$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

Jim Moran, Racist Pig

Michelle Malkin's recent column excerpted here about 11-term Congressman James P. Moran sets the tone for our latest Poster Child from the 8th district of Virginia. That’s her headline above –I usually don’t get that rough-- for his constantly biased references to race. Michelle herself is categorized as a "minority" by those to whom skin color or where one’s ancestors came from is serious criterion for judging people. To most true Americans of the melting pot it is the individual that counts –it is one’s own actions that count, not the hue of one’s skin.

The following excerpts from that article:

… Jim Moran is an old white Democrat from Virginia who thinks he can judge whether we minority conservatives are acting sufficiently non-white enough. Moran's an inveterate bully, a brawler, a crook and a bigot. And not one of his civility-preaching liberal colleagues has the courage to call him out.
Responding …to GOP Rep. Allen West's blunt criticisms of President Obama … Moran derided the retired U.S. Army colonel, who is black, as "not representative of the African-American community." Moran then launched into the kind of tired race-traitor tirade I've heard from progressives of pallor for more than 20 years…To wit: Lt. Col. West "just seems clueless now that he has climbed aboard ship," Moran fumed. "He's climbed this ladder of opportunity that was constructed by so many of his ancestors' sweat, sacrifice, blood, you know, they did everything they could for his generation to be successful. But now that he's climbed on board ship, instead of reaching down and steadying the ladder, he wants to push it off."
… four consecutive generations of his family served in the U.S. armed forces. As a freshman congressman, West's message has been a compelling agenda of self-empowerment. For this, he is savaged by a House colleague as a racial saboteur …”
… he accused Tea Party activists of racism for sweeping out entrenched Democrats in the November 2010 midterm elections. It "happened for the same reason the Civil War happened in the United States. It happened because the Southern states, the slaveholding states, didn't want to see a president who was opposed to slavery," he ranted to Arabic-language television network Alhurra. "(A) lot of people in the United States don't want to be governed by an African-American, particularly one who is liberal, who wants to spend money and who wants to reach out to include everyone in our society."

Yet, only two short years before, this hopelessly racist nation put Obama in the Oval Office with a landslide victory. Logic never was the demagogue's strong suit.
As I've reported previously:
• While on the Alexandria (Va.) City Council, he was charged with casting a vote that helped a developer friend win a bid for a lucrative plot of public land. A special prosecutor concluded that Moran had violated the state's conflict-of-interest law. He sobbed as he pleaded no contest to a felony charge of vote-peddling. He received a year's probation for a reduced conflict-of-interest misdemeanor charge and was forced to resign.
• In 1995, he had to be subdued by Capitol Hill police when he threw a punch at California Republican Rep. Randy Cunningham on the House floor. After the incident, Moran blamed "talk radio" for creating a hostile environment in Washington. That same year, he screamed "I'll break your nose" at Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Burton during a hearing.
• In 2002, Moran revealed in financial disclosure statements that he accepted a $50,000 loan in January 2001 from an "old friend," billionaire America Online co-founder James Kimsey. The congressman claims to have paid the business mogul back at 15 percent interest over three months, and his spokesman emphasized the loan came with no accompanying quid pro quo.
• Kimsey's gift came on the heels of Moran's disclosure that he had received another Big Business-tied loan: $25,000 from "old friend" Terry Lierman, a drug industry lobbyist representing Schering-Plough. After getting that unsecured loan at a lower-than-market interest rate, Moran co-sponsored a bill that would extend the patent on Schering-Plough's allergy medicine Claritin -- and prevent generic drug manufacturers from offering inexpensive alternatives.
Liberal race-card abusers who lambaste patriotic minority conservatives to cover their own dirty deeds make my brown skin crawl.” So wrote Ms Malkin. Thank you, Michelle.

Some have called him "intemperate" for his nasty comments such as,

“When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I’m going to earmark the s**t out of it.” -- Jim Moran, June 9, 2006

“I don’t know where the f**k Obama is on this or anything else. They’re AWOL.” -- Jim Moran, December 9, 2010

“Better that the s**t hit the fan this week, and try to fix things next week before we go to Easter recess.” -- Jim Moran, April 6, 2011

I read Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out, and saw the 60 Minutes segment that told of members of Congress that engaged in insider trading, most notably in 2008 just before the financial crisis hit. Moran voted for it. Then, after hearing on September 16, 2008, Sec-Treas Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke held a “terrifying” closed-door classified meeting with members of Congress briefing them that a worldwide financial crisis was about to hit. The next day, Moran dumped the companies in his portfolio affected by that news --90 trades in that one day!

