Arcuri Backs Permanent Internet Tax Ban

Rarely does Rep. Michael Arcuri take a stand that’s in line with the constituents of the 24th District, but on the issue of Internet taxation, Arcuri deserves praise for signing on to a measure that would put a permanent “moratorium on Internet access taxes.” Arcuri became a co-sponsor of the bill (H.R. 743) in September.

With only a week left to act before the tax ban expires, it’s unclear if Arcuri’s Democrat colleagues will allow a vote on the bill or instead opt for a four-year extension that won approval on a 405-2 vote. Arcuri would be wise to lobby his liberal allies to make the ban permanent.

Arcuri Still Telling Lies About SCHIP

Listening to Rep. Michael Arcuri you’d think the sky was falling on poor children. The congressman has bought into the rhetoric of Washington Democrats and is deliberately misleading his constituents about the program. It’s a shameful act, but one we’ve come to expect from Arcuri.

A classic case is this WKTV story about Arcuri’s visit to the Upstate Cerebral Palsy Children’s Center — a perfect photo opportunity for the pandering politician to play political games in Utica.

About 800 children whose families use Child Health Plus are enrolled at UCP. Without this financial support, those families would face some serious hardships.

[...]

Democrats in congress say they aren’t giving up on their expanded SCHIP bill, which was vetoed by President Bush.

“This is not a benefit to wealthy people who can afford it,” Arcuri said. “This is not going to pull people with an insurance program. This is going to give insurance to people who need it most who to the working class to people who can’t afford it for their children not for themselves.”

It’s bad enough that WKTV fails to check the facts, but what’s even worse is that they let Arcuri get away with spinning the story.

For starters, SCHIP isn’t going away. The program was extended until mid-November to give lawmakers time to work out a compromise. That’s hardly ever reported, and for good reason — Democrats such as Arcuri want you to believe poor kids are living without health insurance.

It’s also important to remember that no one will lose coverage under President Bush’s plan. The White House is insisting that poor kids are covered first, which should be the priority of the Upstate Cerebral Palsy Children’s Center. Bush doesn’t want to expand the program to families making $83,000 per year as New York would like to do — hardly “wealthy” in Arcuri’s own words, but certainly not poor either.

No Surprise: Arcuri Endorses McNamara for DA

It comes as no surprise that Rep. Michael Arcuri chose to endorse Scott McNamara for Oneida County district attorney yesterday. McNamara was Arcuri’s former deputy and got the nod to take over the office when Arcuri was elected to Congress.

What will be interesting to watch is how the endorsement impacts the ongoing investigation into Utica Police Officer Brandon Jones. The Utica O-D reported last week that no one wants to talk about the Jones case.

A reader e-mailed us to suggest the biggest beneficiary of Arcuri’s endorsement would be Jones.

Now that McNamara has Arcuri’s endorsement, there’s no possible way McNamara will indict Jones, or put much effort into investigating the incident for that matter. To do so would open up comparisons to Arcuri’s handling of the Franco pellet gun incident, another case of an assault on a suspect in handcuffs, and neither man wants that.

McNamara’s opponent, David Longeretta, has cited the Franco case as an example of Arcuri and McNamara’s incompetence during their reign at the DA’s office.

Is Arcuri Unbeatable in 2008?

Bloomberg News reports that Rep. Michael Arcuri is one of several freshman Democrats to amass a significant warchest heading into 2008. He also faces no opposition at this stage, although the National Republican Congressional Committee promises that will soon change.

After Democrat Joe Sestak captured a suburban Philadelphia House seat from a Republican who had held it for two decades, he never stopped trolling for donations. Now, with a $1.4 million bankroll, he’s considered a good bet to retain the seat in 2008.

Sestak, 55, is one of several freshman Democrats who have boosted their chances of hanging onto hard-won seats by using their fundraising prowess to scare off challengers. Others include Michael Arcuri in New York, Paul Hodes in New Hampshire and Dave Loebsack in Iowa.

The article includes a major error, claiming that Arcuri beat former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert in 2006. In fact, he defeated former state Sen. Ray Meier.

In New York, Arcuri, who toppled 12-term Republican Sherwood Boehlert, has raised $656,298, a funding level he didn’t reach last year until three months before Election Day.

Liberals are jumping for joy at the news. Writing on Wizbang Blue, contributor Larkin says the news reveals that “Republicans are now increasingly afraid to take on Democratic incumbent in next year’s election.” That’s hardly true. Tuesday’s near Republican upset in Massachusetts’ 5th District by Jim Ogonowski is an indication that the wave that swept Democrats into control in 2006 has already broken.

Constituent Urges Arcuri to Compromise on SCHIP

One of Rep. Michael Arcuri’s constituents doesn’t like the funding scheme Democrats devised to pay for an expanded version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In a letter to Arcuri, Paul Wolber asked that his congressman “find another source of funding for the SCHIP expansion; and … find a compromise that will help to keep our nation’s children both healthy and insured.”

I cannot in good conscience support any proposal which would place such oppressive tax burdens on a single category of legal consumer products; namely tobacco products in this case.

Unfortunately, Hodes suggests taxing other industries in addition to tobacco. Then again, it’s not surprising given that he boasts of being “a staunch Democrat.”

Arcuri Boasts of Boehlert Being His Mentor

Throughout the 2006 campaign, Michael Arcuri called himself a “Boehlert Democrat” in reference to then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican who represented the area for 24 years. Much to the disappointment of Republicans, Boehlert did little to criticize the man who would eventually take his place.

We saw their chummy relationship on display again last week when Arcuri referred to Boehlert as his “mentor” during a dedication ceremony in Boehlert’s honor at Utica College.

