Here are my thoughts and observations about last nights town hall meeting with Fl-12 rep Adam Putnam. Driving up I was greeted by Public Option Now signs lining the entrance and parking lot. There were around a dozen public option supporters handing out material just outside the doors.

I would estimate between 150-200 people in attendance. The dress ranged from I-just-came-from-work to I’m-retired-and-this-is-what-I-wear. A good percentage appeared to be retirement age.

Adam started his remarks by saying that there are four major issues facing Congress, but I missed the fourth, and he didn’t really elaborate on the last one. Those three — Cap and Trade, Card Check, and of course, Health Care Reform. He called them “game changers,” a major shift from the way we do things as a nation.

Before taking questions he listed some of the things that he thinks should direct the debate on health care:

• Greater access
• Afforadability
• The individual, along with their health care professionals, should be the ones to make medical decisions
• Government should not limit choices
• Private insurance should remain the foundation

He had one very interesting statistical note on the expatriation rates of doctors by country. Canada has a rate above 10% and the UK is above 5% (sorry, I didn’t get the exact number). The US rate is 0.6% and most of those are doctors which have decided to go on the mission field. The numbers for nurses are similar. There is a reason that medical professionals trained here practice here.

He spent several minutes talking about how much the US spends on equipment, research, and innovation. One stat – MRI Machines: In the US there are 25 MRI machines per million people. In Canada and the UK that number is 5 per million.

One big issue is how difficult it is to project future health costs. He cited the huge difference between original CBO projections for Medicare and Medicaid and the quickly realized realities.

One point he made that I thought was particularly important, and often under discussed, is the effect federally implemented plans will have on state budgets. The impact could be a budget buster for many, if not most, states.

His suggestions for the discussion:

• Association Health Plans – where groups of people, bound by some association, could purchase insurance at group rates typically reserved for companies. Perhaps we could have the “Bloggers Health Plan”
• Malpractice Reform
• The ability to sell plans across state lines
• Electronic Medical Records. He called this the area where there is the least partisan disagreement.
• Incentivize wellness and fitness
• Small business tax incentives

He remarked that mandatory coverage of pre-existing conditions without mandated participation for all can not co-exist.

He also touched on the timing of things in Congress. The House leadership has expressed a goal of bringing HC to a vote before Thanksgiving, although he believes that it may extend through the end of the year, or into early 2010. In any case, he said the issue is on a short time line. Because of the focus on HCR, he thinks that Cap and Trade and Card Check will be pushed off until early next year.

I wasn’t able to stay for all of the Q&A portion, but I did stay for the first few.

The first question got quite a bit of positive reaction from those in attendance.

Q. Is it constitutional/legal/possible for Congress to pass a bill that is not in it’s final legislative form?

A. He said that the bill, in it’s present form, is in many ways conceptual. There are at least three separate versions that are being melded in the House. The version that is eventually voted on, however, will have to be specific and final. He took the opportunity of this question to say that it is critical for the final bill to be available for people to see prior to Congress voting.

Q. This questioner likened what the government is doing as equivalent to being forced to support a particular charity.

A. His answer addressed the issue of cost in the bill, which currently range from $873 Billion to $1.3 Trillion. Cuts to Medicare could be $500 Billion. One method of revenue generation under discussion is a VAT on medical devices and a surcharge of 2.5% on people making $250,000 or more. One option is to change the surcharge to 5% on those making a $500,000 or more. He pointed out the fact that many of those in either scenario are small business owners. He made the point that these options would have the effect of costing small businesses more than Fortune 100 companies. He repeated the point that state governments will have to come up with more money as well. A lot more money.

The final question I was able to stay for:

Q. What about fraud in existing government programs?

A. Fraud, along with waste and abuse, are unbelievably high in existing programs. Florida is particularly bad. While eliminating or reducing fraud, waste, and abuse won’t solve all of the cost problems, they are important and costly factors.

It was interesting to attend, and I wish I could have stayed longer. While there was a significant presence of those supporting a public option, most questioners (of those I had the chance to hear) appeared to want government to leave us alone.

If anyone else was there and had a different view, or was able to stay longer, please let me know.

My Rep., Adam Putnam (FL-12), is holding a Town Hall meeting about an hour from now. I’ll be there. What question should I ask, if I get the chance? Send it (quick) to lakelandjim at gmail dot com.

