My statement on the passage of Speaker Pelosi's government run health care plan:

Today, America witnessed the first vote for the end of representative government. Congressional Democrats said no to the will of the American people and voted yes to President Obama’s $2.5 trillion government run health care system. The President, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the architects of a system that encourages out of control spending, increased national debt and does nothing to control the cost of health care.  Americans across the country made their voices heard and flatly rejected this legislation loaded with special deals and tax increases, but Democrats did not listen and instead chose to force this bill through because they believe they know what’s best for the American people.

The simple truth is this bill will allow taxpayer dollars to pay for elective abortions, as confirmed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and that the Executive Order negotiated by Rep. Bart Stupak does nothing to trump the language in the bill. It is, at best, a ruse. Further, the bill will cause 9 million people to lose the insurance they have now; it will increase the deficit by over a hundred billion dollars when all the components (including the physician fee schedule change) are included; it will increase taxes by $569 Billion; it will cut Medicare by $524 Billion; it will increase premiums by 10 percent for people without employer-based insurance; and, it will create a new marriage penalty with new income and investment taxes. And after all the spending has been done and the bill is fully implemented, 23 million people will still be uninsured in 2019.

The American people are sick of the blatant arrogance of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and the Senate Majority Leader Reid.  Congressional Democrats can be sure that voters in their districts will not forget this vote that will negatively affect Americans for generations to come.  It is time to fire Nancy Pelosi and send a message to President Obama that it’s time to stop their partisan liberal agenda of government takeovers and start working for Americans to create jobs and grow our economy.

Yesterday, I wrote an opinion piece for LifeNews.com discussing the important issue of Life now at stake as the Democrats move to pass their “health care reform” legislation through Congress.  I encourage you to take a look and share it with friends and family if you have the time:     

I'm grateful that half a century ago, a certain young, scared and pregnant woman didn't walk into an Orwellian-named “community health center” funded by a Democrat healthcare scheme. If she had, I might not have made it out alive.

Instead, she walked into St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home, and we both received the medical and spiritual care that we needed. St. Ann’s made the connection between me and Maebell, the selfless, hardworking mom who adopted me and, later, my sister.

In the name of “health,” pro-abortion Democrats intend to turn community health centers – many of which are simply Planned Parenthood clinics - into taxpayer-sponsored abortion mills, funded with $11 billion appropriated outside of the usual protections banning federal funding of abortion. …

Read the full version at LifeNews.com. 

Please join me in signing this pledge as a commitment to defeat Speaker Pelosi and any Democrat who goes along with her plan for government run health care:

Speaker Pelosi: You have proved that you will do anything to authorize a government takeover of our health care. Five years ago, you said that the tricks you are using to pass this bill were unconstitutional. Now you have deemed them necessary to furthering your agenda. Your actions are despicable, and you and your allies will be held accountable for them.

To any Democrat who chooses to join with Speaker Pelosi in supporting the passage of the health care bill currently under consideration: I pledge my time, energy, and money to ensuring that you are removed from office this November. I will live up to my pledge.

Madam Speaker, you and your allies are employees of the American people, and we will fire you for what you have done.

Sign the Pledge NOW.

As the Democrats prepare their final push on health care “reform,” I think we'd do well to remember the words  President Obama once spoke, first as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and then as a presidential candidate:  “[t]here’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.”

Unfortunately for President Obama, the United States of America opposes his plan for government-run health care.  The American people are united against the plan because of eye-grabbing headlines showing the chaos and deception surrounding the Democrats' health care push which has taught them how bad this bill is, how twisted this process has gotten, and how tragically desperate the Democrats have become.

Americans have learned about the abuses the Democratic majority is perpetrating upon our system of governance, including the use of obscure and possibly unconstitutional House and Senate legislative procedures to squeak by an unpopular bill that will affect at least one sixth of our economy, and they don’t like it.

Candidate Obama’s instincts were right about the American people.  And, thanks to his leadership and the support of his Democratic allies in Congress, he’s managed to unite Americans of all political stripes… in opposition to this bad bill and this tragically flawed process.  Join us in letting your member of Congress know that the United States of America does not want this bill. 

Rep. Paul Ryan tells Fox’s Greta exactly why the President and Democrats in Congress – despite clear warning signs in ugly polls and ominous election defeats like the one in Massachusetts – are still forcing a flawed health care bill on the American people: 

…really what this is more about is ideology than health care policy. Because if this was about health care policy we could get a bi-partisan agreement tomorrow. It’s not about health care policy. They are trying to ram it through as fast as they can before their power slips away from them and that’s why they’re trying to create this brand new entitlement which really does have the government takeover 17% of our economy…

View the entire transcript at Fox News.  

