nearly all of it to Farenthold himself.

Blogger Emi Kolawole attempts to describe what will happen by answering reader questions. At least a couple of his answers are sure to play badly in GOP conservative stalwart Doug Lamborn’s defense-industry-dependent and Tea Party friendly Colorado Springs district, for example :

“A shutdown would also affect pay for members of the military, said senior government officials familiar with the planning. If the current funding expires on Friday, in the middle of the military’s two-week pay period, the Defense Department would distribute paychecks [only] for the first week…”

And this one:

“Veterans of previous shutdowns are reminding [government] contractors that they could be locked out of their offices or forced to cut short any government-funded travel. During a shutdown, experts suggest contracting firms should ask employees to complete overdue training programs, take vacations or temporarily reassign them to other projects. Worst case, some firms may need to furlough employees. Boehner on Friday said any shutdown could interrupt contracts and force the government to pay more in eventual overtime costs.”

Given the nearly apocalyptic deficit and anti-government rhetoric that fueled the Tea Party movement over the last two years, the prospect of a government shut down has been looming for a lot longer than the last month. The “shut ‘er down” rhetoric of today was discernible in the “throw-the-socialists-out” rhetoric of the anti-health care reform battle of 2009 and the election campaigns that ended in November 2010. Republican candidates and officeholders who fueled or at least benefited from that rhetoric can’t now turn their back on the narrow positions that rhetoric carved out for them in office. The shut down is coming. It came with the Tea Party to Capitol Hill in January.

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Making the case as to why she should be considered for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, the Minnesota representative told Fox News last week, “I have been able to raise more money than any member of the House of Representatives in the history of the United States Congress,” according to The Washington Post’s ‘Fact Checker blog.

The Post found that Bachmann raised more money in the 2009-2010 election cycle than any other House member, bringing in $13.5 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics; her contributions came mostly from individuals, 50 percent of whom contributed $200 or less.

“Bachmann is a prodigious fundraiser, but once again her talent for hyperbole has stretched the truth a bit,” writes the Post’s Glenn Kessler. ”Her statement would have been accurate if she had added the words ‘in an election cycle.’ But instead she choose to make a sweeping statement that, as of yet, is not quite true.”

Using CRP data, the Post found that Bachmann is in fourth place in terms of total fundraising by current House members, though those figures do not include money raised from leadership Political Action Committees:

• Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio): $26.4 million
• Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.): $21.7 million
• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.): $20.5 million
• Bachmann: $19.6 million
• Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.): $18.5 million
• Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.): $17.6 million
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): $12.5 million.

Defending the new law, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote an editorial in Friday’s Columbus Dispatch debunking arguments that the health care act has not destroyed the Medicare Advantage program or harmed small businesses.

“The Affordable Care Act is not perfect; no law ever is,” Sebelius writes. “The Obama administration continues to be open to any ideas to improve it. For example, Obama has joined with Democrats and Republicans in calling for the repeal of a bookkeeping provision in the law that was too burdensome on small businesses.”

Sebelius also claims that the law is, in fact, not bad for our economy, arguing that since the president signed PPACA into law, the economy has grown at an average annual rate of 2.7 percent and created nearly 1.4 million private-sector jobs.

But it’s on this last note that opponents have come out strongly against the law, armed with Congressional Budget Office’s recently released preliminary analysis of the president’s 2012 budget, which notes:

The provisions related to expanding health insurance coverage were projected to increase the deficit between 2012 and 2021 by $1.04 trillion, on net, in CBO’s January baseline; they are now projected to increase the deficit by $1.13 trillion over that period.

Subsequent figures related to how much the health care legislation is costing American taxpayers inspired The Washington Post to call “fuzzy math” on some of the assumptive projections, pointing to the GOP-led House Energy and Commerce Committee that claimed “Obamacare Price Tag Spikes by 54%” and The Wall Street Journal, which suggested costs from the new law have risen by 8.6 percent. The Energy and Commerce Committee released a statement this week saying the cost of the health care act has increased by $500 billion, “meaning, in only one year, the cost has increased from an already staggering $938 billion price tag to $1.445 trillion.”