“You can see the gleam in his eyes when he speaks of what he did in Washington,” said Boehlert’s successor, Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, who called Boehlert his mentor. “It’s not an easy task, but he made the job seem effortless.”

How sweet.

Arcuri’s Mismanagement Plays Role in DA Race

The brother of Republican David Longeretta, a candidate for Oneida County district attorney, placed an ad in the Utica Observer-Dispatch this week comparing former DA Michael Arcuri’s handling of the Desiree Case murder trail to the botched Duke lacrosse rape case.

In a story about the ad, the O-D compared the two cases:

Duke lacrosse case
* In the highly publicized Duke lacrosse case, a black stripper hired by the Duke lacrosse team to entertain at a party claimed she had been raped and sodomized in a bathroom by three white team members.

* The alleged incident took place in March 2006, at the same time Nifong was in the middle of a tough re-election campaign. He made numerous statements critical of the lacrosse team and the three suspects, leading to accusations he was trying to gain favor among black voters by prosecuting the white players.

* Flaws in evidence gathering came to light, including failure to disclose DNA evidence that would have helped the players’ defense.

* Ultimately, the case unraveled under the weight of inconsistencies in the stripper’s story, and Nifong was brought up on ethics charges and disbarred.

The Desiree Case murder
* Desiree Case, a Yorkville teen whose struggles led her to drugs and prostitution, was found beaten and stabbed to death in an abandoned West Utica house in February 2006.

* Then-DA Michael Arcuri prosecuted the case and won the murder conviction of Joseph Smith, an ex-Madison County correction officer who had lived with Case. After Smith was convicted, but before he was sentenced, documents were found among the case files that indicated another man, a drug dealer named Earl Wright, might have actually been responsible for the murder.

* Arcuri took the information to the court, and Smith was freed.

* Wright was convicted after a new trial and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Another man was also convicted in the case.

* McNamara became first assistant district attorney on Jan. 1, 2001, but says he did not work on the Desiree Case trial.

By drawing attention to Arcuri’s mismanagement as district attorney, Longeretta is doing Republicans in the district a favor. This issue wasn’t exploited by Ray Meier in 2006, but it’s a huge black eye Arcuri would rather forget. Longeretta seems to be laying the ground work for what could be a line of attack against Arcuri in 2008.

Arcuri Faces the $83,000 Question on SCHIP

The Oneonta Daily Star chided President Bush for vetoing the Democrats’ $35-billion expansion of SCHIP, a bill that would grant New York families earning up to $83,000 per year government-run health care. With the House expected to take up the measure tomorrow, our eyes will be on Rep. Michael Arcuri.

There’s no doubt that Arcuri will vote to override Bush’s veto, but what he does next could indicate whether he’s going to continue politicizing the debate over children’s health care or work toward a solution. Unfortunately for the residents of the 24th District, Arcuri is likely to play political games.

Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, pointed out that nearly 1,300 children in Otsego County were affected by New York’s version of SCHIP, Child Health Plus.

“As a father,” Arcuri said, “I know the worry parents face when a child gets sick and how critical health insurance is to ensure preventative care. By expanding health care to uninsured children in New York, we can improve access to preventative care, decreasing trips to the emergency room and costly, more severe illnesses down the road.”

Arcuri’s misleading comments fail to inform constituents that Republicans support an reauthorization of SCHIP to cover poor kids, insisting that they come before adults and other middle-income families. But in Arcuri’s socialist fantasy land, he’d like to turn the program into a government-run system that extends far beyond its original intent. Shame on him.

Arcuri Shuts Down Debate on FISA Bill

When Rep. Michael Arcuri ran for Congress last year, he promised a new approach to legislating in Washington. But yesterday, Arcuri’s hypocrisy was on full display when he voted along with other Democrats on the House Rules Committee to prevent Republicans from even offering amendments to the FISA bill. This is exactly the type of tactic Democrats criticized Republicans for employing in years past.

Brian Faughnan writes in a lengthy post on the Weekly Standard that by closing down the debate, Arcuri prevented a vote on common-sense amendments that would “authorize surveillance of those engaged in the creation of Weapons of Mass Destruction; authorize surveillance of foreign terrorists outside the United States; extend liability protection to telecommunications companies that relied on government directives and shared information deemed necessary for protection from terrorist attack; and, allow a debate on the Bush administration’s alternative.”

Faughnan thinks he knows why Arcuri is afraid to let those amendments come up for a vote on the House floor:

Because they know a majority of the House is against the Democratic leadership on this and other security issues. When the House approved a temporary extension of FISA that was consistent with White House recommendations, 41 Democrats voted with nearly all House Republicans to pass a strong bipartisan bill. Democratic leaders couldn’t allow that to happen again.

Despite calling himself a moderate, Arcuri is showing his true political stripes on this issue. Residents of the 24th District would be appalled if the local newspapers started revealing the truth about what was happening in Washington.

Arcuri’s Economic Plan: Government Knows Best

Rep. Michael Arcuri is making the most of the $40-billion, pork-laden economic development package that would create a new Northern Border Regional Commission to supposedly benefit the Central New York area, reports News 10 Now of Syracuse.

Arcuri said the commission would directly benefit Cayuga, Herkimer, Oneida, and Seneca Counties.

“What benefits Rome benefits Herkimer, and what benefits Herkimer benefits Cortland so we are a region, this money helps to I think create a regional approach to economic development and that really is I think will be the best thing that can happen to our area,” said Congressman Michael Arcuri.

The bill was passed by the House last week. Arcuri said some possible projects under the commission include transportation infrastructure, broadband development, and alternative energy projects.

Last week Syracuse Post-Standard columnist Mark Weiner noted that Arcuri was claiming credit for the bill, even though he wasn’t the sponsor.