Congressman Bill Sali objected today to a group calling itself "Working America" for a telephone campaign that tries to deceive Idahoans into supporting higher taxes and free healthcare for illegal aliens.

The group, in a series of automated telephone calls up and down the 1st Congressional District, tells listeners that Sali "voted to deny healthcare coverage for almost 12 million uninsured children." The phone calls also urge listeners to tell Sali "to give back his $4,000 congressional pay raise and start voting for children and seniors."

While the phone call doesn’t identify a particular bill, Sali believes the group is referring to Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007, H.R. 3162, which cuts Medicare programs by $200 billion and increases taxes by $54 billon. The bill also expands an existing children’s healthcare program to include adults up to age 25 whether or not they are citizens of the United States. And the bill taxes poor Americans in order to expand government health insurance to middle income Americans. Some observers say the bill is a precursor to universal healthcare or socialized medicine.

"This phone call is pure deception. This group doesn’t want you to know that the bill I voted against provides free healthcare for illegal aliens, increases taxes on the poorest Americans and cuts some healthcare programs that serve seniors," Sali said. "This group also doesn’t want you to know that I am on record opposing a pay increase for members of Congress. If this organization really wants to raise taxes and provide healthcare to non-U.S. citizens, they should be willing to come right out and say so without trying to deceive the good people of Idaho."

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