Looking for some –any-- socially redeeming virtue in this man as a member of congress we looked to non-partisan groups that have rated his voting record for it truly is by their fruits (votes) that ye shall know them.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a good place to start given the growth of the national debt during Moran’s tenure. CAGW rates Rep. Moran as “hostile” to taxpayers, their lowest rating. So, clearly he is one of the reason for the unsustainable national debt –he voted to raise the debt limit at every opportunity. Check out the votes here: http://www.ccagwratings.org/? mode=member&member=248
CAGW has named Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) Porker of the Month for his gobsmacking statement to the media on April 3 2014 that members of Congress are “underpaid.” Had he made the statement two days earlier, CAGW would have assumed that it was an April Fool’s joke. Instead, Rep. Moran was just behaving like the fool he has become after 12 terms in Congress (thankfully, this will be his last). Rep. Moran’s statement perfectly encapsulates the attitude of a significant number of members of Congress, a group characterized by their tone-deaf elitism, grinding sense of entitlement, and frightening disconnection from the realities of everyday American citizens. Since 2009, rank-and-file members of Congress have earned an annual salary of $174,000, more than all but the top 5 percent of U.S. wage earners, yet they have consistently failed in their fiduciary duty to the country and taxpayers. For giving voice to the widely-held perception that Congress has become a legislative body that is really about … members of Congress and what’s in it for them, Rep. Moran is CAGW’s April Porker of the Month. Read more about the Porker of the Month.

How about his votes on growth issues? The Club for Growth gives him a lifetime 14% with 100% being pro growth. “At a time when our national priority ought to be economic growth, House members have been busy stuffing the 2010 appropriations bills with wasteful pork projects. While Representatives John Campbell, Jeff Flake, and Jeb Hensarling offered 68 amendments to strip outrageous pork projects from the 12 annual spending bills, none of the amendments passed.” Moran voted against 67 of the 68 the limitations on pork spending.

Another non-partisan rating organization is the National Taxpayers Union and they call Rep. Moran, “Big Spender” with an “F: grade. http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/members/house/james-moran.html

The Heritage Action, sister organization of The Heritage Foundation has a new scorecard based on conservative criteria “…for freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society.” No surprise he gets a “D” single-digit ratings for several years.

On the liberal side, The Americans for Democratic Action calls Moran a “liberal hero” for voting for Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and allowing homosexuals in the military and other bills to strengthen and grow the FedGov –the opposite, as you would expect, of what Heritage Action would be against.

His contempt for the US Constitution is apparent in his votes for unconstitutional bills and for his total disregard for the well-being of our future generations –his spending for those bills now that our children will have to pay for later is surely generation theft on a grand scale. Jim Moran deserves to be term-limited to limit the damage he is doing to the Republic. Please sign on to the petition calling for limits on congress: www.termlimits.org

Abortion or Diapers --taxpayers will fund

Rosa Luisa DeLauro (born March 2, 1943) is the U.S. Representative for Connecticut's 3rd congressional district since 1991. She was an administrative assistant and chief of staff for Senator Chris Dodd and executive director of EMILY's List before entering the House. She is married to political strategist Stan Greenberg. They are close friends with former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

She is one of the most "progressive" (read: leftist liberal) as well as one of the richest people in congress. She is strongly pro-abortion, her main issue, while calling herself a Roman Catholic. DeLauro supports the use of federal subsidies for abortion procedures. In 2006 DeLauro voted against HR 6099, a bill that would require abortion providers to follow specific procedures and formalities before performing abortions. She also voted NO in 2006 on a bill that makes the transportation of pregnant women under the age of 18 across state lines in order to obtain an abortion illegal.

Aggressively anti-Second Amendment, she strongly supports and has consistently voted for increased gun control.

