Tenure Corrupts

 Lamar Alexander has had a partially distinguished political career and now at age 73 will run in 2014 for his third 6-year term as U.S. Senator from Tennessee.

As most of our posters, Alexander has spent nearly all of his years in politics, starting as his high school class president.  He earned his law degree in 1956 and then clerked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1967 he became legislative assistant for Senator Howard Baker then returned to Tennessee as campaign manager for Winfield Dunn running for Governor. After that campaign he joined a law firm in Nashville. When Dunn was term-limited out Alexander ran but lost the race to Roy a former congressman. He next returned to Washington to again work for Howard Baker who was then the Senate Minority Leader. Gov. Blanton didn't run again – he had some scandal issues - and Alexander ran for governor and won taking office in 1979. He won a second term and was term-limited out in 1987.  

By all accounts he was a good governor. One accomplishment was to attract Japanese auto makers to the State.  Another was his “Better Schools” program that stressed math, science and computer education. The plan called for income supplements for top teachers but it was watered down by the teachers unions. After a period in Australia with his family, he came back to become president of the University of Tennessee from 1988-91. He was selected in 1991 by president Bush to become Secretary of Education until 1994.  So far, so good.

How do politicians who spend their lives on government payrolls get to be very, very rich?  Former Department of Education employee and writer Lisa Schiffren writes, "[Alexander’s] fortune is founded on sweetheart deals not available to the general public, and on a series of cozy sinecures provided by local businessmen. Such deals are not illegal..." In 1987, Alexander helped found Bright Horizons Family Solutions now the nation's largest provider of work site day care. While businessman Jack C. Massey spent $2 million on this enterprise, Alexander co-founded the company with only $5,000 of stock which increased in value to $800,000, a 15,900 percent return within four years. In 2005 he reported on his U.S. Senate disclosure form that the stock was then worth between $1 and $5 million.  Also in 1987, he a wrote a never-cashed investment check for $10,000 to Christopher Whittle for shares in Whittle Communications that increased in value to $330,000. In 1991, Alexander bought a house for $570,000 and sold it to Whittle for $977,500. Alexander's wife made $133,000 profit from her $8,900 investment in a company created to privatize prisons.  [This early history was taken from Wikipedia] 

Alexander ran for president twice but didn't get very far, complaining that the system was stymied by the media and big money. Then, he ran for the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by Fred Thompson which he won with media recognition and a big money advantage over his conservative opponent. Of course.

As with all Posters, Alexander has been a serious contributor to the $17 trillion--and growing--debt being piled on our children and grandchildren. He recently voted for the Senate “farm bill” costing $955 billion, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office. It funded 48 million people on food stamps plus providing subsidies for wealthy large agribusinesses that pay the pols, usually through lobbyists, to vote for their benefits. It’s politely called crony capitalism.  He also votes to increase the debt ceiling – if you keep voting for increased spending while stifling the economy with counter-productive regulations, high taxes and limitations on drilling our own oil, then the economy can’t grow to generate revenues to cover the spending.  Career pols continue to calculate that by the time the debt hits as in Greece, they’ll be gone. It seems to be their policy to spend now for what they want/need now for reelection and stiff the coming generations.

He voted for a tax on internet sales, even purchases from companies not located in the municipality, county or state.  What possible justification exists for a state to tax an out-of-state entity that has no presence in that jurisdiction and gets no services from it?  Career pols simply want the money; no justification needed.  By the way, that bill would overturn a Supreme Court decision limiting a state’s ability to require out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes for nearly 10,000 separate state, local and municipal tax jurisdictions.

Alexander was one of nine out of 40 Republican senators who voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who thinks that better judicial decisions can be made by a judge based upon her race, gender, and culture. He also voted for other conflict-of-interest burdened Obama appointments like Thomas Perez for Secretary of Labor who has demonstrated that he does not believe in the equal application of the laws. His action in labor cases leave little doubt as to how he will run the Department of Labor. Perez filed an anti-religious liberty brief in a Supreme Court case arguing against the ability of churches to hire individuals they choose. He has also threatened local swimming pools with fines if they do not install mechanical lift chairs and opposed removing ineligible voters from the voting rolls. And, to mention just one more extreme Obama choice,  Alexander was one of 8 Republicans to cross the aisle and vote for confirmation of Harold Hongju Koh as Legal Adviser to the State Department. He favors international courts having jurisdiction in the US citing specifically "the global regulation of small arms" –elimination of our Second Amendment rights and other distinctly un-American concepts. Does Sen. Alexander hold those views or does he just go along to get along with the powers-that-be? 

