Freedom Line Blog

The party of the donkey might have a 257-178 advantage in the House of Representatives but Alabama Representative Parker Griffith has just announced that he’s switching over to the GOP.

Griffith has spent most of his time in Congress opposing Speaker Pelosi’s legislative priorities, including the government takeover of health care and the $787 billion failed stimulus.   In fact, he was one of just eleven House Democrats to oppose the stimulus.

Griffith evidently saw the writing on the wall and recognized that having a “D” after his name would be a political liability in 2010.  His district, AL-5 (northern Alabama), gave President Obama 38% of the vote in 2008.

There is no official announcement yet from Representative Griffith.  Check back for further details.

Late last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released the newest iteration of health care “reform.”  Seeking to outdo Speaker Pelosi’s 1,990 page bill, Reid’s version measures in at 2,074 pages, longer than War and Peace.  You can read and search through the full version here.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have released cost estimates of the bill.  Don’t let Senate Democrats fool you, however.  The actual cost of the bill is not $849 billion, mainly because federal subsidies don’t even kick in until 2014.

When fully implemented, the actual cost of Harry Reid’s bill is over $2.5 trillion, from 2014 to 2023.

If you like tax increases, you’ll love the new bill.  It contains over $500 billion in new taxes.  The bill taxes health insurance, Botox, Health Savings Accounts, drug devices, and some employers and employees.  No one escapes Uncle Sam’s scalpel in Harry Reid’s version of “reform.”  Click here for a full list of tax hikes.

More analysis later.

Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman might end up winning the race for the upstate New York House seat that he supposedly lost last week.  Bill Owens, the Democrat, was sworn in last Saturday.

Apparently, Hoffman conceded based on inaccurate reports from his base in Oswego County and early returns.  As it turns out, Owens’ lead is down to 3,026 votes (from over 5,000 on Election Night), with still more than 10,200 absentee ballots at large.  The chances are slim, but if Speaker Pelosi hadn’t planned a health care vote for last Saturday night, this race might still be up in the air.

From the news report:

Now Hoffman, who campaigned against the health care reform bill, is carefully watching as the 23rd District race tightens and he is left to wonder if he conceded too soon.

“I don’t know if we would have conceded on election night,” Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s campaign spokesman, said Wednesday while discussing the latest results of the recanvassing. “I’m someone who doesn’t like to look back. But would we have taken longer to make a decision on election night? Probably, if we knew it was only 3,000 votes making the difference.”

Ryan, while acknowledging that Hoffman’s chances of pulling off a come-from-behind victory are still remote, said the campaign is looking at its legal options.