One of the reasons for the huge $16+ trillion national debt is Rep. DeLauro’s voting record. No bill is too large or too small for her. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named her Porker of the Month recently for proposing the Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act (DIAPER). The bill would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 to include diapers among the grant-eligible items. Capitol Hill’s diaper diva issued a press release on October 7 recognizing “the work of Joanne Goldblum, who has been operating a Diaper Bank in Connecticut for years now, and whose good work has served as the inspiration for this legislation.” However, the Diaper Bank has done more than just inspire. In the fiscal year 2009 Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Act, Rep. DeLauro disposed of $133,000 in taxpayer money with an earmark to the Diaper Bank. DIAPER “is another example of the mission creep within federal programs that gives taxpayers a bad rash,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Even as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is holding hearings on how to…wrangle some control over spiraling government spending, members like Rep. DeLauro are still trying to load on more spending and more debt. On behalf of taxpayers, we think this bill is, well…just offal. It should be left on the congressional compost heap.” For discharging a bill that needlessly dumps on taxpayers, Rep. DeLauro is CAGW’s October Pooper – er – Porker of the Month. (clever copy from CAGW release)

The conservative but non-partisan Heritage Action scorecard rates congress from a constitutional, free market perspecive. DeLauro naturally ranks near the bottom while the Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal rating agency, calls her an ADA Hero. The Club for Growth ranks congress on their votes promoting growth of the economy --DeLauro is at the very bottom for her lifetime statist, anti-growth votes. (She has her money and the hell with everybody else!) And the National Taxpayers Union has her at low single digits which receives their "Big Spender" classification.

The pattern here is obvious. Rosa Delauro believes that the government should be in control of virtually every aspect of life in the country. She disses her church teaching, she does not honor her oath to defend the Constitution and doesn't trust the people to manage their own lives. If a mother avoids the abortion subsidies and has a baby, then DeLauro will provide diapers --paid for by others, of course. How thoughtful and kind she is when not pushing for taxpayer paid abortions. But she punishes the survivors by indebting future generations with a national debt that is really generational theft on a grand scale.

Term limits offer a chance to limit the damage that entrenched politicians like Rosa DeLauro can do to what is left of the Republic.

Your Typical Career Politician. Or, why we have a $18+ trillion debt

(updated 2/5/12 re term limit amendment vote.) Clarence William "Bill" Nelson is the senior U.S. Senator from Florida, (my home state since 1973). As most of our Posters, he is a lawyer having obtained his law degree in 1968 after which he went to work for then governor Reubin Askew. He was elected to the House of Representatives for six terms from 1972 to 1991 and ran for governor in 1990 and lost to Lawton Chiles. Then he ran for Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner in Florida and won two terms before running for the U.S. Senate where he has been ever since. Again, fitting the poster profile in not having any real life experience in the productive private sector. When one spends his entire adult life in politics one becomes adept at getting reelected and, of course, for a professional politician that is Job #1.

On 2/2/2012 on the vote to limit the terms of congress it is telling that the senators who voted against term limits have been in the Senate for an average of 13.6 years compared to just 6.4 years for those who support them. The longer people are in Congress, the more power they get, and the more they lose touch with the voters who elected them. See how your Senator voted: www.senateconservatives.com/site/votes/112/2/11?c=5R4F2B4F9B3A137 hint: All Democrats but Joe Manchin of WV voted AGAINST the reform even though they know full well that a super-majority of their constituents are in favor of term limits.


Now, at age 68 he is running again for another 6-year term. His voting record has generally been down the Democrat Party line over 93% of the votes with some exceptions for local political realities. One exception is his more recent vote for elimination of the estate tax (after having voted for the tax in previous years) given the senior-heavy demographic of Florida --seniors don’t want half of their estates taken by FedGov. Of course, it has yet to be repealed. Nelson supports continued restrictions on Cuba as Florida has a huge Cuban exile population.

Five Senators up for reelection in 2012, including Nelson, sent a public letter to VP Biden asking him to reaffirm his commitment to leaving Medicare unchanged in his negotiations with the bipartisan negotiators on the budget. They did this to impress (read: fool) their voters knowing full well that the ObamaCare that they themselves voted for just a few months before cuts over $500 billion from Medicare, raiding Medicare to fund Obamacare. Honesty is just another casualty of Job #1 –getting reelected. Reelection efforts take precedence over all for, by the reasoning of a career pol, “how can I continue to help the people if I don’t get reelected?”

The non-partisan National Taxpayers Union has given him an “F” in all but one year when he earned a “D” placing him firmly in their “Big Spender” category. Our Poster Children most of whom are in that category are the main reason we have a $14 trillion debt and $zillions more in unfunded liabilities. Another non-partisan organization, the Club for Growth, confirms NTU’s rating by giving Nelson a 13% lifetime score, near the bottom for voting consistently against pro-growth policies regarding spending, taxes, regulations, free trade and legal reform. Citizens Against Government Waste gives Nelson a lowly 18% “Hostile to Taxpayers” lifetime rating for wasteful spending. Clearly, it is the professional politician that has put our country in the dire financial and overall economic position we find ourselves in today.