The meeting is at the Bartow Civic Center, 2250 S. Floral Avenue, Bartow, Fl.

See you there?

I received this letter from my representative, Adam Putnam, on ACORN and HR 3571

Yesterday, I became an original cosponsor of H.R. 3571, the Defund ACORN Act. This legislation would stop all funding to the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). In addition, the Senate also voted to deny any funding to ACORN provided under the Fiscal Year 2010 Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Appropriations Act. ACORN would have been eligible for millions of dollars in additional taxpayer funds had the amendment not passed.

As you are well aware, ACORN has a long history of allegations surrounding their abuse of taxpayer funds through inappropriate and illegal political activities. Most recently, disturbing videos emerged showing ACORN employees providing individuals with guidance on how to best hide illegal activities from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and law enforcement.

There is simply no place in our federal budget for funding of political activists and organizations that provide illegal services. ACORN — and any other organization providing these “services” — should be denied all federal funding.

While in July 31, 2008, I called on House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) to hold immediate hearings to investigate evidence that ACORN may be using public funds inappropriately, and again in October 2008, requesting that Chairman Frank hold hearings on alleged abuses of taxpayer dollars by ACORN due to the significant funding ACORN and it’s affiliates receive from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD, he has yet to hold such a hearing.

Taxpayer funds should only be used for programs that provide important services to beneficiaries, transparency to taxpayers, and the appropriate oversight mechanisms to the public and Congress. We should have no tolerance for spending hard earned taxpayer money on groups and entities like ACORN that promote and carry out illegal activities, while politicizing government programs.

This group should have been defunded long ago and I am hopeful that any access to federal funds will stop immediately through either the passage of H.R. 3571 or direct action by the Administration.

I will continue to keep you updated on the progress of this important issue.

Where does your Rep. stand on HR 3571? Report what you find out here in the comments.

I received a response from my rep. Adam Putnam when I wrote regarding the Cap and Tax bill. He voted against it, as I expected, but one paragraph from his email was very striking.

Fundamentally, the bill fails to ensure that an adequate amount of renewable or alternative energy sources are developed and deployed to compensate for the bill’s declining cap on fossil fuel emissions, as well as foster development of clean nuclear power. Instead, it would impose 397 new regulations and 1060 new mandates on the American public.

Wow! No wonder they didn’t want anyone to read it before they voted. It has hard to imagine a more intrusive, destructive piece of legislation (although I’m sure they’ll try). We must stop this in the Senate. Call, write, fax, email your Senators today.

The Hill is reporting:

Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.) will not seek reelection in 2010 and is poised to launch a bid for Florida agriculture commissioner, a move that a GOP official said is a precursor to a run for governor.

Putnam told the Associated Press that on Monday he will file paperwork to enter the race for state agriculture commissioner, and will give up his seat in the House to run statewide in his home state. However, Putnam will serve out the remainder of his term in the lower chamber and officially announce plans for the 2010 election later this month, according to a Putnam spokesman.

This news is widely regarded as the worst kept political secret in Florida. There is also confident speculation about his future plans.

A Republican official with close ties to Putnam said that, in Florida, the agriculture commissioner is a highly coveted job and is often seen as a stepping-stone to the governor’s office.

“It’s the equivalent of what on a national stage would be a Secretary of State position,” the official said.

I wish him well.

One of our local papers, The Lakeland Ledger, has a few quotes by my representative, Adam Putnam, regarding the no-stimulus stimulus bill.

The only thing some provisions of the latest bailout bill are likely to stimulate is a hefty tax burden on the nation’s grandchildren, said U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow.

[...]

Putnam said there is what he calls pork in the bill that shouldn’t be there. One such project, he said, is $200 million to resod the 700-acre National Mall.

“There is other pork, and there are projects that may be good but don’t belong in an economic stimulus package,” he said.

[...]

“We are going to be reading about things for weeks that were buried in this bill,” he said.

Putnam is pinning his hopes on the Senate, where Republicans there could force alterations to the stimulus package and send it back to the House.

“I would certainly hope it would make some changes,” he said. “The Senate is a more deliberative body and will study it in greater detail. In the House, we’ll have about an hour of debate.”