You get the idea why we would have liked to have seen Sen. Alexander term-limited years ago. But his latest gambit should be the clincher. I’m referring to his insult of great American heroes. Recently, ridiculing Sen. Ted Cruz for his principled stand against the imposition of ObamaCare and comparing him to Davey Crockett who stood on principle at the Alamo along with thirty-one other Tennessee heroes. That’s what a lifetime in Washington does to career pols; eventually they lose the principles once held.  A foreign concept to them is this, from the Declaration of Independence: “…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor..”.

Just not relevant to today’s professional politicians like it was to our Founders and to Davey Crockett and his brave American heroes.

"Hostile" to Taxpayers

Senator Mark Pryor, a lawyer—what else?--was elected to the Arkansas State House in 1990. In 1998 he was elected state Attorney General. Then in 2002 he won the congressional seat once held by his father for nearly 20 years. His father also served as Arkansas governor. Both he and his father spent their adult lives as politicians, with no practical real-world experience to inform their lawmaking—which is the norm with our poster children. These people, with zero real-life experience, make the laws that normal people must obey to run their businesses and their lives.

    It’s no surprise that this lack of experience and perspective results in counter-productive laws, regulations and taxes that have so hobbled our economy. For proof, just look at their voting records. Sen. Pryor Voted in October 2008 for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act that created the TARP program bailouts and for Obama's failed $787 billion "stimulus" program; He cast the deciding vote in support of Obamacare 12/24/09; Joined Obama to support the Wall Street bailout 10/02/08; Voted to raise the debt limit by $2.4 trillion 08/02/11; Supported the Bridge to Nowhere and other wasteful earmarks 10/20/05; Voted to require workers to join a union in order to get a job 01/22/09 –note that his largest contributors, by far, were unions; Opposed term limits for members of the House and Senate 02/02/12; Voted to raid Social Security to fund other programs 04/02/09; and on and on.

    We use some reliable rating groups to get a sense of where the pol stands in the political spectrum: from statism to anarchy, from left to right, from progressive/liberal to conservative/libertarian.

• Citizens Against Government Waste (non-partisan) rates Pryor “Hostile” to taxpayers. See the votes at http://tinyurl.com/oynbphb 
• National Taxpayers Union (non-partisan) gives Pryor a failing “F” grade placing him in the “Big Spender” budget busting category.

• Heritage Action gives Pryor 21% from a conservative view http://tinyurl.com/ncohvt8 

• Americans for Democratic Action awards Pryor 70% on their liberal "progressive" quotient (LQ) scale –see http://tinyurl.com/agdczac 

    The economic growth conscious Club for Growth tags Democrat Sen. Pryor as President Obama's "closest ally" in the state and ranks him 47th of the 50 Senators as only 16% voting for growth in the economy. So, 84% of his economic votes were to hobble growth in the economy. Another common thread among our posters.

    New York Mayor Bloomberg's gun-control advocacy group says Pryor "let us down" when he opposed Obama's gun control plan; The NRA supports Pryor by running ads thanking him for that vote. But he did Support the "Assault Weapons Ban" gun control law. Sen. Pryor received a 100% rating from the pro-abortion group NARAL. 

    A good place to find who contributes to the politician is That's My Congress but there are so many contributors it is mind boggling. We’ve favored the idea of making politicians wear logos of their largest contributors just like NASCAR drivers and golf pros do, but there wouldn’t be enough room on their clothes--including socks and underwear!

    Other telling votes depending on how you look at them:  Voted to force taxpayers to fund abortions 4/14/11; Pryor Voted to allow the sale of F-16s to Egypt, which is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood 01/31/13; and, a terrible vote from our own view: he opposed term limits for members of the House and Senate 02/02/12.

