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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spin Control

Today’s video: Rossi on ABC blog

Republican Senatorial Candidate Dino Rossi was the featured guest Tuesday on ABC's "Top Line," a daily political Webcast the network does with The Washington Post.  It was a huge hit, at least with Democrats who were quick to send out excerpts in which Rossi calls for the repeal of healthcare reform and the recent financial reform packages.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out four different e-mails, of different blog posts, each with the same basic content, that Rossi called for those repeals. The Rossi campaign was relatively late to tout the appearance, sending out a notice around 2:30 p.m.

Not surprisingly, the Rossi campaign spun the appearance a bit differently, saying the two bills should be repealed and replaced with something better.  And then only after noting that Rossi touted his budget-writing experience.

A Cliff Notes version of the interview (which starts at 4:22 at the above link) goes like this:

* The National Republican Senatorial Committee is reserving television time in the fall for Washington, but that's news to Rossi, who is in D.C. today.
* Rossi has more Facebook friends than Patty Murray.
* Sarah Palin's endorsement of Clint Didier isn't such a big deal, and she did it before Rossi got into the race.
* He balanced the state budget in 2003 with bipartisan support.
* He's signed on to support an across-the-board flat tax, although he hedges by saying what the country needs is a fairer, simpler tax and this is one way to do it. But the real problem is uncertainty over what the government's going to do, which is discouraging businesses from investing.
* As a small businessman, if elected, he'd be one of the few senators who "had signed the front side of a pay check."
*He'd repeal the health care bill and replace it with something that would allow businesses to buy medical insurance across state lines.
* He'd repeal the financial reform bill, and replace it with "reforms that actually help the public."
* He's against earmarks, and thinks everything should get full congressional scrutiny.

To read samples of the Democratic response and the Rossi press release, go inside the blog.

First strike from the DSCC at 11:22 a.m.:

DINO ROSSI BECOMES FIRST SENATE CANDIDATE IN COUNTRY TO PLEDGE REPEAL OF WALL STREET REFORMS

In Interview With ABC News, Dino Rossi Says If Elected He’d Return To Wall Street’s Old Ways of Doing Business Of Excessive Risk And Greed

Rossi Shows Loyalty To Big Banks Over Washington Families

Perennial politician Dino Rossi told ABC News this afternoon that if elected he would repeal Wall Street reform.  Rossi opposed the financial regulatory reform bill, which passed two weeks ago and was signed into law by President Obama last week, and today called on the bill to be repealed.  Among other pro-consumer provisions, the Wall Street reform bill will force lenders to provide clear and accurate information to average Washingtonian looking to buy a home and get a mortgage.  No longer will lenders be able to con honest Washingtonians into signing loans with exorbitant interest rates or variable interest rates that the consumer knows nothing about.  This provision might not mean much to ethically challenged politician Dino Rossi, who has a long history of personally profiting off of shady real estate deals and seminars teaching investors how to get rich off of foreclosures, but it means a lot to Washington families who are struggling due to the housing and economic downturn.

“Dino Rossi is out of step with Washington values and not on the side of consumers in his state,” said DSCC National Press Secretary Deirdre Murphy. “Rossi shows more loyalty to big banks than to Washington taxpayers.”

The financial regulatory reform bill, which perennial politician Dino Rossi wants to repeal, will hold banks accountable and protect consumers.  The bill will end taxpayer bailouts by forcing banks to clean up their own messes from now on.  The bill will also stop banks from taking secret, excessive risk with consumers’ money and force big banks and credit card companies to offer clear, fair terms to consumers.  This legislation will put an end to the reckless and irresponsible behavior that led to the economic collapse in the first place, while ensuring that the financial system works for all Americans.   A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows voters back financial reform by a 65% to 31% margin.

For those too slow to get the true import of this momentous event, the DSCC followed up with links to the original blog posting, and other blogs that picked up the story line at The Hill,  the SeattlePI and The Washington Post

Rossi replied at 2:36 p.m.:

Dino Rossi on ABC News Top Line

 Bellevue, WA – U.S. Senate candidate Dino Rossi appeared on ABC News Top Line on Tuesday.  Below are excerpts from the interview: 

 On His Experience On Balancing Washington State’s Budget

“The reality is, is that I'm the guy that balanced the biggest deficit in state history as chairman of the [state] Senate Ways and Means Committee, without raising taxes and still protect the venerable, and did it in the bipartisan fashion.”

 On Encouraging Businesses To Expand

“I think the reality is that we need to have fair and predictable taxation. One of the reasons we have a 17.4% functional unemployment rate in the state of Washington is because people don’t believe it’s fair, and they’re very concerned. Businesses are paralyzed right now, because they don’t know what their government’s going to do to them next.”

 “[W]hat we have to have is modest but fair taxation that’s predictable for businesses to plan ahead. I’ve been encountering businesses in my state who actually have money.  They could expand their businesses, but they’re hunkering down because of the fear of what might happen.”

 On Repealing The Partisan Health Care Bill And Replacing It With Measures To Increase Access And Lower Costs

 “The $500 billion tax increase alone cost the Boeing company in my state $150 million. But if you replicate that across the state of Washington, there’s tens of thousands of jobs that will be lost or won’t be created because of Patty Murray’s 60th and deciding vote. We shouldn’t be trying to kill jobs in our state right now. We have to reduce premiums; we have to give greater access. I want as many health insurance companies in my state chasing around my constituents as I can possibly get, for their business. And they can decide what they want in their plan instead of some bureaucrat in D.C. deciding for them.”

 On The Financial Regulation Bill

“What they did is created six superbanks and left Fannie and Freddie, which were at the epicenter of the problem, out of the deal.”

 “[W]e should put reforms in that actually protect the public and don’t reduce the amount of money that small businesses have available to them to grow because 64% of job creation since ’92 came from small businesses and now we’re just killing them.”

 On Earmarks

“Anything worth doing is worth doing in the normal budgeting process, not in the dark of the night with one senator nudging another, saying I’ll vote for your stuff if you vote for mine. The old school measurement of a good senator was how much pork he drug home. And, quite frankly, with Republicans and Democrats alike doing that, it’s bankrupting America.”



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