"You've got to break out of what I call the - sort of - 50-plus-one pattern of presidential politics, which is you have nasty primaries where everybody's disheartened, then you divide the country… and then you can't govern…" Those were candidate Obama’s words during the 2008 campaign. How times have changed.

In 2008, candidate Obama delivered a series of impassioned speeches in key battleground states.  He galvanized the electorate with anti-Washington rhetoric and instilled in voters the belief that America can overcome its challenges if we put aside politics and transcend our differences for the greater good.  America believed that he could help turn their hope into real action.  It was this rhetorical ability that helped push his candidacy across the finish line.

But this week President Obama began a series of speeches designed to promote his much-maligned health care bill.  He’s employing the same strategy as in ’08, casting his version of health care as a matter of social justice, as though it’s America’s shared moral obligation to pass his reform bill:  “We don’t give up. We don’t quit…that’s who we are,” President Obama declared to at a campaign-like rally in Pennsylvania.   

Delivering real policy solutions with broad bipartisan appeal to help overcome America’s challenges is more complicated than delivering poll-tested rhetoric for the campaign trail and forcing legislation through Congress on a party-line vote.  

But will the President’s last-ditch effort be enough? Will it be enough to reverse the contempt a majority of Americans hold for this flawed health care bill and the partisan stink it has become?   

I’m sorry to say, these questions no longer matter.  Despite selling America on the post-partisan candidate then refusing to consider almost every Republican proposal, this White House has chosen to govern with a 50-plus-1 strategy—precisely the governing philosophy candidate Obama derided just months earlier. Doing this will only increase partisanship in Washington, and prevent us from overcoming the very real challenges that Americans face.

Health care reform isn’t about politics or ideology, but rather about the families, businesses, and economy of our nation.  But sadly, this President’s actions have often failed to live up to his words.      

Standby. An impending Chernobyl-like disaster is on the way: Obama has decided to launch the nuclear option on health care – reconciliation.

With no hope of reaching the 60-vote threshold necessary for a Senate victory and the American public growing increasingly against the Obama’s government-run takeover of health care bill, the President has decided that reconciliation is the only way he can get ObamaCare across the finish line and onto his desk.

Forget that 57% of Americans want him to start over on this bill. Forget that he doesn’t even have the 60 necessary “yes” votes from his own Party to pass this bill. The President is willing to do anything possible to force this bill through Congress – because instead of worrying about what the American people want, he’s more concerned with his imposing his own agenda.

What President Obama fails to recognize is that while reconciliation has been used before, in the last 19 reconciliation bills enacted into law, 12 of them were bipartisan and passed with the support of 60 of more Senators – something the President can’t say about his health care bill.

Mr. President, instead of risking a nuclear meltdown down of the health care system by ramming a 2,074 page bill through the Senate, the House, and down the throats of the American public – do everyone a favor and rip up your massive bill and start over.

Sign the Petition: Start Over on Health Care Reform

Last night on Larry King Live, I reminded Democrats why another speech on health care “reform” is not going to reverse the American people’s opposition to a flawed bill and a flawed process.

The American people know that this bill is a 2700-page monstrosity, and no matter what you add to it or how it is tweaked, it doesn’t change the ultimate effect of the bill, which is to diminish the relationship between doctors and patient while increasing governmental control over your health care.  That is not the model the American people want.  

The bottom line is that this debate isn’t about whether the President and Congressional Democrats can fit a couple GOP ideas into their liberal plan – it’s about two fundamentally different approaches to governing and different notions of what is best for America.  The Democrats trust government bureaucrats in Washington - bureaucrats who want to spend trillions of dollars we don’t have - to “reform” health care.  Republicans trust the American people to make their own decisions on health care and want to lower costs by empowering individuals to be able to obtain quality, affordable coverage through market-based solutions.

Should I take one for the team or take one home for the district?

In the debate over health care reform, this is the question that Democrats are forced to ask themselves.  To date, it has been moderate Democrats in politically vulnerable districts who disagreed with the bill.  Most of these disagreements hinged on the fact that the bill spent too much without achieving the intended goal: bringing down health care costs for all Americans.  Most of these members swallowed their pride, "took one for the team" and voted to advance the President's signature domestic initiative.  Others that held out longer were able to force Democratic Leaders to cut "deals" for their votes, like the "Louisiana Purchase" and the "Cornhusker Kickback," when Sens. Landrieu and Nelson "took one home for the district."    

For Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi, it wasn’t good policy that advanced the health care debate.  It was a series of decisions where Democrats compromised their principles.  They either took one for the team or were guaranteed some serious "pork" to help justify to their districts why they supported such a bad bill. 

After bruising electoral defeats resulting from Americans becoming frustrated with not only the policy, but also the process, President Obama tried to shift blame. In early February, he stated, "The public has soured on the process that they saw over the past year.  I think that actually contaminates how they view the substance of the bills." 