    There is little doubt that Sen. Pryor has been part of the problem in Washington. He voted with President Obama 95% of the time and was the deciding vote for Obamacare. His votes explain much of the $17+ trillion deficit being loaded onto the backs of future generations. He will have been in the Senate 12 years when he comes up for reelection in 2014 –long enough from our view.

    Term limits would help give us candidates who can bring business or professional experience to the government and replace the ‘government knows best’ career pols. Help us pass the term limits amendment by supporting the effort here: www.termlimits.org

    As of today no Republican has announced a run against Pryor in the 2014 race. It is a serious problem at all levels of government that entrenched pols have the name recognition and special interest support that a challenger rarely enjoys so successful people, accomplished in productive fields, don’t even try to run. Pryor’s name is golden in Arkansas as a result of his father’s long tenure and his huge special interest support. The lobbyists don’t want to lose their “honest” career pol –their definition of honest in this context is that once he’s bought, he stays bought.

Hostile to Future Taxpayers, Our Children

 This poster continues our expose´ of corrupt politicians. May I introduce Political Hack Extraordinaire, Senator Patty Murray…see also the poster for Babs Boxer

       Patricia Lynn "Patty" Murray, 63, received her B.A. degree in physical education from Washington State University in 1972. For several years she taught preschool and a parenting class at Shoreline Community College from 1984 to 1987. She was so angry when her parenting class was discontinued--because no one signed up for it--that she became a citizen-lobbyist to get her job back. That led to a run for the State Senate which she won in 1989. In 1993 she made it to the U.S. Senate and has been there ever since. Preschool teacher, sparse class on parenting, lobbying to keep her by then no-student class and then, naturally, politics. Notice the pattern? Virtually all of our Posters have had little or no experience in the private sector, yet they make the rules for the markets.

      Overshadowing her other outrageous, or just plain stupid, utterances is this one praising the murderer of thousands of Americans on 9/11. In attempting to explain why the US has such problems winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world, she opined that

"Osama bin Laden had been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building daycare facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. He's made their lives better. We have not done that."

     Then there’s this one: “Today the biggest fear our kids live with is whether ... the kid beside them has a gun. We have to give them skills so they feel confident to deal with it." Excuse me? Is that what Senators are supposed to do?

       We’ll spare you other dumb things she’s said and get to her record. The liberal-left Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) gave Murray a 95% rating in the 112th Congress –she lost the 5 percentage points for voting in favor of free trade with S. Korea. This rating was among ADA’s highest while, in contrast, the conservative Heritage Action Scorecard rates her at 8%--among the lowest in Congress. The non-partisan Citizens Against Government Waste rates her “Hostile” to taxpayers at 18% while the National Taxpayers Union gives her an “F” for every year in the Senate. That failing grade earns her the moniker “Big Spender.” Any wonder that with Representatives like her we have a $16 trillion debt? The Club for Growth scores her at 5% --89th of 100 Senators; as anti-growth as they get.

     And without growth in the economy we’ll never get to a balanced budget. Can you see Greece from here?

     I’ll leave it to the concerned reader to check out the individual votes at the sites I mentioned. Suffice it for our purpose to show her overall big spending statist record. You may call it socialist, fascist, communist or “progressive;” –her record has elements of each. In her case, ideology is undoubtedly beyond her understanding. She just goes along with her leadership to keep her job. And she’s probably still smarting about being fired for her parenting class failure.

     As Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, her proudest, most recent “accomplishment” is the Democrat budget calling for almost $1 trillion in growth-killing tax increases over the coming decade--while sheltering all of the welfare and current spending programs for special interests. With built-in increases! Comparing her budget with the House version she said, “We have presented very different visions for how our country should work and who it should work for." Indeed! BTW, that’s the first proposed budget offered by the Senate in over four years and, of course, it never balances over the next ten years driving the deficit up many $trillions more. The huge borrowing in her budget is aimed directly at our children, breaking into their piggy banks and stealing their money. This generational theft will prevent any chance of a prosperous future for our children and their children. It is so outrageously uneconomic and unrealistic—and unethical-- that even this Congress cannot lower itself to agree to it.

    History shows that all great democracies have committed financial suicide 200 to 250 years after being founded. The reason? The citizens figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them expensive benefits in exchange for electing them. And that’s what DemParty Patty does to keep her voters happy.