Votes and ratings on other issues:
• Rated 100% by NARAL for his aggressive support for abortion.
• Voted for TARP, so-called Stimulus bills and against paying down the debt and against a modest $40 bil reduction in overall spending.
• Rated 89% by the HRC, indicating a pro-gay-rights stance.
• Rated 86% by the NAACP, indicating a pro-affirmative-action stance.
• Rated 91% by the NEA, indicating pro-union education votes and opposition to school vouchers and for greater FedGov spending and control of education.
• Consistently votes against domestic energy production; for cap and trade tax plans; for global warming restrictions on the economy; Voted YES on reducing oil usage by 40% by 2025.
• Rated 79% by the LCV, indicating pro-environment votes. Voted for Cash for Clunkers. Fund projects for international conservation of cranes. (Sure, why not –China will loan us the money.)
• Rated 16% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-Family-Value voting record.
• Rated 33% by CATO, indicating a mixed record on trade issues.
• Voted NO on requiring photo ID to vote in federal elections. Voted NO on require photo ID (not just signature) for voter registration. (Why do you suppose?)
• Opposes Second Amendment rights to gun ownership.
• Supports More Federal Funding for Health Coverage. Rated 100% by APHA, indicating a pro-government health record.
• Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act.
• Voted YES on continuing federal funds for declared "sanctuary cities".
• Voted to restrict employer “interference” in union organizing; eliminate the secret ballot for employees on joining a union (for “card check”); raise the minimum wage to $7.25/hr.
• Voted No to confirm Samuel Alito and Yes to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
• Social Security: Opposes efforts to partially privatize; Voted NO on establishing reserve funds & pre-funding for Social Security.

Our point, as always, is the fact that the longer one is in the Congress, the more he will vote to expand the size and scope of the federal government because he is responding to special interests that support his tenure by contributing to his election campaigns. Each special interest has got to get its way which usually means special favors from FedGov such as tax breaks, subsidies, mandates –whatever. That relationship explains our multi-million word tax code and the uncountable regulations imposed on all segments of society.

It needs to end and term limits on Congress is one reform that is most effective as proven by the limits already on many other levels of government throughout the country. Go here to support the proposed congressional term limit Constitutional Amendment: www.termlimits.org

Her Biggest Fan

Rep. Kaptur is appearing in a Michael Moore movie about the evils of capitalism Another Poster that illustrates the need for term limits if we’re ever to get back to enjoying the benefits of a Constitutional Republic. First, we must stop the headlong rush into the welfare state with its unsustainable promises and spending inevitably resulting in reduced freedoms, opportunities and prosperity. Entrenched politicians like 15-term Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) carry the blame for the massive $16+ trillion debt we’re passing on to our children.


Kaptur’s main claim to fame is that she is currently the longest-tenured woman in the House; she ranks 25th out of 435 members in seniority and serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. At a House committee hearing her questions about the sub-prime mortgage crisis were intended for the then Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson, but she was actually questioning Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. She said, “Seeing as how you were the former CEO of Goldman Sachs…” Bernanke corrected her but it was clear that she had no clue. Long seniority puts people like her in positions for which they have had no relevant experience, no real life experiences outside of government jobs and politics.
The experience she did have after college was with the Lucas County Plan Commissions from 1969 to 1975 and as director of planning for the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs from 1975 to 1977. She later was a domestic policy advisor during the Carter Administration. Kaptur earned a Master’s Degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan in 1974 and did post-graduate study in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.

After introducing the World War II Memorial Act to the House of Representatives in 1987, 1989, 1991, it finally was passed in 1993. The legislation authorized the American Battle Monuments Commission to establish a World War II memorial. And a fine memorial it is.

Another area where she has an intense interest is on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights issues. Her votes for gay marriage, for adoption by homosexual couples and virtually all GLBT bills got her a 75% rating by The Human Rights Campaign indicating a strong pro-gay rights stance. On the other side of that coin is the Family Research Council’s lowly 6% rating on pro-family issues.
In a Youtube piece, Kaptur urged Americans facing foreclosure to “be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave -- Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Foreclosures in her district skyrocketed 94% last year. Is that responsible adult behavior?

