Word: blue
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...When Tanner talks about financial crises, he means not just the credit crunch on Wall Street but the massive deficits breaking the back of the federal government. For Blue Dogs, if there's a silver lining to the crisis that has shaken the financial markets, it's that it has highlighted problems they have been warning about for several years; their gripe is that the supposed solution now includes the same out-of-control pork barrel spending that they have been decrying. "The way I see it, the bailout forced us to go into the flooded basement and pump...
...Cooper says he plans to vote for the measure, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has always stood behind the Blue Dogs and isn't happy about the Senate's maneuver, will likely sign on reluctantly as well. But even with Barack Obama calling some of the Blue Dogs to get their support, not all of them have been convinced. "I don't believe this bill is the right medicine to cure the disease," says Rep. Jim Matheson, a Utah Democrat who co-chairs the Blue Dogs. "The Senate version is even worse. It's larded up with more...
...Thursday evening, the White House and Congressional leaders were still not convinced that they had secured the additional 12 votes to guarantee passage. With the outcome still uncertain, the business community has launched a full-court press of every member of Congress, reminding fence sitters like the Blue Dogs of provisions in the bill help their parts of the country. "Some of them are from states that are affected by the state sales tax deduction [a measure that makes sure the seven states without income taxes do not lose money under the federal code], others come from Midwestern states affected...
...Their importance to the bailout measure is a reflection of the Blue Dogs' growing clout within the Democratic Party. Decades ago, when the South was thick with Democrats, there was a saying that Southern Dems were so loyal they're rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican. As the party moved to the left, forcing moderates like Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes (both former Blue Dog leaders) to switch parties, one member joked that the remaining moderates had been choked blue by the left - thus rechristening the group Blue Dogs. For a while their numbers dwindled...
...Former Texas Rep. Charlie Stenholm, once a leading Blue Dog, says if Democrats want to maintain and grow their majority, they must take the Blue Dogs' fiscal conservative demands seriously. "If they don't you will see one of the largest turnovers of Congress in 2010," Stenholm says. "Blue Dogs that do not vote for fiscal responsibility, they'll be held accountable in their districts. Blue Dogs didn't get elected by beating liberal Democrats, they got elected by beating moderate and conservative Republicans, so those seats will flip if constituents aren't satisfied...