    Our Founders gave us a Republic enshrining the rule of law and overturning the almost universal top-down rule of men. But now the professional politicians have perverted the Constitution so they can vote to take money from some and give it to their supporters –worse, politicians vote to borrow additional funds from future generations to dole out even more to buy their seats in Congress. Folks, that’s Corruption with a capital C.

   The Professional Politicians have been destroying our country and at this point the only reform that can counter this disastrous trend is term limits on Congress. We have a proposed amendment to the Constitution in both the Senate and the House with many co-sponsors. We can do this. You can help by signing the petition to Congress in favor of the Amendment. Go to www.termlimits.org and sign on.

   Your children and grandchildren depend on you to give them a free Republic just like the one you inherited.

Hypocrisy Feinstein?

“I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. I walked to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon and I made the determination if somebody was going to try and take me out, I was going to take them with me.”

Who said that?
A. Greta Van Susteren
B. Sarah Palin
C. Nikki Haley
D. Other

The correct answer is D., Other. That pro-gun statement is from the anti-gun Queen Of Gun Control, Dianne Feinstein. Can you spell hypocrite?

Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein, now in her eightieth year is a classic poster for term limits. She is now the senior United States Senator from California; a Democratic, she has been in the Senate since 1992. She also served as mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988.
Born in San Francisco, Feinstein graduated from Stanford University. In the 1960s she worked in city government, and in 1970 she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She served as the board's first female president in 1978, during which time the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk drew national attention to the city. Feinstein succeeded Moscone as mayor. During her tenure as San Francisco's first female mayor she led a revamp of the city's cable car system and oversaw the 1984 Democratic National Convention.
After a failed gubernatorial campaign in 1990, she won a 1992 special election to the U.S. Senate. Feinstein was first elected on the same ballot as her peer Barbara Boxer, and the two became California's first female U.S. Senators. Feinstein has been re-elected four times since then and in the 2012 election, she claimed the record for the most popular votes in any U.S. Senate election in history, having received 7.75 million votes. Feinstein was the author of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban which expired in 2004, and in 2013, introduced a new bill which would ban specific guns, exempting more than 2,200 others. Feinstein formerly chaired the Senate Rules Committee (2007–2009) and has chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence since 2009…. (The Feinstein history information above gleaned from Wikipedia.)

All government, no real life private sector experience –never had to live under her laws as a private citizen.

Her opposition to the Second Amendment of our constitution has taken some weird turns over time but she has never approached it directly in an honest way, i.e., proposing a constitutional amendment to repeal it. But all of her attempts at laws to limit rights under the Second Amendment would eventually lead to registration, confiscation and de facto repeal. She says her current Bill would decrease the number of guns in circulation and that she would outlaw all guns, if she could. And, it certainly would decrease guns in the hands of honest Americans --criminals do not obey those laws, you know. When Senators wanted to limit the terms of congress they straightforwardly proposed an amendment to the constitution with a dozen co-sponsors. See www.termlimits.org.

But it is her overall record in the Senate, her individual voting record, that argues for term limits. She has consistently supported, sponsored, endorsed and voted for all of the spending that has brought the country to the financial abyss we now face.

“By Their Votes Ye Shall Know them.” Let’s start with the conservative Heritage Action Scorecard where she rates a current 6% by voting for virtually every spending bill and voting against every effort to limit deficit spending. She got the 6% by voting for the three free trade agreements. See http://tinyurl.com/bdqllt2 for details on each bill. The Club for Growth rates on the basis of votes that offer opportunities for growth in the economy as our only chance to generate activity that can restore prosperity and raise revenues to pay down the debt. The Club gives her 9% mainly for the free trade agreements. On the liberal/progressive side, the Americans for Democratic Action gives Feinstein 90%, taking away 5% for voting for the Korean Free Trade Agreement. See the votes here: http://tinyurl.com/agdczac The non-partisan National Taxpayers Union gives her their lowest rating “F” for every year in the Senate. That is their “Big Spender” category. The worst! http://tinyurl.com/be5lcuu Citizens Against Government Waste, another non-partisan group out to protect taxpayers, gives her 13% for their “Hostile to Taxpayers” group, as one would expect after researching her record. For the extravagant sorry details: http://ccagwratings.org/?mode=home

These “lifers” in congress that we depict here as Poster Children have put our real children in such a deep hole only a vigorous economy will get them out of it –but the same career pols have killed much of that agenda, as well. And that is generational theft on a colossal basis. Spend now and the future generations will pay for it. How well did that work out for Greece?