Ed Morrisey points out the effort made by Rob “N.Z. Bear” Nepal with the site Read The Stimulus. Ed says,

Rob has transformed the 1,588 pages of legislation and committee reports into a searchable website designed to shine a light on the Congressional porkfest. What had once been an inaccessible and forbidding mountain as daunting as Everest now becomes accessible to those motivated to find the pork, waste, and outright fraud in them thar hills.

Pork, Waste, and Outright Fraud — plenty to be found there.

We’re in the bell lap in this marathon that has gone on way too long already. As an aside, I believe that one of the reasons we are choosing between the two candidates we have is due to the length of the campaign this election cycle. I think it is very likely that a shorter campaign could have given us two completely different presidential candidates.

But, we get to vote for what we have, not what we could have had.

I am part of the large majority of Americans who, in spite of all the hype and headlines, has not taken advantage of early voting. As I mentioned the other day, I like going to my local polling place on election day. There is something almost “ceremonial” about casting a ballot, and despite any real or perceived inconvenience it is something that I truly look forward to doing.

If the lines aren’t too long first thing tomorrow morning the process shouldn’t take very long at all. I am not one of the undecided voters and I won’t be making up my mind with the pencil in my hand.

President/Vice President — John McCain/Sarah Palin. I have laid out my reasons for supporting John McCain already. It is, to be honest, almost as much a vote against Barack Obama as it is for McCain. Almost. I am convinced that the policies of Barack “The One™” Hussein Obama would be detrimental to our country; Even those that could benefit me personally in the short term.

That alone would not be enough to convince me to vote for John McCain. While I am sure that I will not agree 100% with a President McCain, I will agree with him and his direction for our nation most of the time.

U.S. House (Fl-D12) — Adam Putnam. I have really grown to appreciate his psotions and his leadership. He was one of the leading voices in the house to take an “all of the above” approach to energy policy.

Here’s hoping for the best tomorrow. I’ll be doing my part. That’s all I have left that I can do.

From my representative, Adam Putnam (Fl-12), via email:

This is an historic time in our nation’s economic history and we face unprecedented challenges – ones that are posing a real threat to our nation’s economic underpinnings. As negotiations remain underway throughout the weekend on a financial rescue plan, I remain committed to ensuring that American taxpayers are safeguarded. Our top priorities are to make certain that Main Street is protected from the irresponsibilities of Wall Street and to restore confidence in our financial system.

It is in no American’s interest to see this crisis continue, economic confidence weaken, or to witness more dominoes fall in our financial sector, endangering pensions, 401(k)s, jobs, access to college tuition and the safest of Americans’ savings vehicles: checking, savings and money market accounts. This would lead to a financial collapse of historic proportions that could generate widespread financial panic that reaches down into every community. We have already seen the largest bank failure in history occur this past week with Washington Mutual.

In crafting legislation, I am working hard to make sure that taxpayers are not exposed to provisions that further prolong the ability of our market to correct themselves. Some are attempting to insert into the current proposal under negotiation provisions that would require labor union representation on Corporate Boards and call for 20 percent of any profits made off this intervention to be funneled to political organizations.

I am working hard to see that these measures are removed and that Congress remains committed to passing legislation that focuses on dealing with the crisis at hand. Now is not the time for partisan politics, and it is my hope that moving forward we will remove such abuse from the process and from bipartisan discussions.

The initial plan proposed by Treasury did not include a number of measures that would ensure sufficient protection of taxpayer exposure, such as adequate congressional oversight or that Wall Street Executives would not benefit from taxpayer funding. As such, I support measures to be included that place limits on executive golden parachutes of companies that participate in Treasury’s proposal, bring forth accountability and stronger provisions relating to congressional oversight and authority, and proper distribution of funding for the Treasury proposal in batches, rather than the blank check requested.

Please know that I am prepared to work around the clock in a bipartisan manner – where all parties have “skin in the game” in order to reach an effective agreement.

I am hopeful that Congress will soon act to pass a plan that will ensure stability in the market place and avoid additional economic downturns. I look forward to updating you throughout the weekend on the progress of this legislative package.

Thank you again for your interest.

–Adam H. Putnam

The paragraph I’ve highlighted above refers to one of the most disturbing aspects of the legislation that some are trying to ram through. You see, that 20% would go to the Housing Trust Fund. What’s the Housing Trust Fund, you ask? Ed Morrissey explains.

