The Burton Blog

Burton to seek re-election in 2012

Congressman Dan Burton issued the following statement regarding the 2012 election:“I am announcing that I will be seeking re-election next year to continue my service to the Hoosiers of the 5th Congressional District. Conservatives have again risen up to voice their discontent with the big government, job-killing agenda that Barack Obama and the Democrats in Washington are trying to foist on the American people. I am committed to continuing the fight against Washington’s reckless out-of-control spending and putting an end to the era of the big government. I will not rest until we have created a positive environment for job growth for the Hoosiers of Indiana's fifth Congressional District and American's all across our Country!”

Dan Burton on Fox News

Fox News has a transcript of a recent appearance by Dan on Hannity and Colmes.

COLMES: I'm going to ask you, during confirmation hearings, is there anything Holder could say that would clarify the issue to your satisfaction?

BURTON: I don't really think so. You know he said that he didn't have anything to do with the pardons and indicated that if he had had more information, he would not have been — even lean toward the pardons being approved, but if you look at the record that happened, and I think I sent that to you and Sean, I think if you look at the record, you'd find very clearly that he was involved all the way through 2000.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Congressman, Sean Hannity here.

BURTON: Yes, Sean.

HANNITY: We all know the president has a right to pardon, but it's a matter of judgment and who's deserving.

BURTON: Right.

HANNITY: This is a guy that gave up his citizenship. This is a guy selling arms to Iran in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis.

BURTON: Right.

HANNITY: This is a guy — you know, we're not talking about small sums of money here, what, $48 million, in this particular case. And you're saying that Eric Holder, you believe, was less that honest.

BURTON: I think he circumvented the truth. Yes, I think he was less than honest. He was involved with Quinn for the entire — almost the entire year of 2000, and when it came time for the pardon, he said he wasn't that intimately involved, but he refused to petition — for the pardon.

He didn't get that petition to the other people, the Justice Department, who are going to be making recommendations and he even talked to people at the White House about it before that. And then.

HANNITY: All right. But — I think there are actually worst things than this, not the least of which he supported the use of guns in the taking of Elian Gonzalez in that particular.

BURTON: Yes, I remember that.

HANNITY: He also supported, and as I understand it, was a major player in the — and had a major role in the pardoning of these FALN terrorists. Now we have a video that we've aired on this program before of the FALN terrorists on tape making bombs, and.

BURTON: Yes.

HANNITY: You know, so then it becomes a question of real judgment here and — but I'm just getting the sense from one appointment after the other here, the Obama campaign doesn't care because they know they've got the votes.

Do you think that's.

BURTON: I think they — I think they do have the votes, but I'm not sure all this information has come to light, and I'm sure that Arlen Specter and other people on the committee over there, including the chairman, will want to look into these things.

Eric Holder's a nice guy, but he was much less than honest when he appeared before our committee.

HANNITY: But is there any way that the Republicans could stop this?

BURTON: No, no, the — Democrats have, what, 57, 58 votes in the Senate, and they control the judiciary committee by a large number, so if they want to pass — to confirm him, they will.

HANNITY: All right. But they also have — for example, we now know that Greg Craig who has worked for Bill Clinton in the impeachment case.

BURTON: Yes.

HANNITY: By the way, you know him very well. Have you noticed, by the way, this is change you can depend on? This is now the Obama-Clinton administration in many ways.

BURTON: Well, it appears — it appears as though President Obama is looking very hard at some of the people that worked in the Clinton administration.

HANNITY: All right.

BURTON: And Eric Holder's one of them.

HANNITY: So he quarterbacked the Clinton impeachment case. He also defended John Hinckley, the guy that shot Ronald Reagan and others in an attempted assassination case. He, too, was the lawyer working on Castro's behalf in the Elian Gonzalez case, in as much as taking that position there, and he also, you know, was very forceful in defending the Sandinistas, you know, the — communists or rebels against the Contra Freedom fighters.

BURTON: Yes, I — there's a lot there, but the thing that I focused on was the pardoning of Marc Rich because he was such a wanted man for 17 years, and he should never have been pardoned.