Did You Hear the One About the Career Pol Who Kept His Word? Me Neither.

If there is one defining principle of Republicans it is lower taxes; or, at least, as it has become watered down in recent years, no new taxes. Or, as the TEA party is named: Taxed Enough Already! 

 But, as we have learned the hard way, you cannot depend on a professional politician. Many talk a good game but “by their votes ye shall know them.”  Even the career pols who vote fairly consistently may be doing so only because their district is predominantly of their party. But when it comes to their careers don’t expect their consistency or stated principles to hold.

The current case in point is Americans for Tax Reform’s No New Taxes Pledge*.  Which Republicans will renege on their solemn pledge to their constituents not to vote to raise taxes?  They would eliminate a deduction but only if an offsetting reduction in spending is firmly tied to it. 

 Already, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss has said he would not honor his pledge  signed 20 years ago not to raise taxes --even though he had used a graphic of the pledge as a backdrop for his campaign speeches! OK, what has changed?  Well, yes, Obama’s spending spree and borrowing from future generations is much worse than we have seen in all of our country’s history. So, does that justify raising taxes on his constituents? He has his reasons and whatever they are it seems to us that he has lost sight of the problem: It's the spending, stupid! Doesn't he understand that simple, basic principle?  See the Chambliss renege here http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=B2bkI-KZxz4&NR=1       

  Sen. Chambliss says that Grover doesn’t have a plan. And he’s the Senator, not Grover Norquist! It is his responsibility to see that budgets are balanced. Hell’s bells --the Senate hasn’t even passed a budget in years! What has he been doing there for 18 years? Enjoying the perks and building his substantial retirement fund, of course, but he was also voting for greater spending without having the revenue to pay for it and voting against any spending cuts. See his voting record

Senator Saxby Chambliss has to share the blame for our financial mess. The longer they spend at the FedGov trough, the more integrity professional politicians tend to lose.

*The pledge that the House members took reads as follows:

“I, [name of candidate], pledge to the taxpayers of the state of [name of state], and to the American people that I will: One, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and two, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

ALERT: 1/26/2013 Saxby Chambliss has decided to retire next year rather than face a concerted challenge — from his right — for the Republican nomination to a third term as a Georgia senator.

Other Senators who could be expected to break their word are Bob Corker (R-TN) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) along with other career pols of both House and Senate. Interestingly, Heritage Action Scorecard, the conservative rating of all votes shows Chambliss at 72%, Corker at 75% and Graham at 72% --all in the middle of the Republican pack, showing their “flexibility” on principle. Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal rating group is so extremely statist that any vote that in any way restricts the size or scope of FedGov gets a zero -- plus, they count only certain votes so we don’t have a reliable liberal scorecard yet. If you take the conservative scores and calculate the inverse percentage as the liberal rating it should give a reasonable idea of where the pol stands on average. Remember, it is not what they say it is what they do –watch their votes and let them know you’re watching.

In the meantime, please go to www.termlimits.org and sign the petition to term limit congress.

$16 Trillion Debt –Blame Massachusetts

            Of the ten congress-critters of the  Massachusetts contingent, eight have been in office from 12 to 38 years!  These are the ones we’re referring to when we say “the worst of a bad lot.”  Not that the other two haven’t done their share to increase spending for as long as they’ve been there –they have—but it is our firm belief that if we could retire some of them through mandatory term limits more responsible candidates would run. Even in Massachusetts.