One of the sticking points, as Senator Lindsey Graham explained later, wasn’t a lack of begging but a poison pill that would push 20% of all profits from the bailout into the Housing Trust Fund — a boondoggle that Democrats in Congress has used to fund political-action groups like ACORN and the National Council of La Raza:

[...]

The real purpose of section D is to send more funds to La Raza and ACORN through housing welfare, via the slush fund of the HTF. They want to float their political efforts on behalf of Democrats with public money, which was always the purpose behind the HTF. They did the same thing in April in the first bailout bill, se tting aside $100 million in “counseling” that went in large part to ACORN and La Raza, and at least in the former case, providing taxpayer funding for a group facing criminal charges in more than a dozen states for fraud.

Rep. Putnam, thanks for the update. Keep fighting, we’re counting on you.

Here is part of an interview the local newspaper did with my representative, Adam Putnam (R-FL12). It’s a long answer, but a good one, about the GOP House plan on energy.

There is no one magic formula or silver bullet out there that anyone is aware of that’s going to eliminate our dependence on foreign sources of energy. To move forward as a nation, in order to stop transferring $750 billion a year to the people who don’t like us, in order to be more energy secure than we are today, we have to invest in all of the aspects of a comprehensive policy.

Conservation, obviously, is a piece of that. You cannot conserve your way into energy security, but it has to be a part of the solution. Incentives for manufacturers to invest in maybe things that are more capital intensive up front, but are going to save energy and save money in the long haul, giving homeowners tax credits for putting solar panels on their roof, people changing out light bulbs; that whole conservation message is important and a lot of it people are doing on their own. People voluntarily bought SUVs because they felt like they were safer and more spacious and met their needs as a lifestyle. People are voluntarily trading in SUVs because they’ve decided the benefits of a larger, safer vehicle don’t outweigh the extra cost of fuel. That’s the marketplace working. That’s not the government banning SUVs. So conservation and efficiency are a big part of it.

Renewables are a part of it. The most promising renewables are solar, wind and biofuels. The reason why it’s important we focus on energy sources that impact the electrical grid is because all of our vision, our collective national vision, for mobile fuels, is that they will move away from petroleum-based products and fossil fuels to basically things that require more electricity. You’re not just giving up cars, not giving up gas or diesel in exchange for a Fred Flintstone method of getting around. You’ve got to power that motor somehow. Most of that technology right now is leaning toward hybrids, which are battery combined with a traditional combustion engine, and plug-in hybrids, which is really kind of the next big thing. And what are you plugging it into? You’re plugging it into the wall.

So, solar and wind, getting back to that, nobody in Congress is talking about building more dams, so hydroelectric is kind of out. Wind is a great part of the plan, but the trouble with wind is that wind blows the most in the United States where the fewest people are. And unlike oil, gas or coal, you cannot store electrons. So, the wind corridor that (oil and gas executive) T. Boone Pickens and others talk about in many cases are side by side with oil wells. It’s in the Texas panhandle, it’s in Oklahoma, it’s in the Dakotas, it’s in the Great Plains, and because when that wind blows that blade and that blade spins, it produces electrons, it needs to go to wherever the end user is. It cannot be stored yet on site. In order to get the electricity from where the wind blows to where the people are, we need to invest about $40 billion, I’m told, in electric transmission infrastructures so you get that electron from the middle of nowhere to St. Louis or Kansas City or Chicago or Dallas or wherever that’s basically in that heartland area. It’s still an important part of a national electrical portfolio.

Solar also has great potential in the United States today with the current solar technology. The desert is still the best place to produce solar energy at a power-plant scale. Based on what I’ve learned about the topic, solar still works the best outside of the Mojave Desert, outside of Arizona, New Mexico, California, where they have major solar power plants. Outside of those areas, solar still works best in a place like Florida on the roofs of shopping centers or municipal buildings or schools or churches, on your house to use for your swimming pool or hot-water heater. The difference between Florida only getting five or six hours of sunlight on average per day and the Mojave getting eight or eight and a half is significant when you’re talking about that kind of infrastructure. And the water vapor and other things that diffuse that power a little bit in Florida make us less desirable, but not undesirable. In fact, there are three solar power plants being permitted in Florida as we speak – one just south of Arcadia, one at Cape Canaveral and one near Jupiter. So, solar, wind, those are your renewables.

