According to Congressman John Fleming, the mood in Washington has picked up for the GOP.

“It’s markedly different since I came here a year ago. (The Democrats) got the message this country is not left, it’s still center-right,” said Fleming.

He also noted that before Brown’s election the country was on a collision course with government-run health care. After the vote, the unthinkable happened.

“I could see week by week they were having to do more ridiculous things to get (the health bill) through. All that was on the assumption the Senate would have a 60-vote majority for the Democrats and they never even suspected they would lose a race in Massachusetts,” said Fleming.

When the focus settled on the race and money began to pour in, Massachusetts residents who would vote for liberal candidates became more and more concerned over the direction of the government.

“As far as I’m concerned, his election was an answered prayer. It was what we were down to. We fought all year against this bill — I spent countless hours on the floor speaking against this bill and my colleagues did the same,” said Fleming.

For the Fourth District of Louisiana U.S. Representative, his Republican party has gained a crucial seat in the Senate and is seeing a balance of power move right, ahead of elections this fall.

He said the Democrats’ moves to strong arm their more moderate party members into voting along the same lines, all the while pushing a socialist agenda, have backfired.

“Now their leftist votes are coming back to haunt them. They’re finding out through the Tea Parties and town halls that this country is not in favor of big government. It shows how they’ve gotten out of step with the American public,” said Fleming.

Fleming has also recently spent the new year meeting with President Barack Obama who attended a Republican retreat on invitation.

“Our major theme was we’ve been totally left out of debates and we’ve offered a number of solutions for both health care and the economy and we’ve been blocked by our Democratic counterparts,” Fleming said.

The meeting came in the wake of Obama’s State of the Union Address in which he said the GOP has not offered solutions.

“That is frustrating for us because we’ve offered a number of ideas and it’s disingenuous to say we’re not trying and at the same time, not listen,” said Fleming
He said when Republicans confronted the President about that part of his speech and handed him a booklet with their list of “Better Solutions.”
“Without even looking at it, he said he had incorporated a number of our ideas to be included into the legislation. That’s weird because only two days before we had no solutions,” said Fleming.

Fleming went on to say the he felt the State of the Union was a lecture.

“It was — we don’t get it, we’re not falling in-line and his way is the best way and we need to be obedient. The dynamics were you’ve got a president standing there telling you things you know not to be true and he’s calling you down on it. It’s like, ‘You’ve been a bad boy, why are you opposing me?’”

Another issue that has gotten Fleming’s attention is Sen. Mary Landrieu’s vote in favor of the health care reform bill to gain $300 million for state medicaid.

A year ago Gov. Bobby Jindal acknowledged that Hurricane Katrina created a problem for state medicaid. The hurricane brought in insurance money into Louisiana, skewing the mathematical calculation between what the federal government pays and what Louisiana pays for medicaid.

This was because the formula is based on per capita income and the insurance money was counted as per capita income, creating a spike that doubled the average.

The various estimates place the medicaid deficit as high as $1 billion. Landrieu took lead to ask president to use different formula. Then the health care debate came up.

Since Landrieu was one of the last hold outs, she received $300 million for a vote in favor of health care bill.
Fleming commended her for trying to solve the problem, but said her approach was flawed. He pointed out that number of people on medicaid will increase by one-third and whatever is gained will be lost from more people being put on medicaid.

“You could say the health care bill was a net of zero for us. I would contend (the health bill since the deal) is even worse, because there’s a lot of taxation with the bill,” said Fleming.

Despite taking his lumps in his first year in Washington, Fleming is buoyed by support from his constituents back home.

“People in his district have been tremendously supportive and have given him a blessing. I feel like I made the right decision to come to Washington and that my values reflect their values and vice-versa. I’m up here as a voice for them and I appreciate the opportunity,” said Fleming.

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