HANNITY: All right. We have a lot more to come on this, by the way. Stay — thank you, Congressman, for being with us. We appreciate it.

BURTON: Thank you, Sean, Alan.

Some great Tweets

Many of our readers follow Dan on Twitter.  Here's some recent tweets we found about Dan Burton.

        monksmedia: OK Hoosiers!!! Vote McCain-Palin, Mitch Daniels for Governor, Dan Burton CD-5 and Gabrielle Campo CD-7 in Nov.  Lets keep Indiana strong!

        crystalclear3: Rep. Dan Burton is making valid points on the gun legislation for DC.  Guns don't cause the violence, criminals cause the violence.

 

   

alminuto_bo: Bolivia Dan Burton (USA): No se deberia ampliar el ATPDEA a Bolivia por la expulsion de Goldberg. http://alminuto.com.bo/content/dan-burton-usa-no-se-deberia-ampliar...

        thomaskemp: #bailout: opposing bill were Indiana Democrats Baron Hill, Pete Visclosky - Republicans Dan Burton, Steve Buyer,Mike Pence.  

Skillman/Burton/Hill honor fallen marine

The Greene County Daily World has a story about the dedication of a new test range at Crane. 

The first Hoosier serviceman killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Iraq will be honored in a dedication ceremony Friday at Naval Surface Weapons Center, Crane Division.

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Scott A. Zubowski, from North Manchester, will be memorialized when a one-acre Realistic Ground Antenna (RGA) test range on the NSWC Crane base is named in his honor.

The ceremony will be at 1 p.m. on Friday.

Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman will be the keynote speaker. Representatives from the offices of U.S. Congressmen Dan Burton (R-5th District) and Baron Hill (D-9th District) will read letters of support during the ceremony, according to NSWC Public Affairs Officer Pam Ingram.

Burton hosts forum on Argentina's debt

Congressman Burton hosted a forum on May 29th discussing how Argentina's default on its debt hurts US taxpayers.

From HispanicBusiness.com:

American Task Force Argentina gathered over 60 participants at the U.S. Capitol for an Argentine Debt Congressional Roundtable co-hosted by Representatives Steve Israel (D-NY) and Dan Burton (R-IN) yesterday to brief lawmakers on how the Argentine default has hurt U.S. taxpayers and what U.S. Congress can to do rectify Argentina's bad acts.

ATFA Executive Director, Robert Raben, led the discussion explaining that Argentina is now in a place where the government can return to the negotiating table with her creditors and offer a fair deal. With no access to international capital markets and the need to levy export taxes on the agriculture sector to make up for the country's financing shortfall, it is time for Argentina to adopt significant economic and political reforms.

Star commends Burton: No, you're not hallucinating

The Indianapolis Star editorialized recently on the recently-passed farm bill.

Richard Lugar said the legislation defies common sense. Mike Pence called it fiscally irresponsible. President Bush promises to veto the measure.

Yet, both the U.S. House and Senate this week passed a $300 billion farm bill that will shower even more taxpayer subsidies on corporations and some of the nation's wealthiest farmers.

How bad is this bill? It will ladle out $25 billion a year in subsidies and $5 billion in direct payments at a time when farm income and food prices are surging. Net farm income is currently about 50 percent above the decade-long average. The typical farm family now makes about $90,000 a year. Food prices last month, according to the federal government, were up more than 5 percent from a year earlier.

The bill even managed to bestow more largess on the highly subsidized and highly protected U.S. sugar industry. Under the legislation, the government promises to purchase excess sugar from producers at 23 cents a pound. The sugar then will be resold to ethanol producers at 2 cents a pound. Who makes up the difference? You, dear taxpayer.

The administration wanted to cut off payments for farmers with adjusted gross incomes of more than $200,000 a year. The bill instead begins to cap subsidies for those earning more than $750,000 a year in farm income or more than $500,000 in non-farm income.

In addition to the sugar subsidy, the bill contains another protectionist element, one that hurts hungry people around the world. The Bush administration wanted to be able to use foreign aid money to buy food at locations near where it's needed by starving people. That move would reduce transportation costs and allow foreign aid dollars to be stretched further. The bill instead continues a requirement that all food aid must be purchased from U.S. farms.

