Pelosi slams Boehner on energy, economy and Rangel

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lashed back at House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday, calling GOP attacks on the Democratic energy proposal and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) an "act of desperation."

Boehner and other GOP leaders had written to Pelosi on Tuesday, calling for Rangel to be removed from his chairmanship while the House ethics committee investigates unpaid taxes on his vacation home in the Dominican Republican, the use of several rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and his fundraising efforts on behalf of the "Rangel Center" in New York City.

Boehner also criticized Pelosi for not calling the House back into session during August while Republicans staged a floor protest on high energy prices.

Pelosi, however, hit back hard. In her letter to Boehner, Pelosi said House GOP leaders "are in denial about the failure of the Bush-Republican Congress to grow the American economy," and said the Bush administration had the worst economic record of any presidency since Herbert Hoover.

Pelosi also said Republicans "consistently side with Big Oil companies against the U.S. taxpayers and consumers both on the House floor and during the recent recess.

The California Democrat noted that Rangel had voluntarily asked for an ethics committee probes, and, without mentioning any names, pointed out that a "number of Republican Members whose ethical behavior has been under serious question and on which you have remained silent."

Pelosi ended the letter with a call for bipartisan cooperation on energy and economic stimulus legislation.

Here's the full text of Pelosi's letter to Boeher:

"September 12, 2008

Dear Leader Boehner:

It is with great curiosity and concern that I read your letter of September 9, 2008 for the following reasons:

It is cause for concern that you and your colleagues in the Republican House Leadership are in denial about the failure of the Bush-Republican Congress to grow the American economy. The record is very clear that, with your complicity, the George W. Bush Administration now shares with the Administration of George H.W. Bush the worst record on job creation since Herbert Hoover in the 1930s.

It is curious that you would consistently side with the Big Oil companies against the U.S. taxpayers and consumers both on the House floor and during the recent recess.

It is also curious that you characterize the August District Work Period as a paid vacation. Perhaps you are projecting your own use of it as a vacation onto others who spent their time meeting with constituents to hear their views and, I would hope, to spend time with their families."

Your unfair and intemperate attack on one of the most distinguished and beloved Members of the House, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, is curious in light in light of the number of Republican Members whose ethical behavior has been under serious question and on which you have remained silent. Surely you are aware that Chairman Rangel immediately requested a review of all allegations by the bipartisan Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, and has pledged his full cooperation.

Clearly your letter is an act of desperation that is inconsistent with the facts concerning the state of the economy. Since the Bush Administration took office in January 2001, with a Republican Congress, nearly 3.5 million Americans have lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate has increased from 4.2% to more than 6%. Hundreds of thousands of men and women have exhausted their unemployment insurance. Median household income has decreased, and real wages have remained almost flat. More than 5.5 million more Americans are living in poverty than at the end of the Clinton Administration. That is the record of the Bush economic policies that your Party pledges to continue.

Americans instead want us to go in a New Direction in response to the harm the Bush Administration’s policies have caused in the economy, energy, national security, housing and historic growth in the deficit.

The American people expect, deserve and need us to work together to grow the economy and create good paying jobs. We accomplished that with enactment of the economic recovery legislation earlier this year, which provided urgent Recovery Rebates to 130 million American families, and is credited with having a beneficial impact on the economy at a critical time. In the days and weeks ahead, I hope we can again agree on another economic recovery initiative that includes:

· Investing in the American infrastructure to create good-paying jobs here at home;

· Assisting Americans in paying for the rising cost of essential energy through LIHEAP;

· Aiding the states to help meet the health care need of millions of Americans;

· Extending unemployment benefits for those who are losing their benefits because of the long-term downturn in the economy;

· Increasing investments in nutrition programs like food stamps to feed the hungry in our country, many of them seniors.

As you know, all of these provisions were proposed earlier this year for the first stimulus package. The need for this second phase of the stimulus is even greater now, and I hope that we can again find bipartisan consensus on these initiatives to serve the needs of the American people while promoting economic growth.

We have demonstrated that we can pass legislation to assist the American people. The strong bipartisan support that won passage of the stimulus bill was also demonstrated in the historic energy law that raised efficiency standards for the first time in three decades and promoted home-grown alternative fuels; the largest increase in college student assistance since the GI bill, and the largest increase in veterans programs in over seven decades. These and other achievements have won strong support from many in your Republican Conference over the past year and a half, if not from the Republican leadership.

I look forward to working with Members of the Republican Conference in support of legislation to serve the American people, and hope that the next weeks of the session will be marked by cooperation and bipartisan efforts rather than by partisanship."