Notice –and this is key to the failure of Congress—almost all of our posters have had no private sector experience. Yet, they make the laws that regulate the productive sector of our economy. Further, of this group all but Lynch and the other two newer Reps, Tsongas (3^rd term) and Keating (1^st term), are listed as members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The CPC is currently co-chaired by Muslim radical Congressman Keith Ellison. The CPC is the brainchild of Bernie Sanders, now the officially Socialist U.S Senator, from Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats. According to DiscoverTheNetworks, the CPC was formed with the help of the Democratic Socialists of America. It has maintained an alliance with the CPC ever since. In addition, the CPC has been warmly endorsed by the Communist Party USA as its “allies in Congress.” This socialist organization inside the House of Representatives has about 78 members – all of them Democrats. This is the group that Rep. Allen West recently said were communists. West's spokesman refers to the Communist Party's own website and states that, "The Communist Party has publicly referred to the Progressive Caucus as its allies. The Progressive Caucus speaks for itself. These individuals certainly aren't proponents of free markets or individual economic freedom." Guess what? The political agenda of the CPC is nearly identical to that of President Barack Obama.

 

That they are not proponents of the free market is an understatement. The Club for Growth rates CPC members at the very bottom of their ratings scale –our poster “children” are all in single digits with Keating the lowest at 2%. See details at www.clubforgrowth.org

The information which follows is based on Wikipedia reports and we let its selection of the liberal ADA and the conservative ACU represent each side of the political scale. All are ADA favorites.

 Longest tenured is 19-term Ed Markey and his record is so egregious we’ve already done a poster on him  http://tinyurl.com/cohqu22

Barney Frank has arguably done more damage to our economy in his 16 terms than any other representative –he was our easy very first choice as “the worst of a bad lot.” See http://tinyurl.com/d4yqs54 and http://tinyurl.com/bobb26g


Richard Neal received a master's degree from the University of Hartford and then became an assistant to the mayor of Springfield. He served as president of the Springfield City Council from 1979 to 1983 while teaching high school history courses and lecturing at local colleges. He served as mayor of Springfield from 1983 to 1989. With his political influence and a head start on contributions, he was nearly uncontested when he ran for election to the House of Representatives in 1988 succeeding the 18-term incumbent. He was given a 100 percent "Liberal Quotient" by Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) for his 2008 voting record, and the organization named him one of the year's "ADA Heroes.” He was given a lowly 8.19 percent "Lifetime Rating" by the American Conservative Union (ACU) based on his votes from 1989 to 2009. In the past he voted with the Democrat party leadership 95% of the time, but recently he's voted with them 99% of the time.  

John W. Olver  was a chemistry professor and served in both chambers of the Massachusetts General Court: he earned a PHD in chemistry from MIT and later taught at the University of Massachusetts for eight years. In 1968 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1972.  Olver ran in a 1991 special election to succeed deceased 17-term incumbent Congressman Silvio Conte. He has since become a member of the House Committee on Appropriations and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Olver is retiring this year at age 76 after 22 years in congress. He has enjoyed consistently high rankings from the progressive lobbying group Americans for Democratic Action, and consistently low rankings from its conservative counterpart the American Conservative Union.

James Patrick "Jim" McGovern is in his 8^th term in congress. After graduating from Worcester Academy he moved to Washington, D.C. and attended American University where he received a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1981 and a Masters of Public Administration in 1984. While in college he worked as a congressional aide to Senator George McGovern (no relation), a two-time presidential candidate he campaigned for. From 1981 to 1996 he was a senior staff member for Representative Joe Moakley. He was appointed by Moakley in 1990 to lead a House task force investigating the 1989 killing of six Jesuit priests and two women who were aiding the communists in El Salvador by the Salvadoran army. He later advocated cutting off U.S. funding for the U.S. Army School of the Americas, where several of the military members had been trained.  He was elected to congress in 1996 and joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He has been ranked as one of the most liberal members of Congress.

John F. Tierney is in his 8^th term in congress. He sits on the Education and Labor Committee; his priorities include green energy and increased college access. He has co-authored legislation including the Green Jobs Act of 2007 and College Affordability and Accountability Act of 2008. Tierney graduated Suffolk University Law School with a J.D. in 1976, and worked as a solo practitioner until 1981 when he became a partner at Tierney, Kalis, & Lucas. He remained at the firm until taking office in 1997. Tierney served on the Salem Chamber of Commerce from 1976 to 1997, becoming the organization's president in 1995. Described as "an unwavering liberal" by CQ's Politics in America, he has consistently high approval ratings from Democratic and liberal interest groups such as Americans for Democratic Action, and low approval ratings from conservative groups such as the American Conservative Union. His votes have been closely aligned with the other nine Democratic representatives from his state.

