Balancing the awkward stance that she craves fiscal responsibility from the wild-spending federal government and simultaneously demands no cuts to federal grants to Orange County, Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez announced today that she'll “fight tooth and nail” to block any local cuts.
“Once we receive the president's budget proposal next week, we will have a better idea what local programs, if any, will be affected by this proposed spending freeze,” Sanchez said in an embargoed pre-State of the Union press announcement.
In his address to Congress tonight, President Barack Obama called for a three-year federal spending freeze that excludes the military and certain social programs that benefit the elderly. The idea is hoped to save $250 billion over the next decade, according to the administration.
While Obama's heart is in the right place, according to Sanchez (D-Santa Ana), OC can't suffer more cuts.
“As a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, I am pleased that the administration is taking concrete steps to tackle our deficit,” said Sanchez. “But I also want to balance our interest in maintaining crucial social services and law enforcement programs, especially those in my district.”
Wearing her trademark red outfit, a cheerful Sanchez–the county's lone Democrat in Congress–appeared in all network television broadcasts of Obama's entrance into the capitol building.
Meanwhile, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring called Obama's speech nothing but “populist platitudes and packaging” that “is not going to win over a rightfully skeptical public.” Nehring singled out Sanchez and a few other California Democrats by saying their embrace of “big government” will result in losing their offices after the November elections.
“It's clear that the president and his allies are playing politics, hoping that voters will overlook the billions of dollars wasted on misguided stimulus plans,” Nehring said.
Neither Van Tran nor Quang X. Pham, two Republican challengers to Sanchez, announced their views of the president's State of the Union address on their websites.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.