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Frank Guinta Does "All the Right Things Politically"

by: Dean Barker

Sun Nov 13, 2011 at 07:31:15 AM EST
( - promoted by William Tucker)

Frank Guinta earned an up arrow this week:
The first district Congressman continues to do all the right things politically. This week, he was in the paper for visiting a school, and now he is holding job fairs for veterans.
Politically, Frank Guinta is doing all the right things. In terms of actual help for veterans, not so much:
I had the displeasure recently of attending U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta's job fair at the New Hampshire Community College in Manchester. My son, who is a U.S. Marine, and I traveled from the Monadnock Region to attend this job fair. We arrived just before 10 a.m.

Companies with applications were nowhere to be found, not a good thing for veteran job-seekers. They had a table with some snacks on it...

It was a sorry excuse for wasting my gas money. I didn't see one representative from a company that had job applications.

Politically, this taxpayer funded Google Ad is effective:
Congressman Frank Guinta is fighting to strengthen & preserve Social Security and Medicare
The political gold of that ad, paid for by you and me, is that it omits candidate Guinta's stated support - on video - for abolishing Social Security. Or Congressman Guinta's interest in privatizing Medicare, on record even before he voted for the Ryan plan - which ends Medicare.

Politically, Frank Guinta's photo op in front of a project funded with stimulus money was especially effective. A central pillar of candidate Frank Guinta's campaign was his opposition to the American Recovery Act. Here's one of numerous examples:

"When will Congresswoman Shea-Porter finally agree with the rest of us who believe her failed stimulus was a waste of our money?"
(find me > 140 on birch paper; on Twitter < 140)
Dean Barker :: Frank Guinta Does "All the Right Things Politically"
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Frank Guinta Does "All the Right Things Politically" | 8 comments
Isn't it nice (4.00 / 2)
that the supposedly premier political reporter in NH thinks that the hypocrisy you highlight so tellingly is "doing the all the right things politically."  I am so glad I read this before I ate breakfast this morning.  As long as the coffee doesn't come back up...
"Doing all the right things politically" (0.00 / 0)
to me, that phrase brings to mind hollow statements and gestures. If that was the intent, then I think the writing was reporting accurately. I'm not sure how others read that, though.
[ Parent ]
Guinta (0.00 / 0)
reminds me a bit of Romney.  Say whatever and appear to support whatever you think voters want to hear, while doing either nothing or the complete opposite.  Let's see, does Guinta support waterboarding, war with Iran, and privation of veterans' health care?  

Who's lining your pockets, Frank?????????????  

They all do it. It's in their DNA (0.00 / 0)
...and their marketing playbooks.

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
Albert Camus


[ Parent ]
Ovide deserves equal attention - (4.00 / 3)
He was at the ribbon-cutting for the stimulus-funded project, after campaigning against the stimulus, too.
Great political insight (4.00 / 4)
Sure Guinta does all things right. That's why his favorability is at 20%.
Guinta was a fluke, a placeholder for Shea-Porter, so she (0.00 / 0)
could get a rest from wrestling with the predators on Capitol Hill. The 112 th Congress was never going to accomplish anything if the executive was actually going to be busy implementing all the legislation put forth by the 111th.

Take note, for example, that the consolidation of student loans under the aegis of the Department of Education, which was scheduled to be commence in 2014 is actually taking off come January 2012.  Transitioning a loan guarantee program from the banks into a federal agency is a significant step, not just because direct loans are more efficient and less expensive, but because it signals the private sector that if they don't invest, we will do it ourselves through the public purse without giving the middlemen their cut.

More attention also needs to be paid to the reforms in the school feeding program and the emphasis on better nutrition for all children, not just the needy.  This means a shift in emphasis from a subsidy for the food processing industry to the health of the food consumers.  While I don't much like the term "consumer," when it comes to children get fed, it's appropriate. The public welfare should be focused on the consumer, rather than the profit margins of the producers and the middlemen.

When we discuss jobs (0.00 / 0)
and the economy, it really helps to make it clear what is going on when we make that distinction, between the part of the economy that produces goods and services that people actually use and benefit from, that part that produces goods and services that actually cause more harm than good, and that part that siphons off money for the middlemen.  What would we see if we accounted for economic activity by separating those?  

Here, as well as in national economy, we need to start with our priorities.  Do we want to make the rich richer, or do we want the economy to work for the rest of us?  As hannah points out, do we want to make college available to the many, do we want to feed hungry children, or do we want to increase the profits of agribusiness and the banks, who are already making out like bandits?

[ Parent ]
Frank Guinta Does "All the Right Things Politically" | 8 comments

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