Michael Capuano is in his 7^th term in the district which was once represented by John F. Kennedy and Tip O'Neill. Prior to joining Congress, Capuano was mayor and alderman of Somerville, Massachusetts. After graduating from Dartmouth College and Boston College Law School he worked as legal counsel for the Massachusetts General Court. Capuano replaced Joseph Kennedy II as U.S. Representative in 1998 and since has won reelection six times with no Republican opposition. In Congress he is a staunch liberal and member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. His focuses have included international human rights, transportation, and financial services. He has been given high ratings by a variety of interest groups such as Planned Parenthood, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and Environment America. However, he has been rated poorly from the National Taxpayers Union and the Sportsmen and Animal Owner's Voting Alliance.

 

Stephen F. Lynch is the son of an ironworker who went into the trade after high school and became the union's youngest president at age 30 while attending the Wentworth Institute of Technology. He received his J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1991. For several years he worked as a lawyer, primarily representing housing project residents and labor unions. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1994 and to the Massachusetts Senate in 1995. Then he won a special election to represent the 9th district in the United States House of Representatives in 2001, and has been re-elected ever since. Lynch has a history of drugs and alcohol addiction, assault charges, defaulting on student loans and tax delinquencies but these apparently don't matter in Democrat politics.  On social issues, Lynch is considerably different than his Mass. colleagues being considered a  moderate Democrat.  He opposes abortion and has been attacked by the pro-choice group NARAL. He was the only Rep. from new England to vote against ObamaCare. However, he has sided with Democratic leaders on gay rights issues, opposing a Federal Marriage Amendment and supporting granting medical benefits to domestic partners of federal employees.

Now, obviously, Massachusetts is not the only state to blame for the gigantic generational theft that these $trillion budget deficits are implementing. New York, California and others have their share of Big Spenders but the Mass. contingent in the House continues to be 100% in favor of voting the USA into oblivion –sort of like Greece.  You can help get term limits on congress passed by signing the petition at www.termlimits.org                          

Thanks for the CFLs, Fred --NOT!

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) first showed on my radar in 2007 when he co-sponsored the bill (with Rep. Jane Harmon, D-CA) to ban the incandescent light bulb, forcing us to buy compact fluorescent lamps, or the CFL bulbs. Almost nothing career pols do surprise anymore but this required a second look. CFLs were nothing new, so why now? The whacky environmentalists must be behind this was my first thought. And they were but they had help –big time—from the two major manufacturers of incandescent bulbs, GE and Phillips which lobbied hard for the legislation to ban their own bulbs. It turns out they figured to make more money by producing CFLs in China than making incandescents in the USA. We now know that CFLs deteriorate faster than incandescent bulbs, cost much more and are hazardous if broken due to the mercury vapor in the bulb. I stocked up on our regular, reliable old light bulbs.



Now this 26-year professional politician comes back into view as he has a Republican challenger,Jack Hoogendyk, who is a staunch supporter of congressional term limits, our primary electoral reform issue. It turns out, Upton once claimed to support term limits on congress knowing that by the time it passed he’d be long gone. He firmly opposes term limits that are currently in effect on the Michigan legislature, tho.



In 2009, a flexible Fred Upton praised a wind energy project, "Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions." But when the Republicans took control of the House in the 2010 election, he saw an opportunity with his seniority to chair the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. His view changed and denied the threat of global warming in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. When asked by Tim Phillips, president of Koch Industries-backed Americans for Prosperity, if “the emails from East Anglia University that seem to show a pattern of concealment at the least, deception at the extreme” should “affect climate policy here in the United States,” Upton claimed that there is “no real science” that supports climate policy; and then called for Climategate hearings. Before becoming chair of the House energy and commerce committee he advocated taking action on global warming. Once he stated on his website, "I strongly believe that everything must be on the table as we seek to reduce carbon emissions." It is not there now http://tinyurl.com/83662h4



Considered a “moderate” Republican Upton has supported some gun control and stem cell research. He joined Christie Todd Whitman’s IMP-PAC (It’s My Party, Too), a liberal Republican political action committee. He’s the typical career politician who comes ready to defend the American way of constitutional law and individual freedom but, over time, believes that a big government is best to take care of the people. Tea Partiers are supporting his opponent this time as they consider Upton the kind of business-as-usual type who has allowed the huge debt to pile up and for the numerous regulations, especially those coming out the Energy Department that his committee oversees. If the bloated, wasteful $65 billion a year scandalous DOE is ever to be abolished or at least reformed it will go through the House Energy and Commerce Committee. With a chairman steeped in Washington spending and regulating one can’t reasonably expect change.