The shocker sentence, however...

Lugar, Pence and Rep. Dan Burton deserve credit for having the good sense to vote against the bill.

Perhaps now that the Primary is over the Indianapolis Star has chosen to return to reporting on the news, not pushing a left-wing agenda.

RSC Action Plan

The Republican Study Committee released their Action Plan last week.  Check it out here.  For those of you who don't know, Dan founded the Republican Study Committee.  The Republican Study Committee is a group of over 100 conservative US House members who regularly work to keep our party faithful to its values.

The blog Conservative Superiority urges us to support these members.  We couldn't agree more.

This year conservatives don’t have many reasons to be hopeful but these 102 members deserve our support.  They represent our last line of defense against the onslaught of liberalism.

Is your congressman on this list?  If so write them and thank them for standing up for conservative principles, if not write your congressman and let him/her know that you are very disappointed that they don’t stand with the majority of Americans in supporting conservative ideals.

Phyllis Shlafley encourages Congress to pass Burton bill

The Washington Times has a quote from Eagle Forum's President Phyllis Shlafley, encouraging Congress to pass Dan's bill regarding attorney's fees.

She also said Congress could adopt a bill from Rep. Dan Burton, Indiana Republican, to revamp how legal fees are awarded "to stop this racket of the ACLU's collecting attorney's fees when they win a case under the exception clause, which is intimidating to local school boards or counties which might have a cross on their seal or might have the Ten Commandments on their wall."

She said in many cases the school district simply removes the offending symbol rather than incur the legal and court costs of defending their right to display the symbols.

Burton on Energy Independence

Dan's gotten some coverage recently after pushing hard for more domestic oil production as a solution for high gas prices.

In an effort to ease the burden on consumers as gasoline prices reach record highs of $4 a gallon, Congress passed a measure last week demanding that the administration stop pulling oil off the market to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The same day, though, the Senate rejected legislation that would have opened up areas in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

Republicans, such as Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., say the vote was a mistake because supply is directly tied to price. The only way the United States can affect supply is to increase domestic production, proponents of drilling argue, particularly after President Bush's request last week that Saudi Arabia release more oil onto the market resulted in only a small increase of 300,000 barrels per day.

"We have enough oil in this country to make ourselves almost energy-independent, and not one person has mentioned it," Burton said Thursday at a hearing on oil prices and national security in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "We have to look at the realities of today, and the reality today is that we have untapped reserves that need to be drilled."

The United States currently produces 5 million barrels of oil a day and consumes 21 million barrels. According to the Energy Information Agency, the country had 21 billion barrels of crude oil in proven reserves at the end of 2006.

Kokomo Tribune on Dan's visit to Bona Vista

Looks like we missed this article first time around, but better late then never.

Bona Vista provides support to more than 1,000 people a day. The non-profit organization assists individuals with developmental disabilities through residential and community-living programs, helps them acquire jobs, and teaches work and life skills. The program also helps early childhood development programs to assist in physical, occupational and speech therapy. Staff members use developmental therapy and applied behavior analysis services to help children with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental delays.

But to keep these programs running, Dunn has to garner support from governmental agents, such as U.S. Congressman Dan Burton.

On Tuesday, Dunn and Alexander gave Burton a tour of the Kokomo facilities. Burton, a longtime supporter of special needs programs, helped Bona Vista enter into the Crane contract, a military experimental program.

Under the agreement, Bona Vista clients will have new jobs available to them where they will make pallets for the Army, to be used in land mine experiments, Alexander said. Bona Vista entered into a $47,600 contract, receiving approximately $15,000 in profit.

“The clients love having new jobs to do, and it increases their skills,” she said.

“I’m really impressed with this facility,” Burton said. “I think Bona Vista provides an extremely valuable services especially for people with special needs.”

After learning about the many programs available at Bona Vista, Burton said he and his administration would assist the organization in seeking out other contracts as well as grants.

“We’ll help in any way we can.”