Congressman Denny Rehberg was on Fox News in two separate interviews discussing Obamacare and whether Senate Democrats were willing to force a government shutdown.
The videos, as well as more news on Rehberg below:
OpEd: Rehberg Stood Alone
Rick Manning is the communications director of Americans for Limited Government.
While 92 Republican “budget cutters” voted alongside every Democrat against the Blackburn-Jordan amendment, what was significant is that a single Appropriations Committee cardinal voted in favor, defying his majority leader, majority whip and his Appropriations Committee chairman, as well as every other Appropriations subcommittee chairman.
Which member took this courageous stand to not only defy his powerful colleagues but to stand on the principle that the federal government needs to cut its budget baseline to fiscal 2008 levels as a starting point to restoring fiscal sanity?
Denny Rehberg from Montana.
Rehberg distinguished himself this past week as a man who put his country before his own comfort, and made the tough vote that had others running for cover.
Poll Coverage
An internal Rehberg campaign poll taken as the representative mulled a Senate bid showed him leading Tester 49% to 43%. And while internal polls are liable to be biased, a PPP poll in November showed a similar result, with Rehberg leading 48% to 46%.
Tester won his race by less than one percentage point. Looking ahead to next year, it appears as though he’ll have a similarly tough fight on his hands to head back to Washington for a second term.
Washington Examiner
The numbers show at the very least that Tester is in for a very tough fight for re-election and is one of the most endangered Senate Democrats right now. Look for him to move toward the political center and to distance himself as much as he can from President Obama on big liberal initiatives.
Wildlands: Phillips Co Commissioner Testifying Before Congress, NCBA Opposed
“If Congress wanted the administration to have authority to designate Wild Lands, they would have included that in the Wilderness Act. But they didn’t, and the Order appears to violate the BLM’s congressionally mandated mission to manage public lands for multiple-use activities,” Van Liew said. “Shifting the BLM’s mission to management for wilderness characteristics will restrict natural resource uses on public lands across the West and will further impede longstanding multiple-use activities on public lands, including livestock grazing.”
Van Liew said the U.S. House of Representatives, in the recently passed continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year, included a block on any funds to be used to implement the Order. He also said the House Committee on Natural Resources is scheduled to hold an oversight hearing on the Order on March 1, 2011.
Rehberg in The Washington Times: Senate’s on Vacation
House lawmakers stayed until 4:41 a.m. Saturday to finish up a spending bill to keep the government open, and sent it over to the Senate — only to be met with an empty chamber. Senators had closed up shop two days before and went home for a 10-day break to honor George Washington’s birthday.
“We will do our work, but where is the Senate? They’re on vacation,” said Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican and member of the House Appropriations Committee who ran part of the floor debate over cutting spending for the new health care law. “Here we are knocking up against a March 4 deadline and they’re missing the deadline again.”
Mr. Rehberg, the Montana lawmaker who has already announced he is seeking to run against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester next year, said it was clear to him senators are trying to stall. He said voters will show their displeasure.
“When a team stalls to win, they start getting booed from the audience,” he said.
Democrats, though, counter that it is the GOP’s cuts that will draw voters’ ire
Chronicle: Rehberg Speaks to Business Leaders
“We’re going to have to have a balance, because we are out of balance, financially,” he said during a roundtable at the Bozeman Area Chamber of Commerce Tuesday. “Your revenue and your revenue are based upon government money and the difference we have right now is we have less money than we had before. … I worry about industries like yours that are dependent on government contracts, which are taxpayer dollars.”
Members of the banking and building industry said that tighter bank regulations put in place after the financial meltdown were making it difficult for businesses to get capital.
“I know of hundreds of people who would like to get a loan, but they cannot get a loan because they cannot qualify, even though their property qualifies,” Delaney said.