Your alternatives, in my opinion, and this is certainly controversial, but nuclear has to be a part of the topic, has to be part of the solution. Nuclear power plants are expensive and they take a long time to build, but those things can be streamlined some and nuclear power is very clean. It has zero carbon emissions, so that can be part of the solution. There are two nuclear power plants being permitted in Florida. …

The other piece, biofuels, are important. Taking what we’ve learned from corn-based biofuels, which are not that efficient, and apply that to cellulosic ethanol. You look at the BTUs of energy that came down around here in 2004 (during hurricane season) with all the oak trees and everything. The University of Florida, they’ve developed an enzyme that can convert that to ethanol – at the bench scale and at the test scale. Nobody’s ready to go build that plant yet. That’s what we’ve got to get to.

Eventually, you’re looking at a day where hopefully your yard waste landfills can be biofuel plants. And a state like Florida that has a year-round growing season, would be able to produce some nonfood crop that can be grown for fuel. I think the shrinking phosphate lands have some potential for doing that.

Sands and shale are also technologies that at $10 barrel oil makes no sense. At $120 a barrel, it suddenly makes sense to get those. Coal is very abundant in this country, very cheap, very dirty. And so we have to invest in the technologies to make it cleaner-burning technology. One of the examples of that is south of Bartow at the TECO plant, where people come from all over the world to see how they do it. They’re gasifying coal. You can also liquefy coal; the Germans did that for aviation fuel in as far back as World War II. That aspect of it is not a new technology. The gasification is a little bit newer and the combined cycle makes that possible. You’re still releasing carbon; you’re not releasing sulfur dioxide the way they used to. You’re not releasing nitrous oxide the way the used to, but you are releasing carbon. So, if you’re really going to tap into coal and if you’re going to have a carbon law, which both presidential candidates have said they want, then the key to making that technology work is to figure out how to capture the carbon, number one, and like the dog that caught the car, figure out what to do with it once you’ve captured it because there’s a lot of it. Those are the two pretty big milestones in the technology to unlock carbon.

So, you’ve got your renewables, alternatives and traditional fuels.

What I keep coming back to is that for the near term, all this other stuff’s great, but for the foreseeable future, for the next 20 years, we’re still an oil, coal and natural gas economy and we have to do more domestic production – in the Arctic, deep water, offshore production – to reduce our dependence on the Middle East for that transition. It’s not going to drill your way out of the problem, T. Boone Pickens is right, but it makes no sense for it not be a part of the solution at all. It has to be a part of it, in there with all the other pieces.

Rep. Putnam is scheduled to speak Tuesday at the Republican convention. I hope to be able to catch his talk.

My Representative, Adam Putnam, had this to say on The Hill Blog Tuesday:

American families took a one-two punch to the wallet this week, courtesy of the empty promises and failed policies of the do-nothing Democrat Congress.

Last Thursday, House Democrats voted for a budget that contains the single largest tax hike in American history.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), one of 14 House Democrats to vote against the budget resolution. In a statement shortly after the vote, Congressman Foster put out a release stating: “I can’t support a budget, from either party, that raises taxes on the middle class.”

The Illinois Democrat was joined yesterday by Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-LA), who told The Hill: “I voted against [the budget] because it allows tax cuts to expire in 2010, raising taxes on most American taxpayers.”

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, as Democrats are eager to do, is going to hit all of us. That’s obviously not a concern of the left as they continue with their belief that they know better how to spend my money.

He also talked about the action (and lack) regarding common sense policy on energy.

The Speaker has also been holding back – for more than two years now – on presenting her “commonsense plan” to lower gas prices. On her watch as Speaker of the House, America has become a nation of $4 gasoline – and no relief is in sight. At least not from Congressional Democrats, who have pursued a misguided energy strategy that not only creates no new energy, but it allows for just two potential outcomes: higher taxes or higher gas prices. Either way, it’s consumers who take the hit. [my emphasis]

He is right on both topics. Now if he can just convince a few of his colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, maybe we can start getting something done.

Well said Adam. I’m glad to have you as my rep.