That committee chairmanship is worth big bucks in campaign cash, too. Upton has already received $2.5 million in contributions from the political action committees of energy companies Entergy Corp., Southern Co., Murray Energy and Duke Energy, along with the Nuclear Energy Institute, and others. He also has a couple of PACs. His opponent former state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, disclosed that he had raised nearly $76,500 since announcing his campaign plans in mid-January. Democrats are considering putting a political novice, renewable energy expert Mike O’Brien, to oppose the Republican in November.



Frederick Stephen "Fred" Upton, 60, an heir to the Whirlpool appliance fortune, is wealthy –net worth estimated at between $7 and $19 million. He earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Michigan in 1975. He was a sports editor for a while before he joined the staff of U.S. Congressman David Stockman (R-MI) from 1976 to 1980. From 1981 to ’85 he worked under Stockman at the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan years. In 1986 he was elected to congress and is still there. The common strain among our Poster Children is that they have had no experience in the productive private sector. What their new laws cost, how they’re paid for, how the employees are paid, and how to adjust with changing conditions, and other normal management considerations are beyond them. Their lack of experience in the real world provides them with little understanding of the consequences of their actions. What was he thinking when he sponsored the bill mandating CFLs? Not that they entirely ignore the goals and hoped for results –they do consider how it will appeal to special interests who contribute to their reelection campaigns. Upton is by no means the worst one among “the worst of a bad lot” but during his long tenure the country has indebted future generations and saddled the country with onerous regulations and extremely complicated our tax code so that it inhibits growth and prosperity as it diminishes individual freedom.



To what extent he has been part of the problem we like to look at the rating agencies.


Heritage Action is a new one that covers more bills than most for a broader rating from a free market constitutionalist view. Upton scored a lowly 49% which compares to the Republican average of 66% and Democrat average of 14% mostly for his votes against spending cuts on a wide range of bills. Check them out here http://tinyurl.com/7vsdpdp


The Club for Growth rates on economic growth issues only and Upton gets 52% for the 112 Congress and 54% lifetime which puts him 190th of 435 Reps, not very supportive of economic growth. By comparison, the most pro-growth Democrat is at 42% --most are in the teens which describes a disdain for the private sector. Just this week, the Club came out with a report tracking amendments to FY 2013 House appropriations bills that reduce spending and use the savings for debt reduction in which Upton was rated 76%, about midway for Republicans –Dems were all generally opposed to spending reduction. Another rating of the Club is their RePork Card that shows the extent of earmark voting –Upton, again, in the middle of the pack with 53% several Democrats had higher ratings meaning they voted for less earmarked pork.


Citizens Against Government Waste rates Upton from “lukewarm” to “friendly” to taxpayers and even with their “hero” award in 1990 and 2010. http://tinyurl.com/6uzo74l


The National Taxpayers Union rates him for his first ten years all As and Bs. Second decade in office, majority Cs. In a debt crisis, C- doesn’t cut it. C- is the problem. Like so many good Republicans before him Fred came to Washington to drain the swamp and decided over time that it was a hot tub. I like it here, what do I need to do to stay? www.ntu.org


Americans for Democratic Action rates from a progressive big government view. For the past three years Dems average 87%; Repubs 11%. Upton’s average: 50%. To see how liberal you are ADA has 20 questions for you on its site. www.ADAAction.org Full disclosure: I got a score of 20.



Term limits is the no-cost reform. It makes it possible for legislatures to have experience in all kinds of businesses and professions to inform their lawmaking. When they are not expecting to be reelected for life they spend more time and effort on the people’s business. Their decisions are not always made on what is best for their career in office, that is, reelection, which is necessary for career pols. There is a constitutional amendment proposed by Sen. DeMint with 12 co-sponsors so far and it has been offered in the House as well. You can help by signing the petition to Congress at www.termlimits.org