Idaho Senator Mike Crapo has spent the last week flooding the media with a call to sign his on-line petition opposing Health Care legislation. In addition to hearing the constant radio ads, I have had to put up with daily “robo calls” filled with lies and misstatements about the Senate bill and ending with a plea that I get on line and sign the petition.

Crapo, who has no real political power or influence, hopes to convince gullible Idaho voters that this petition will turn the tide and defeat the legislation, thus making him a national leader of the health care opposition.

Here is his “news release” on the official web site:

Washington, D.C. – More than 19,000 people, starting with Idahoans but spreading nationwide to all 50 states, have signed an online petition opposing the current health care reform legislation before the U.S. Senate. The online petition was prepared by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, who has been on the Senate floor and national cable television programs leading opposition to the bill because it raises taxes on the middle class, increases premiums for many people now carrying insurance, cuts senior programs and fails to lower health care costs.

“There has not been a piece of legislation this decade that has come with more opposition to it than this health care reform bill,” Crapo said. “I support health reforms, but not a bill like this that puts the government in charge of doctor-patient relationships. Three days ago, I asked Idahoans if they would join me in petitioning the United States Senate to defeat this bill. The response has been remarkable. We now have more than 19,000 signatures, and that number continues to grow by the hour.

Of course, Crapo knows the petition is just grandstanding. In fact, according to The Hill, Crapo is well aware that the legislation is a done deal and the Republicans will not be able to repeal it any time soon.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said Republicans are unlikely to be able to repeal the legislation anytime in the near future.

“Technically it could be peeled back if the circumstances were right,” Crapo said during an appearance on a conservative news radio syndicate. “But we would have to have a president who would sign such a bill, and we would have to have 60 votes in the Senate — not just 50.”

“So it would be a very tall order, and frankly, the likelihood’s that that’s not going to develop in the near future,” he added.

This is interesting so far. Whatever. So BAH!

Crapo “Does that mean dam breaching must be on the table? Yes.”

Senator Craig would never allow that kind of talk, nor would Idaho’s water political establishment. Crapo didn’t say he favored breaching the 4 salmon- killing dams on the lower Snake River in Washington State. He just said it had to be on the table. He also said that environmental groups, sport fishing groups, and fishing industry groups had to be at the table. A “collaboration” by the Bush Administration had excluded them.

Crapo finished his statement by saying “not dam breaching must be on the table too.”

This is an important move in the glacial politics of Idaho water and fish. There might be a little more perception of self interest in water politics than in grazing politics, although a collaborative solution of these problems could take decades.

Sen. Crapo says all options including breaching must be on table for regional salmon collaboration. By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman.

Crapo estimates the stolen equipment and damage to both limos totals about $12,000 and repairs will take up to three months in a time that he said is his busiest of the year. His family operates Kool Nites Limousines, which is based in Corvallis. Crapo said the theft will cost his company an additional $10,000 because he will not be able to rent out the Hummer in the next several weeks.

“This vehicle has been rented for the next six or seven straight proms,” Crapo said. The Crapo family said it’s been difficult to tell teenagers about the theft after they pooled money together as a group to rent a limo. Cindy Crapo said she’s hoping someone comes forward to provide police with a tip. “They’re heartbroken.

They have one prom and that’s it,” Cindy Crapo said. “You’re a senior. You graduate one time. You don’t get another chance.

” Anyone with information is asked to call Corvallis police. Copyright 2009 by. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Video:

Author’s article: click

Crapo, hiding among a swarm of syncophants

Mike Crapo is in Boise today to “advise” the Idaho House and Senate about the recently passed stimulus bill. Granted, the clueless Idaho legislature could use some advice. And, some would argue, compared to the rest of the Idaho Congressional Delegation (“Fraud” Risch, “Bizarro World” Simpson and “Blue Dog” Minnick) Crapo is the most level headed of the stimulus deniers.

I don’t think so. In fact, I feel that the only real difference between Crapo and the others is that Crapo is a much more savvy politician. Rather than display his ignorance, he has kept a low profile. For most of his career, he managed to hide in the wide-stance shadow of Larry Craig, initiating no legislation and voting lock-step with the Republican party.

Now that he is the senior Senator, he is expected to show some leadership. As a member of the Finance Committee, Budget Committee and Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, it would be hoped that economics would be his one area of expertise.

A recent interview with Erika Bolstad shows otherwise.  Consider Crapo’s answer to her first question

Both the stimulus plan and the plan unveiled (Tuesday) by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have a very Keynesian approach, with roots in putting a lot of government money out there at once. Do you accept that economic view?

Okay, a good question. We can assume that Crapo will not be a Keynesian.

No, I don’t think that is a valid economic view. In fact, I think many economists today would tell you that approach has been losing favor in terms of validity.

Wait a minute. So, not only is Keynesian economic theory not valid, it is “losing favor in terms of validity” among economists. So, in Crapo’s delusional mind, we have been experimenting with Keynesian economics the last couple of decades and the theory as been shown to be unsound- invalid.

People talk about what happened after World War II and the New Deal as an example of the success of the Keynesian philosophy, and although I don’t profess to be an expert, I know that a lot of the economic experts are saying that the way we look back at those things doesn’t correctly reflect what the impacts truly are.

Mike, no need to point out that you are not an expert. The rest of that sentence makes that point quite effectively. The so-called “economic experts” like partisan hack Amity Shales, who claim that Keynsian economics failed during the New Deal, have been thoroughly debunked. And, what to make of your statement about “what happened after world war II”? What exactly happened besides post-war prosperity?