From the Post:

Last week was the third time that CBO has provided an estimate for the cost of the health care bill. Each time, the number has been a little different because of various technical factors, and also because different budget windows are being used, such as 2010-2019, 2012-2019 or 2012-2021. The longer the budget window, the bigger the costs and the revenues, in part because the population is getting larger and the gross domestic product is expected to increase.

The Energy and Commerce Committee came up with its increase by mixing apples and oranges. It compared the gross cost of insurance coverage provisions calculated for 2010-2019 (that’s the $938 billion number) with new figures for a different budget window, 2012-2021 (that’s the $1.445 trillion figure.) That’s kind of like saying the cost of pizza went up by comparing last year’s price for a 12-inch pie with this year’s price for a 16-inch pie.

[...]

Yes, certain provisions do not kick in immediately, but neither do many of the new taxes. The revenue estimate by the Joint Tax Committee shows that $58 billion of revenue is raised in the first four years, compared to $380 billion over the last six years. As mentioned before, the cost numbers also get larger in later years because of population and GDP growth.

The Wall Street Journal came up with its increase by comparing a different set of numbers: the net cost (which strikes us as more reasonable than the gross cost used by the House committee) for the same time period, 2012-2021, as estimated in February 2011 and March 2011. But the Journal failed to note that the CBO cost estimate in February was actually lower than its initial estimate last year, so the overall effect from last year to this year is minimal.

Doing its own health care “myths” fact-checking, the St. Petersburg Times’ PolitiFact analyzed several common statements about the PPACA and gave them ratings of true or half-true.

The following statements were rated “true.”

• Under the new health care law, “if a landscaper wants to buy a new lawnmower, or a restaurant needs a new ice-maker, they have to report that to the feds.”
• New provisions of the health care law bar the use of flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts to pay for aspirin and other non-prescription health needs.
• “With this reform, every insured American gets valuable consumer protections, and every uninsured American can become insured.”
• “Obama put a 10 percent tax on tanning.”
• Orrin Hatch (and other Republicans) co-sponsored a 1993 health care bill that had an individual mandate.

These were rated “half-true”:

• The health care bill “cuts the deficit by over $1 trillion dollars.”
• The health care reform law pays for “6 years of benefits with 10 years of tax increases.”
• The majority of people in polls do “not support Obamacare.”
• Under the clear letter of the law,” Justice Clarence Thomas “must recuse himself” from the case challenging the constitutionality of the health care law.
• The federal government “may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama’s health care bill.”

Read PolitiFact’s full analysis here.

This is a shift from just four months ago, when the same question, asked in December, found 36 percent of respondents advocating spending cuts alone and 60 percent advocated tax increases and spending cuts together (the precise numbers are now 31 to 64 percent). Increasing taxes alone remained by far the least popular option, with just 3 percent of those polled supporting such a tactic, up 1 percentage point from December.

The overwhelming popularity of combining the traditionally liberal notion of tax increases with the traditionally conservative notion of spending reductions cut across party lines, though it was more popular with Democrats than Republicans. Nearly half — 47 percent — of Republicans chose that option, compared to 77 percent of Democrats. Independents were right in line with the overall picture, with 64 percent of them choosing the twofold approach to fixing the deficit.

That wasn’t the only indication in the poll that the majority of Americans are more moderate than vocal extremists on either side of the political divide would have it. A full 71 percent of those polled said that Republicans have not been willing enough to compromise with President Obama over the budget, while only 16 percent said Republicans were too willing to compromise.

The American Independent previously reported on the poll’s findings that more than half of all Americans are now in support of legalizing same-sex marriage.

On Thursday, the Texas Senate passed a bill (for the third consecutive session) that would require physicians to have sonograms performed on women seeking abortions. The physician would have to describe sonogram images to the women, and also amplify the sound of the fetal heartbeat if present. Bill author state Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston) says women can choose not to look or hear if they wish.

Though the sonogram bill has attracted criticism from doctors for invading the physician-patient relationship, it is expected to have an even easier path to approval in the heavily GOP-dominated Texas House. Gov. Rick Perry has designated pre-abortion sonograms as priority ‘emergency’ legislation.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the new Republican majority in the U.S. House is leading debate on an amendment that would bar Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X funds, a $327 million program for family planning and reproductive health services (but not abortions). A vote on the amendment is expected today, the Washington Post reports.

Back in Texas, Texas AG Greg Abbott issued a pair of legal opinions that are, according to the Texas Tribune‘s Emily Ramshaw, “expected to force Planned Parenthood out of the state’s Women’s Health Program, which provides family planning, but not abortions, to Medicaid patients.”

Forty Planned Parenthood clinics have received $17.6 million total from the Women’s Health Program since 2007, according to the Tribune. Those clinics receiving the funds do not perform abortions, though other Planned Parenthood clinics do.

In a nutshell, Abbott’s opinions determined that: 1) the Health and Human Services Commission may not contract with ‘affiliates’ of abortion providers; and 2) HHSC has the power to define what an ‘affiliate’ is.

According to the Tribune: “With such strong Republican leadership at the helm, it’s likely HHSC will define affiliate in a way that excludes Planned Parenthood.”

Planned Parenthood officials told the Tribune that about half of the Women’s Health Program participants — who must be Medicaid patients — obtained services from Planned Parenthood clinics.

In both the congressional debate and the AG’s opinions, the funding at stake for Planned Parenthood is not used for abortions, but rather for family planning and reproductive health services.

The Associated Press has produced a chart — using figures from Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s annual report for 2008-2009 — breaking down services provided and sources of revenue for Planned Parenthood at the national level.

According to AP, about 35 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services expenditures goes toward contraception; 34 percent goes to testing/treatment of diseases/infections; 17 percent goes to cancer prevention/screening; and 10 percent to other women’s health services. Abortions account for three percent of Planned Parenthood’s expenditures on services.

Planned Parenthood receives 37 percent of its income from health center income, 33 percent from government grants and 28 percent from private contributions, according to AP.

Broder, writing about the National Governors Association meeting in late February, discussed how Branstad could be a kingmaker in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

From the Post:

An exceptionally skilled politician, Branstad is generally counted in the Pawlenty camp. His support is the main reason Pawlenty is given a chance in the leadoff caucuses – even against Huckabee, the surprise 2008 winner in Iowa; Romney, who has invested heavily in organizing the state; and perhaps others, including Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.

Branstad immediately denied the story, saying he will remain neutral in the Caucuses in two Twitter posts.

Graham, speaking with Christianity Daily, also said, “… people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.”

Graham has been spiritual counsel to numerous high-profile politicians, including presidents. During a visit to North Carolina last year, President Obama and Graham prayed together for the 29 miners who had recently been killed in a coal mine explosion in West Virginia.

However, in the Post/ABC poll, 51 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy, and 60 percent think the country is on the ‘wrong track.’ The increase could be for a few reasons — his handling of the shootings in Tucson, the end of the midterm elections wherein Republicans bashed his policies or having a Republican House to deflect some of the attention.

The Republican field remains very unformed about a year out of the Iowa Caucuses — former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has 21 percent of poll respondents’ support, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has 19 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 17 percent. In short, there is no frontrunner. In addition, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has 9 percent and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has eight percent. Several other mentioned candidates — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. John Thune (S.D.), Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour — have less than three percent. No one — except for longshot candidate and businessman Herman Cain — has announced anything yet, and others, namely Chris Christie, have denied interest in running.

The CBO expects the tax cuts deal to cost $858 billion over 10 years, while the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act had a cost of $787 billion. A Congressional Research Service study shows that the extension of all of the Bush tax cuts for two years will cost $675.2 billion over ten years.

Influential conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post this morning that President Obama “won” the tax cut debate by negotiating “the biggest stimulus in American history.” Meanwhile, House Democrats in a private meeting gave a vote of ‘no-confidence’ to the tax cut deal, as the House already voted to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class.