Unfortunately for the President, the Democrats "reform" effort was already sliding in the polls even before the backroom deals started to become public. The shady process had just made matters worse.   

In the coming days, the Democrats will release a final bill, absent the special "deal-making" provisions, and plan to push it through under reconciliation, a parliamentary trick the American people stand firmly against.  But will “No Deals = No Deal?” Even though the Democrats plan to use reconciliation, a maneuver that will take 50 votes instead of 60 in the Senate, it looks like they are still short on votes.  

One major reason why the Democrats will remain short on votes is some 15-20 House Democrats who will not support a bill that deviates from the long-standing federal policy of not using taxpayer funds to pay for abortion.  This option is likely, according to Democrat Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, if Congress chooses reconciliation: “Well, I think changes to abortion would probably not be permitted under reconciliation and the Byrd Rule requirement.”  

Will Democrats in the House and Senate take another one for the team? Will Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi begin another round of let’s make a deal?  Or will “No Deals = No Deal?” 

Check out today’s RNC Research piece:  No Deals = No Deal?

If the Democrats hadn’t received so many devastating political blows over the last year, I’m not sure they would have ever thought twice about America’s growing opposition to their policies.  Without their stunning defeat in deep-blue Massachusetts - a glaring rejection of a partisan health care “reform” scheme on the cusp of passage – they would have forged ahead.

Massachusetts voters didn’t have to wait until November to make their voices heard. With one election they demonstrated their clear opposition to the Democrats’ policies. And now, the Democrats, far from celebrating health care “reform’s” once-certain passage, seem to be thinking twice about their agenda, and are acting a little more open to a bipartisan approach to governing.  

With America’s opposition to a government takeover of health care only growing stronger, the White House today is holding a “health care summit,” where the Administration will seek to accomplish in six hours what it couldn’t accomplish in the last twelve months.

For the sake of our country’s economic security, I still hold out some hope that Democrats will approach today’s summit ready to put good policy ahead of ideology and move forward with incremental health care reform that achieves our intended goals: lowering costs for all Americans that currently have health care, creating a more efficient marketplace thus expanding coverage to more Americans, and slowing the growth of entitlement costs so that our children and grandchildren aren’t left with mountains of debt. 

Based on the Democrats’ words and actions leading up to the summit, I’m not optimistic. Considering that President Obama has already drafted a bill that mirrors Reid’s budget-busting failure of a bill before negotiations have even begun, Congressional Democrats don’t seem  willing to shelve the partisan proposals that already failed to pass. And  no Democratic leader is willing to take reconciliation off the table, I’m guessing that today’s White House “health care summit” will end up being just another PR stunt designed to put a new face on the same policies Americans have already rejected.    

If that’s the case, it would be the height of hypocrisy for the Obama Administration to lecture Republicans on bipartisanship while unveiling a health care bill that it intends to push through Congress via reconciliation without any Republican support. 

Only time will only tell which path the Democrats will choose.  I’ll leave it to the voters to decide whether they made the right choice.

Be sure to tune in for the RNC Research Department’s live online response during today’s “summit”: www.GOP.com/LiveResponse 

Yesterday, when speaking on the topic of education before the nation’s governors, President Obama stated, "We want to find out what works.” He went on to state, “If we can come together to do all this – in Washington, in state houses, across party and ideology – we'll raise the quality of American education…"

Unfortunately, there are some education programs where we have already found out “what works,” and which also share support “across party and ideology.”  One program happens to be in the President’s own back yard — the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship (D.C. OSP).  Highlighted below are several passages from an important piece written by Virginia Walden Ford, the executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, and Lindsey Burke, a domestic policy researcher at the Heritage Foundation, outlining why the President should heed his own advice, place good policy before politics and work - not just talk - across the aisle to galvanize support for “what works”— the D.C. OSP.

Fifty years ago, African Americans fought to enroll their children in public schools that would give their children an equal chance for a quality education… But today’s schools are not the same schools they fought to get into. Too many of today’s schools are failing African American and Hispanic students. In the 1950s, politicians stood at the door to keep African American students out. Now, they are standing at the door to keep them in.

But when the D.C. OSP was created in 2004, parents saw a lifeline for their children. And as a result, scholarship students report feeling safer and are making tremendous academic gains. According to a federally mandated evaluation, the use of an Opportunity Scholarship resulted in the equivalent of 3.7 months in additional learning for students. Moreover, these $7,500 scholarships, which make it possible for students to attend a private school, are half the cost of the $15,000 per pupil price-tag for a year in a D.C. public school.

The D.C. public schools fail low-income minority students at an unacceptable rate; the Opportunity Scholarships work. Academic achievement has risen, parents are satisfied, and more than 70 percent of D.C. residents support the program’s continuation. For an administration that promised to do “what works” in education, the elimination of the OSP is a brazen detour from that plan.

Read the entire piece at National Review Online. 

