How Will New Hampshire React To Charlie Bass' Vote To Gut Medicare?

DWT readers are not unacquainted with slippery New Hampshire congresscritter Charlie Bass. We first started covering his slimy roll in politics back in 2006, 7 months before the voters decided to retire him. That November, the people of New Hampshire's 2nd CD gave the incumbent rubber stamp Republican 93,905 votes, 45%. Last year, in the Republican wave election, Bass was back as the GOP tidal wave engulfed New Hampshire. He got 48% of the votes, beating grassroots progressive Annie Kuster by around 3,000 votes in one of the closest elections in the country. Today New Hampshire seems to regret what happened, not just in the 2nd CD, but everywhere across the state. We saw a few weeks ago how a once-safe GOP legislative seat was swamped by a Democrat in a special election. Yesterday two top GOP state legislators resigned from the party leadership in protest against the Republicans' war against working families. "It is evident now that pro-worker Republican views like mine are not respected under this leadership team,” said House Deputy Majority Leader Matt Quandt (R-Exeter), one of the two who resigned. House Whip Tim Copeland (R-Stratham), a freshman legislator and retired state worker, gave his resignation this week and said he has become frustrated with the attacks against public employees. "I just couldn't do it anymore. Delivering their message goes against my grain, so I did the right thing and resigned," he said. "What they're doing, going after the public employees and pensions just isn't right."

Paul Ryan hasn't been campaigning in New Hampshire, but his budget-- or, as he terms it his "cause"-- is very much in the minds of voters there. The new ad (above), plus Annie Kuster's decision to seek a rematch, will keep voters thinking about whether or not they want to wreck the social compact and follow Ryan and Bass down the rabbit hole of right-wing social nihilism, gutting Medicare, abolishing Medicaid, privatizing Social Security, enshrining the anti-Christian Law of the Jungle mentality that thrilled Ryan in Ayn Rand's adolescent novels.

Special interest money will once again act as a bulwark to shore up Charlie Bass' pro-Big Business, anti-family career. The main thing on voters' minds is probably Bass' vote against Medicare-- twice. His tendency to be a shameless rubberstamp for his party-- and a lackey for Wall Street-- got him in trouble with the voters before and is likely to do so again next year. Last year the Kuster campaign pointed out that "Bass supported subsidies for oil companies and bailouts for big Wall Street executives-- now those same interests are subsidizing his campaign and bailing-out" his campaign. The Koch Brothers, in appreciation of Bass' support for their efforts to ship American jobs to China, bought him another shot in Congress. Bass' "support for tax breaks for big oil and tax loopholes for companies that outsource jobs matches the agenda of these shady, outside groups," pointed out the Kuster campaign at the time. "Charlie's outsourcing friends are understandably concerned about Annie Kuster's plan to close the tax loopholes he supported during his twelve years in Washington."

Blue Hampshire thoroughly laid out all the facts on Bass' disgraceful relationship with Big Oil which has given him, over the course of his disgraceful career, more thinly veiled bribes from the oil & gas industry than all of the other 22 members of U.S. House of Representatives from New England combined. In return, Bass has consistently voted against cracking down on price gouging by Big Oil and against removing billions in tax breaks to Big Oil from legislation. In fact when he was in Congress the first time, and part of the reason New Hampshire voters tossed him, he voted for Cheney's 2005 Energy Bill which featured a $1.6 billion tax breaks for Big Oil and Gas. This year he once again voted for tax breaks for Big Oil and against closing the loopholes the GOP thinks they deserve.

That, his vote to turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher program and an assertive, progressive Kuster campaign, should stop Bass once and for all. If you'd like to help, you can do it at our Act Blue page.

Will Paul Ryan's Toxicity Poison New Hampshire Politics Too?

Which one is Charlie Bass?

One of Blue America's top contenders last year was Annie Kuster in New Hampshire. And she came tantalizingly close to winning against prohibitive Republican headwinds. While the state did a disastrous about-face and Republicans swept the Senate race, both House seats and both houses of the state legislature, often by overwhelming margins, Ann fought Republican rubber stamp Charlie Bass to a 48-47% near-draw.

