Mr. McHugh introduced HR 6321, the Home Energy Affordability Tax Relief act, on June 18, 2008. Political IV summarized the bill in his post of 7/23/08. Mr. McHugh, in his press release, claims that he is leading the effort to reduce heating costs by offering a $500 tax credit for those with heating bills more then $1500. The credit will phase out for individuals with incomes greater then $60,000.

In all respect for our congressman, he is leading nothing, except garnering headlines in an election year. This bill has no chance of passage, much less a committee hearing. It is the same manipulative, cynical stunt that he pulled in 2004 when he co-sponsored HR 4597, the National Dairy Equity Act. In fact, the timing of his HEATR act is exactly the same as the Dairy Act. Like the HEATR act that was introduced this June 18th, the Dairy act was introduced June 16, 2004. That bill never made it out of committee to see the light of day.

The time to introduce legislation is at the beginning of the term, not when congress has less then six weeks left in its session. Congress will soon be in recess for its summer vacation and is aiming to adjourn in late September for campaigning. This is one of his typical last minute populist election year bills, that is ill conceived as he does not even make a pretense as to how to pay for it. To be blunt, this bill is a joke for the very reason that its timing assures that it will not be taken seriously.

Not that Mr. McHugh didn’t know about the problem of rising heating costs throughout the district for the past two years. Rising energy costs are not new. Gas was nearly $3.00 a gallon in the summer of 2006.

This is not leadership, but the workings of a well accomplished skillful master politician whose only goal is to win yet another election and rack up another term towards the twenty year mark when he can collect a full congressional pension on our backs.

There are only two types of job performance. One relies on perception, the other relies on results. For those of us whose jobs demand results, nothing makes us see more red than those who flit through life on false perception. They make nothing, produce nothing and do nothing. We have been suckered by the same tailors who “made” the emperor’s new clothes. If we can’t see the clothes, we are stupid. When are we going to wake up and see the naked truth as it is.