To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the stimulus’s passage, I have penned an op-ed for The Daily Caller; I hope that you'll take the time to read it:

Over a year ago, the American people placed an enormous amount of trust in President Obama to make good on his promises of renewed responsibility and a new era of political bipartisanship. However, when faced with an extreme economic downturn he used the crisis as a means to his liberal ends and with the help of his Congressional allies forced his failed $862 billion stimulus package on America.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this failed stimulus package, something the president still claims as one of his signature achievements and which he proclaimed would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs and keep unemployment below 8 percent. Since those early heady days of the Obama administration the American people have seen behind the curtain of rhetoric and watched as millions of jobs were lost and unemployment rose into the double digits.

While the Democrats spend their President’s Day recess celebrating their stimulus bill, something Speaker Nancy Pelosi called “a hallmark achievement of this Congress,” the American people are faced with the daily consequences of broken promises and fiscal irresponsibility. The fact is over 20,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of January, meaning more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus passed. And let’s not forget the 136,000 workers became discouraged last month from seeking work, bringing the total number of workers who have given up hope of finding a job to over 1 million.

President Obama promised 3.5 million jobs would be created by December 2010 which means Democrats need to create 6.3 million jobs over the next 10 months to meet their own rhetorical standard, a level of job growth that has never been achieved in American history. The president might call his fiscal and job creation plans a “new foundation for prosperity,” but in reality his binge spending agenda sets the stage for the type of economic stagnation that would make even Jimmy Carter blush.

To View The Entire Article, Please Visit: http://dailycaller.com/2010/02/17/the-failure-of-a-stimulus/

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Daytona 500 also known as the Great American Race this past Valentine's Day!  It was my first experience at the Daytona 500 and it was awesome. When I think about what I enjoyed most about my day, it all comes down to the people.   The everyday Americans from all walks of life that I had a chance to meet from all over the country, even my home state of Maryland!  The energy was high, the fans were pumped up and everyone had a great time. I shot a quick message en route to Pit Row I hope you enjoy it!

RNC Chairman Michael Steele and fellow NASCAR fans enjoying their time in the pits during the Great American Race.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele enjoying some laughs with supporters during the race.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele takes some time to hang out with actor Harry Conick, Jr.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele talks with three-time Daytona 500 winner Jeff Gordon.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele chats with Gov. Sarah Palin prior to the start of the Daytona 500.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele relishing in the excitement of the race with friends.

Yesterday, speaking before the Senate Democratic Caucus, President Obama encouraged his members to “Get results, and this year's midterm elections will work out fine.  Let policy be our politics.” 

Harry Reid has certainly taken him at his word.  The Senate Leader just announced there will be a vote next Monday on a “jobs bill,” that no one has seen, with no details of what it will do or what it will cost. 

Leader Reid just does not get it. For months Reid negotiated behind closed doors on health care “reform,” cutting deals to reach the 60 votes needed for final passage in the Senate.  Once he finally found the votes, he forced the unpopular bill through on Christmas Eve.   

After the "Cornhusker Kickback" and "Louisiana Purchase" — the entire process of secret deal making and no transparency — the American people were outraged.  Even President Obama stated the “health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns not just among my opponents, but also amongst supporters…it's an ugly process and it looks like there are a bunch of back room deals.”

The Democratic Congress has plainly done everything in their power to avoid transparency, and the voters spoke their opposition in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia.      

The President’s recent outreach to Republicans has been an important step in beginning a process where we can work together on creating jobs for the American people—it’s what they deserve. But If President Obama and the Democratic Leadership are serious, they will give America a seat at the table; give Republicans a seat at the table; bring the transparency they promised to Washington; and let Congress pass a bill that will actually create more jobs, not just more debt.  If not, then we know that this is just more spin, arrogance and a refusal to listen to the American people. 

Americans across the country, like in Massachusetts, are watching – they want results, not more of the same.  Moving ahead in secrecy, without telling Americans exactly what is in this bill, what it will do and how much it will cost, is bad policy and bad politics— and with all due respect to the President, it won’t be fine come this year’s midterm elections. 

Tonight I extend my sincere congratulations to all Illinois GOP primary winners!  Voters are clearly tired of the arrogance and corruption in their government and are ready to make Illinois the next Massachusetts. Illinois voters have selected strong candidates who will place the GOP in an excellent position to prevail over their Democrat opponents and work towards turning yet another blue state red by electing Republicans to the governorship, the House, and even the Senate seat once held by President Obama himself. 

Just hours after winning the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, Mark Kirk’s campaign released a new survey showing his campaign with an early lead - 47% to 35% - over Democrat nominee Alexi Giannoulias.  Congressman Kirk is poised to help lead the strongest Republican ticket that Illinois has seen in a generation.  Let’s hear from our Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Illinois: