Dick Armey: Obama Agenda ‘Very Tyrannical’; Republicans Who Support Him Should Beware

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

We asked former House majority leader Dick Armey, whose FreedomWorks organization has helped stir up some of the more vocal “tea party” protests of the past few months, whether some of the rhetoric has gotten out of hand.

Specifically, did House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, cross a line when he called the health care bill “the greatest threat to freedom that I've seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington”?

No way, Armey told us on ABCNews.com's “Top Line” today: “I was there before John Boehner. It's the greatest threat to individual liberty I've seen in my time,” said Armey, R-Texas.

“If you find your personal liberty precious, if you understand the best decisions in commerce and production and distribution and product is decisions made in the private sector, then you find it very tyrannical to have a government dictate to you: 'You must buy this product, as I specify, this product, at the price I set for this product. If you don't do so you will be subject to even criminal sanctions and jail sentences, severe fines and penalties,'” he said.

“The Pointer Sisters had a great point about the song 'Mr. Big Shot, Who Do You Think You Are?' I mean, where the government gets off telling me what I must buy, where I must buy it, what its dimensions or specifications must be, and what price to pay — who do they think they are?”

Asked if there's room in the party for moderate Republicans — such as Senate candidates Charlie Crist, R-Fla., Carly Fiorina, R-Calif., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., all of whom are mistrusted by conservatives — Armey said:

“People who seek high office, who think the stimulus package was a good thing, endorse such trespasses against past privacy rights as card-check and so forth, are people that we think will be counterproductive to our prosperity to our safety and security and rights as citizens — irrespective of party.”

Steele to Republicans Who Support Obama: ‘We’ll Come After You’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: RNC Chairman Michael Steelehas beenendorsing a “big tent” approach to recruiting candidates for 2010, emphasizing the need to find candidates who fit the needs of individual districts.

But on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Steele made clear there are limits to how far candidates can push the party’s limits.

Asked if he’d be comfortable with Republican candidates in 2010 who supported President Obama’s stimulus package, or his push to overhaul health care, Steele said:

“Well I’m gonna tell you honestly, that’s where the line gets a little bit tricky. And you saw in the House and in the Senate that there are ramifications, because that goes against a core principle. And trust me, you’re assuming that people want to have bloated debt, government expenditures and growth into their lives — they don’t. That’s a talking point out of the DNC.”

“People aren’t buying that. So candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you’re crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles, because we’ll come after you,” Steele continued.

“You’re gonna find yourself in a very tough hole if you’re arguing for the president’s stimulus plan or Nancy Pelosi’s health plan. There’s no justification for growing the size of government the way this administration and this Congress wants to do it.”

Steele didn’t mention any candidates by name. But the comments could be interpreted as a warning shot aimed at Republicans who have voiced support for the stimulus — like Gov. Charlie Crist, R-Fla., who’s running for governor next year in a competitive primary — or who, like Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, are supporting health care reform efforts.

Crist told CNN earlier this week that he never endorsed the stimulus package, and that he voiced support for it only because he was simply trying to get the best deal for Florida, given that the stimulus was headed for passage in Washington. However, given Crist’s sharing a stage with President Obama to trumpet the stimulus package and his publicly stated support for it, it will no doubt continue to dog him in his competitive primary against Marco Rubio no matter how strenuously he attempts to walk it back.

Steele also disputed the contention by White House senior adviser David Axelrod that 2009 wasn’t a referendum on the president’s policies, but that 2010 will be.

“You have the president going into New Jersey four times, and you’re going to then sit back after we kick your butt and say, ‘Well, no, this had nothing to do with the president?’ Well why was he there?” Steele said.

“And you can’t sit back at the same time and say … the only reason we’re losing is because our base isn’t excited so pass this horrendous health care bill. And that will excite them? They’re not excited because they’re fearful that you’re going to pass this horrendous health care bill because this is not the change that they voted for. They’ve missed that point.”

“So don’t get in front of the White House lawn and give me this sort of disingenuous, ‘Oh well, you know, ’09 isn’t about the president, 2010 is going to be about passing our agenda and that way people will be excited again.’ They’re not excited because they’re fearful of what it is you want to pass.”

Watch our full interview withthe RNC chairmanHERE.

UPDATE: The Democratic National Committee jumped on the interview after it aired, saying that Steele is tying himself to “extremist” elements inside the Republican Party:

“With today's threat to 'come after' moderate Republicans or those that would work for bipartisan solutions, it's clear the Michael Steele and the Republican party are ready to hand over the keys of the GOP to Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck and the rest of the extremist tea party crowd,” DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement.

“And in establishing a policy of purging moderates, the Republicans have committed themselves to being an extreme ideological party that will only turn-off independent voters and further marginalize an already isolated party going into 2010 and beyond.”

Dems Lock Out Republicans — Literally

ABC News' Rick Klein and Matthew Jaffe report: Somebody call a divorce lawyer.

This tale has secret videotaping, a staged walk-out, and — finally this week — one side secretly changing the locks on the other.

And everyone involved is a member of Congress.

It's the latest turn in an increasingly acrimonious stand-off inside the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the House's chief investigatory committee, the panel perhaps best known in recent years for the steroids-in-baseball hearings.

The dispute was months in the making. But Republicans turned up the temperature last week by vowing to force a committee vote on subpoenaing a fresh round of documents in its investigation of Countrywide Financial, the collapsed mortgage giant.

Democrats labeled that a political stunt, designed to embarrass two key Democratic lawmakers — Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Kent Conrad — who got special VIP loans through Countrywide.

But rather than taking the political risk of bringing the motion to a vote, Democrats pulled off what appeared to be a stunt of their own: When the time came for the scheduled vote last Thursday, they huddled in a back room — denying Republicans the quorum they needed to take action.

Then things got interesting. Republican staff members had secretly set up a video camera outside the committee room. The camera captured a stream of Democrats leaving through a side door of the very committee room they were scheduled to be in — calling into question Democrats' claim that a scheduling conflict involving another committee meeting prevented their attendance.

Republicans put the video on YouTube, juxtaposing the empty chairs and the Democrats filing out of the room. They put it all to the tune of “Hit the Road, Jack.”

Not everyone was laughing. On Tuesday, the committee's Democrats let the Republicans know that their keys wouldn't work in the hearing room anymore. They'd had the locks changed.

Why? “Because they [Republicans] don't know how to behave,” Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., told Politico. Towns' office did not respond to request for comment.

The committee had been scheduled to meet again on Thursday — assuming everyone could get inside the room. And with at least one Democrat promising to vote with Republicans, it would have been another interesting meeting.

“If only they would use their creative energy to do some actual oversight and maybe hold a hearing rather than resorting to immature tactics, but I guess we're getting some insight into what lengths they'll go to avoid addressing the Countrywide VIP issue – I'm actually embarrassed for them right now,” said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the committee's top Republican.

Todaythe panel also postponed the Thursday hearing on Bank of America's controversial merger with Merrill Lynch last year – a hearing at which Issa could have called for the subpoena vote.

Democrats, a GOP source said, had asked Republicans “repeatedly this week” if they intended to call the vote at Thursday's hearing.

“Two weeks, two hearings postponed,” said Bardella. “Why not use the time scheduled for tomorrow to hold a straight up or down vote on the Countrywide subpoena?

Hatch: Don’t Believe Republicans Will Support Obamacare

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: The boldfaced GOP names being rolled out as supporters of President Obama’s health care reform efforts aren’t changing many minds among their counterparts on Capitol Hill.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Sen. Orrin Hatch, a leading Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told us that he expects the support offered recently by Republicans such as Bill Frist, Tommy Thompson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger will evaporate as the final bill comes into view.

“I know that [Frist] believes that it should not be exactly the way the Democrats are coming up with it, and I don’t believe these other Republicans are going to be for it when they see the final bill that’s being written in the back rooms right now,” Hatch, R-Utah, told us. “But the Democrats do have the votes. They have 60 votes in the Senate, they’ve got a super-majority over in the House, and they can pass almost anything they want. But they’re going to have to live with what they do.”

Though the version of the bill set to be approved by the Finance Committee does not include a “public option” that would compete with private insurers, Hatch said it’s important for Republicans to realize that draft won’t represent the final version of the bill.

“The final bill’s being written right now in the White House, in dark rooms up here in the Capitol . . . and it’s being written by partisan Democrats,” he said. “And we’re just going to have to see how it turns out in the end. But that’s what’s really going to happen here.”

Hatch also attacked Democratic plans to cut Medicare as part of efforts to limit the program’s cost: “Medicare is facing $38 trillion in unfunded liability, so we’re going to take another half trillion dollars out of there? That’s nuts — that’s just nuts.”

On Afghanistan, he applauded Gen. Stanley McChrystal for advocating an Afghanistan policy that isn’t particularly popular in Democratic circles, and criticized the president for not making up his mind more quickly.

“I think we want straightforward language on what needs to be done over there, and McChrystal I think is just saying ‘Look, if you’re gonna put our young men and women at risk over here, we’ve got to have the right type of equipment, we’ve gotta have the right type of forces, we’ve got to have more support from back in the country, and it’s just a matter of fact,’ ” Hatch said.

“And it just seems like it’s taking a long time to make a decision that really ought to have been made a while back. And we’re putting — every day we’re putting a lot of these young people at risk, and we saw what happened last week.”

Click HERE to see the interview with Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Also today, we chatted with Republican strategist Kevin Madden, who said the administration’s handling of the Afghanistan debate is showing some presidential growing pains.

“What we’re seeing right now is a sort of snapshot of just how inexperienced this president is when it comes to managing a chain of command,” Madden said.

We also got Madden’s take on Rep. Mike Castle’s Senate bid in Delaware, the latest in the health care debate, and Levi Johnston’s latest star turn in … a pistachio ad.

Watch the discussion with Kevin Madden HERE.

Republicans Compare Health Care To Stimulus, Say August Timeline Is Too Hasty

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Democrats are starting to run up on timelines for health care reform and the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Republicans say they are being too hasty and warn that a health care bill will lead to unintended consequences.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.,told reporters again today that Senators will do their ?best? to confirm Sotomayor, pass a Senate version of health care reform and finish up the Pentagon policy bill they?re currently considering before they?re scheduled to leave for a month-long August recess. He dodged the question ofwhether this will require more work time in August.

Republicans, meanwhile, have taken to comparing the health care reform effort with the unpopular $775 billion stimulus bill that was passed hastily a month after President Obama took office, but has not stemmed the rise in unemployment.

?Here we are a few weeks before the recess, and you get the impression they're willing — they want to pass just anything they can as rapidly as they can. And the reason I was comparing that to the stimulus, we know that that at least so far is a failure. It, once again, was sold to us on the basis that we had to do it tomorrow in order to prevent catastrophe,? said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

?I think that's a flawed strategy,? he said. ?I think we ought to take our time and do it right,? McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

It?s possible — but not yet guaranteed –that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will pass its version of health care reform.

This would be the first fully baked stab presented by Democrats and modified by votes in a public process at the committee over the past several weeks. It has a controversial public health insurance option and a mandate for employers to either provide health care coverage or pay, and it will ultimately be melded with whatever is produced by the Senate Finance Committee to expand Medicaid and pay for health care.

The Finance Committee is nowhere near done with its version of health care reform. Another bipartisan meeting began behind closed doors late this afternoon.

McConnell also questioned the central sales pitch the Obama administration has used to pitch health care reform as a necessity– that reforming health care will ultimately save money.

?We're told on this that in part the reason for doing health care is that it will actually save money over the long term.Most of us are scratching our heads wondering how you can design a plan in order to try to cover the uninsured, bring more people into the coverage, and still save money.In fact, that won't happen,? he said.

Republicans Stepping up Anti-Stimulus Rhetoric

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports:

Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee stood beside a large, orange “Road Work Ahead” sign draped with reflective road worker vests today to complain that the stimulus hasn’t worked in creating the jobs it was supposed to.

And they called on the Obama administration to work to address the $20 billion shortfall that threatens payments for non-stimulus road and infrastructure projects paid for through the highway trust fund.

“There's a new definition for dismal failure. Stimulus. This stimulus,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, whose home state of Florida suffers from high unemployment.

The Congress people all suffer from high unemployment in their states and pointed to a GAO report released this week that shows many of the areas with the highest unemployment are receiving proportionally less stimulus money. In large part, this is due to the formula by which the funds have been dispersed.

“It’s absolutely shocking that after five months later continue to be mired in red tape. it takes far too long to get projects under way,” said Rep. John Mica, R-FL, who is the ranking Republican on the Transportation Committee.

“Michigan, with the highest unemployment in the nation, is 45th in the nation in our receipt of transportation dollars,” said Rep. Candace Miller, who said her district has the highest unemployment in the nation.

She said the Obama administration and Congress should change the rules for stimulus-funded projects to cut through red tape. They pointed to the quick response to the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, which took 437 days to rebuild, although Congress passed a special bill to authorize its contribution to that project.

“Cutting through all of this, we would have so many shovel ready programs,” said Miller of red tape that she said is snarling projects. “we would be really turning the dirt right now.”

They also faulted the Obama administration for its plan to ask Congress to authorize the borrowing of $20 billion to replenish the Department of Transportation’s highway trust fund, which faces a funding shortfall.

Adviser: Palin Will Be ‘Friend and Force’ for Other Republicans

ABC News’ Rick Klein Reports: Fred Malek, a veteran Republican operative and a key political adviser to Gov. Sarah Palin, tells ABC News that Palin intends to continue to be helpful to other Republicans – and is leaving her political options open even with today’s announcement.

“She’s not going to go hide in a cave,” Malek said in a telephone interview. “She’ll continue to be a major friend and force for Republican figures in this country.”

Malek said Palin is not ruling out a return to politics, though she has no plans on the horizon to seek another office. He said he expects that she’ll raise money for other Republican candidates in the months and years to come.

Republicans Attack Sotomayor Questionnaire, Say It Was Too Hastily Prepared

ABC News'Z. Byron Wolf and Sunlen Miller report: Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, still smarting at what they say is a rushed schedule for Sonia Sotomayors’ Supreme Court nomination hearing, sent Sotomayor a letter Wednesday asking her to clarify what they say are omissions from her questionnaire.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted the White House in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday for racing toget the nomineesquestionnaire to the committee and failing to complete it.

“This is a confirmation process, not a confirmation race,” said Sessions. “And the White House, I think, should focus more on having a thorough and complete answer to the questionnaire, not on entering the Guinness book of record for the fastest response. We know now that Judge Sotomayor has omitted and failed to include key information that provided incomplete and sometimes contradictory responses to the questionnaire. the responses are not satisfactory.”

They allege in their letterthat theomissionsinclude everything from failing to provide transcripts or in-depth summaries from a number of the 191 speechesSotomayor saysshe has given,to failing to include some court documents from 14 cases she argued because, “the Manhattan District Attorneys is searching its records for further information on these cases.”

They also point to a question that asks for articles in law journalsfor which Sotomayorhas written or edited. While Sotomayor included articles she wrote, she did not include any material for the Yale Law Review, of which she was editor.

Other complaints seemless severe. On one spot in the questionnaire Sotomayor says she served as a “member and vice president of the board of directors” of the Puerto Rican Education and Legal Defense Fund. In another spot she refers to herself as a having served as “first vice president.” The Republicans want a clarification.

In all, Republican members demand clarification on ten points in their four page letter.

Following GOP complains that there have been omissions from Sotomayor’s questionnaire, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that any information lacking will be provided in a timely manner.

“As is the case with many Supreme Court nominees, additional information based on questions that they have or going back into the record quite some time, for instance, whether it's her work as a district attorney, obviously, that was a number of years ago, those files have to be pulled,” said Gibbs. “And anything that is lacked in the questionnaire will be provided in a timely manner to the committee.”

Gibbs said, for example that John Roberts had “thousands of pages” in the achieves that ultimately had to be delivered after the original questionnaire was sent to the Hill.

All this speaks to the speed with which Democrats want to hold Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings – starting July 13th.

Democrats say that’s plenty of time for Republicans to review Sotomayor’s record. Republicans disagree. There will be no resolution to this very political argument.

GOP Rep. Brady: Obama is Wrong; Republicans Will Offer Alternative Budget

ABC News’ Rick Klein and David Chalian report: Pressed on Republican critiques of his budget plan at Tuesday night’s press conference, President Obama had a ready answer

“I mean, we haven’t seen an alternative budget out of them,” the president said.

But what will the response be when that’s no longer the case?

“We’ve offered a lot of comprehensive proposals on this stimulus, on the omnibus, but we’re gonna also have a complete budget that, unlike his, does not use funny money, does not have tax increases,” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said on “Politics Live” today.

“We always offer a comprehensive budget alternative, even if it’s rejected by the Democrats,” Brady added, “but we’ve seen what happens when Democrats spend. Deficits go through the roof. We have a better idea.”

Deficits rose dramatically during the Bush administration. But Republicans are trying to assign blame to the Democratic Congress; Democrats have held majorities in the House and Senate since 2007.

House Republicans say they will offer a full alternative to the president’s budget, though the same may not happen in the Senate, where GOP leaders say they’re more inclined to offer point-by-point amendments.

Brady, a deputy Republican whip who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the congressional versions of the budget aren’t really improvements on the president’s request.

Though the GOP alternative has little chance of passing, Republicans will be offering up their vision, he said.

“You see in [the president’s] budget major tax increases both on the middle class, on those who invest and save, a lot on small businesses,” Brady said. “And when you see the price that average families have to pay for this cap and trade — this climate-change legislation that’s in his budget — it’s gonna go through the roof.”

“We take the opposite approach,” he added. “We avoid this controversial cap and trade, a program that raises taxes on the middle class. I think Democrats here say they want to control spending, but looking at the budget, looking at the stimulus, looking at how they voted on the omnibus bill, man they’re spending and borrowing just as much as the president.”

House Republicans want answers from Geithner on TARP funds

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: House Republicans today asked new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to answer a series of questions before he outlines how the administration will distribute the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) and possibly requests more money to bail out struggling banks.

“What is the exit strategy for the government’s sweeping involvement in the financial markets?” ask top GOP House lawmakers, including House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor, in their letter to Geithner.

The distribution of the initial $350 billion of TARP funds was widely criticized. Geithner, who has vowed to improve the accountabilty and transparency of the embattled program, is set to announce Treasury’s plans for the second tranche of money next week, but the administration may deem more funds are necessary to save the financial sector. One option could be establishing a ‘bad bank’ to help banks weighed down by toxic assets.

“Because the Administration has committed itself to assisting the auto industry, satisfying commitments made by the previous Administration, and devoting up to $100 billion to mitigate mortgage foreclosures, it has been reported that President Obama might need more than the $700 billion authorized by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) to fund a ‘bad bank’ to absorb hard-to-value toxic assets,” write the GOP leaders.

“In light of these commitments – which come at a time when the Federal Reserve is flooding the financial system with trillions of dollars and the Congress is finalizing a fiscal stimulus that is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.1 trillion – it is not surprising that the American people are asking where it all ends, and whether anyone in Washington is looking out for their wallets,” they ask.

In January, the House voted against releasing the second tranche of TARP funds at the request of President Obama, but the money was released anyway by the Senate.

Last week, Democrats pushed the massive $819 billion stimulus package through the House, despite no Republicans voting for it even after Obama had gone to Capitol Hill to court GOP support the day before the vote.

The Senate is now debating its own version of the stimulus bill.