Of course, it is easy to find a few economists who are ideologically opposed to Keynesian economics and, consequently, are against an economic stimulus in our current crisis. They are Chicago school, Milton Friedman, deregulation, radical free market, tax cut, Shock Doctrine economists who have careers invested in their economic models and who have driven policy since the “Reagan revolution.” That is right- the purveyors of the “failed policies of the past”. Talk about an economic approach that has been losing favor in terms of validity!

I wouldn’t be so outraged with Crapo if I thought he really understood the economics behind the stimulus bill and opposed it with a coherent response. Instead he mouths muddled Republican talking points.

UPDATE: From Eye on Idaho,

Idaho’s senior U.S. Senator, Mike Crapo, addressed the Senate and House today, and was held up for about 10 minutes in the Senate as that chamber wrapped up a hot debate on sewage rules.

This was a nice transition into Crapo’s crapo advice.

He offered lawmakers what he called a bit of unsolicited advice about the upcoming federal stimulus funds. “You are going to now be faced with an interesting job, as somewhere between $600 million and a billion dollars of this bill will flow into Idaho, a lot of it flowing into programs that you administer as policy makers in the state. One of the big concerns that a lot of us have with this bill is that the increases in a number of these programs will be built right into the federal base and into the base of the states, so that we actually, instead of starting out the next fiscal cycle with a $1.2 trillion deficit, we will have a deficit that starts growing unbelievably large.

I just encourage you, as you deal with this largesse that is going to be coming your way in terms of the stimulative dollars, that you pay very close attention to what it will do to your base in your budget here in the state,” Crapo told the Senate. “I’m not telling you what to do with it or how to handle it. What I’m saying is … I don’t think it can last forever.

Of course, it won’t last forever. That is the way Keynesian economics works. Keynes advocated “countercyclical” fiscal policy

Keynes argued that the solution to depression was to stimulate the economy (“inducement to invest”) through some combination of two approaches: a reduction in interest rates, and government investment in infrastructure. Investment by government injects income, which results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment.

Keynes’s theory suggested that active government policy could be effective in managing the economy. Rather than seeing unbalanced government budgets as wrong, Keynes advocated what has been called countercyclical fiscal policies, that is policies which acted against the tide of the business cycle: deficit spending when a nation’s economy suffers from recession or when recovery is long-delayed and unemployment is persistently high—and the suppression of inflation in boom times by either increasing taxes or cutting back on government outlays.

Jerome County, Idaho

Aside from being home to a Japanese Internment Camp during World War II, Jerome County Idaho has a awful flag. Even for a county in the state that elected a US Senator with the last name of Crapo.  Another fun tidbit about Jerome County, Idaho – it’s nickname is Jerri County. Yeah. With and “i.” Weird, right?

A factory, a cow and a tractor. Hmm. I think of the tractor and the cow at least one is redundant. And what does it take to get a potato up in here? Give the people what they want, Jerome County, Idaho!

Just when you think you’ve heard it all.  Check out the dude (the “artist”) on the left.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080811/od_afp/switzerlandoffbeatart

So that guy…. talked a lot of rich people into giving him money…

So he could make a giant inflatable Dog Turd…

K

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No scraping please….

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Owyhee Canyonlands protections back before Congress. By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman

Sabes que no pasaste diseño este semestre…
…cuando el profesor te pregunta “¿Qué te parece a ti tu propuesta?

Due to recent media coverage, EVERYONE knows one of the senators from Idaho. Yeah, we now know Larry Craig from the Minneapolis airport men’s room.

But do you know who the other senator is?

Saw this on autone’s angelino blog when I was checking up on the recent re-try on making citizens out of the invaders.

http://autone.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/kill-the-latest-amnesty-bill-for-illegal-aliens/

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“Phone them by contacting the Senate switchboard at 800-862-5530 or 202-224-3121.

Alaska: Murkowski, Stevens
Arkansas: Pryor
Idaho: Crapo ….<- How do you pronounce that again?
Indiana: Bayh
Iowa: Grassley, Harkin
Kansas: Brownback
Louisiana: Landrieu”

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According to a survey by Congress.Org, Idaho’s Congressional delegation ranks last in political power. Craig, Crapo, Simpson and Sali were ranked last based upon tenure, committee assignments, indirect influence and legislation passed. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, describes the Idaho delegation as a “poverty zone.”

“To their credit, they believe what they believe strongly, but it tends not to pay off for their constituency when the other party is in charge,” Sabato said. “The other party isn’t really interested in working with them, because it’s too difficult.”

Powerlessness is not new for Idaho Congressional Republicans. The Idaho political landscape is littered with impotent Republicans like Steve Symms, George Hansen, and Helen Chenoweth who “stayed the course” when it came to their beliefs and refused to “compromise.” As a result, Idaho’s interests were never represented.

Sali, of course, doesn’t get it.

If winning power in this Congress now takes “San Francisco values,” Sali told The Associated Press, he’s not uninterested. “The residents of the 1st District of Idaho elected me to represent the things that are important to them,” said Sali, who this year has criticized the Democrats’ war stance and budget, while calling for an American return to prayer.

Sabato offers Idahoans some solace. Even though we have been completely marginalized politically, we are still part of the Union and remain a vacation destination.

If Idaho power has waned, Sabato said the state likely won’t suffer too much. Its voters only moved away from much of the rest of the United States in November’s election; they didn’t leave the union, he said.

“Loads of people from the other 49 states like to go to Idaho to vacation and ski,” he said. “It may not get as much as it did before, but it’s not going to be a disaster.”

Great! We may not get as much as we did before, but we have politicians who represent our “beliefs.” I feel better no