As we saw in last week's special election, few voters are experiencing buyers' remorse as severely as Granite Staters.

When New Hampshire's lunatic fringe Speaker, Bill O’Brien, persuaded Rep. Robert Mead to resign and become his chief of staff, no one worried about the GOP's ability to retain the seat. After all, House District 4 is one of the reddest in the state-- the 14th most Republican seat in the legislature. But they did lose-- and they lost big, Daler sweeping all 5 towns in the district (Mont Vernon, New Boston, Lyndeborough, Temple and Wilton) against O'Brien's handpicked candidate Peter Kucmas, who struggled to stay above 40%.

Delusional and refusing to see the writing on the wall, the state Republican Chairman, Jack Kimball, who many think lost his mind long ago, said "Unfortunately special elections have a lower voter turnout and I am disappointed with the outcome. Jennifer Daler is a tax-and-spend liberal... Republicans hold super-majorities in the House and Senate and will continue their outstanding work, promoting economic growth and job creation while continuing the fight against irresponsible spending in Concord." Republicans are unwilling to see the results as a verdict from voters on their destructive and reckless extremism even though the turnout Tuesday was the highest for any special election in New Hampshire's history. Voters don't want to see New Hampshire's public education system dismantled and they won't stand for the Republican's power grab. The vote Tuesday augers well for a swing back towards the center next year in the legislature and it augers well for victories for Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster in the two House races.

Annie is already getting down to business and last week penned editorials for several of the biggest newspapers in the state. She isn't allowing Bass to creep away from his vote for Paul Ryan's disastrous budget that features a plan to turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher system that would be catastrophic for seniors from coast to coast and hits New Hampshire seniors extremely hard. The out-of-pocket costs for a New Hampshire senior on Medicare will more than double if the Ryan-Bass budget, as I like to refer to it when writing about New Hampshire, is ever signed into law. By 2022 a typical New Hampshire Medicare enroll would have to pay $5,716.96 as the system now operates. According to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, under the Ryan-Bass plan, the out-of-pocket expenses go up to $11,624.36 by 2022. That's an increase of $5,907.40 every year. There are an awful lot of seniors who just cannot afford that. In 20 years-- 20 years of retirement-- that increase would amount to $118,140 for granny and $118,140 for gramps. Can they afford that? Can New Hampshire voters afford Charlie Bass and the Republican Party. Is Senator Ayotte going to bring that budget one step closer to reality by voting for it this week? The other New England Republicans aren't going to.

Annie's message is clear and in sync with New Hampshire voters. Bass’s “private mandate and voucher system sets up an unstable, hurtful, and discriminatory system for seniors. In essence, the only element it keeps from our current, successful program is the name 'Medicare'." Bass is desperate and is lying to his constituents insisting that he didn't vote for a voucher system even though he did. The Nashua Telegraph called him on it:

"Neither 'sweeping overhaul' nor 'change' comes anywhere close to the unvarnished truth: the Ryan budget would abolish Medicare."

So did the editors of the Concord Monitor:

"Please, Charlie, you’re insulting people. Call it what it is: a voucher whose value increases more slowly than the cost of health care."

Harsh! But the editors of the Keene Sentinel were not less brutal: "This plan would in fact end what we know as Medicare.” And AARP skewers their "cause" as well:

Tomorrow’s seniors “would not get traditional pay-as-you-go Medicare benefits once they become eligible. They would receive federal vouchers to buy coverage from the private sector."

But Bass is running from his vote as fast as he can. Anyone think he'll invite Paul Ryan to visit New Hampshire's second district to explain his "cause"-- their cause-- to the citizens of Concord, Keene, Berlin, Lebanon, and Nashua? After all, Ryan, probably the most toxic politician in the country, announced on Meet The Press yesterday that he's available for someone's vice presidential ticket. Herman Cain... here's your chance. 'Cause a Newt/Ryan ticket isn't all that likely. Ryan blasted Gingrich’s assessment of his Medicare plan as “deeply inaccurate” and a “gross mischaracterization.” No doubt Charlie Bass was sitting at home wishing he had never heard the name "Paul Ryan."