Under some pressure from the tea parties -- “Joe the Plumber” is a constituent and soon to be challenger for her seat in Congress-- Marcy Kaptur expressed strong opposition to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s tactyics in:
•Forcing Congress to rush the stimulus spendidng decision.
•Disarming the public through fear. Controlling the media enough to ensure that the public will not notice that this bailout will indebt them for generations taking from them trillions of dollars they earned and deserved to keep.
•Controlling the playing field (hiding info from the public, holding private hearings, and private teleconferencing calls).
•Diverting attention and keeping people confused.
•Having the goal to privatize gains and socialize losses.
After all that rhetoric she voted for the bailouts and stimulus bills and she laid all of the blame on Wall Street executives for their greed and held them responsible for the crisis saying, “You have perpetrated the greatest financial crimes ever on this American Republic. You think you can get by with it because you are extraordinarily wealthy, and the largest contributors to both presidential and congressional campaigns in both major parties.” [See Posters for Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to begin to determine blame for the financial crisis.] She went on to suggest that the Federal Regional Reserve Banks should have a new job to help renegotiate mortgages and any refinancing gains should return a major share of any profits to a new Social Security and Medicare lock box. Brilliant!

She backed The American Clean Energy and Security Act inserting an amendment that would authorize the Secretary of Energy to create power marketing authorities in regions where none currently exist. One such area would be in her district, the Great Lakes region. Kaptur said the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation could serve as the vehicle for administering up to $3.5 billion in loans from taxpayers (more debt!) to stimulate economic development through creation of green energy such as solar power and wind power. We know how well that worked out --think Solyndra for starters. Kaptur said the $3.5 billion would promote "regional equity" and serve as a powerful engine for job creation in a region that has suffered from high energy costs --as if solar and wind would reduce those costs.

In 1996, Kaptur was asked by Ross Perot to be his vice presidential running mate because, like him, she was an anti-free trade protectionist. They both opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement –remember Perot’s “giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading to Mexico if NAFTA passed? She wasn’t quite that stupid and turned him down. She consistently voted against job-creating trade bills most recently with Singapore, Peru, Columbia, Panama and Korea despite the high unemployment in her district in order satisfy the unions. Union $upport insures reelection which is Job#1 for career pols, so they take priority over constituents.

She was listed by the Nation magazine, self-described as he "flagship of the left," in its “Most Valuable Progressives” awards as the “Most Valuable House Member” in 2008. But the congresswoman is often at odds with members of her own party over her position against free trade and abortion. As expected for a progressive Democrat, her voting record puts her at the bottom of the Citizens Against Government Waste ratings –at a lifetime 10%, she is determined to be “hostile” to taxpayers. She was CAGW's "Porker of the Month" in July 2010. Confirming her progressive credentials, the American Conservative Union rates her at a lowly 15% while the leftist Americans for Democratic Action rates her highly at 85%. The Club for Growth gives her a "7" lifetime of a possible 100 for her growth-stifling voting record and her numerous votes against efforts to curb earmarks. For a comprehensive record of her votes go to www.ontheissues.org/OH/Marcy_Kaptur.htm

Marcy Kaptur is a Big Spender of taxpayer’s money and that resulted in the huge national debt being passed on to our progeny --generational theft of colossal proportions! Would a term-limited representative succumb to such spending? Maybe, but far less likely than a professional politician whose reelection depends on appeasing the leadership of the party and giving lobbies what they want in exchange for campaign money. You can help promote Sen. Jim DeMint’s proposed constitutional amendment to term limit Congress by signing the petition at www.termlimits.org.

When Perfect Attendance is Costly

If our $14.7 trillion dollar debt is any indication, the majority of the 535 members of congress are qualified for these posters. Who else would spend so much more than they take in and for what reason?

Well, if you are a professional politician with no real talent or skills in the private sector, then being a politician offers great rewards; as long as you’re willing to do or say almost anything to get elected. And then to disregard your solemn oath of office in doing all that is necessary to get reelected. The career politicians we’ve exposed so far have spent all, or nearly all, of their working lives in politics. With no experience in the real world, they create legislation in areas they have no knowledge of or experience in, resulting in bills they seldom actually read. Then these bills go to a huge bureaucracy to administer by writing thousands of regulations that the working population has to follow--or be fined and maybe even go to jail. They, themselves are routinely unaffected by the laws they pass. Sometimes they even specifically exempt themselves from these laws.

Special interests have thousands of lobbyists offering big bucks to these elected officials to pass laws favorable to them. They need this money for reelection, and they pile up $millions for that purpose. Our laws end up with too many exceptions for favored industries, and as a result our tax code is extremely complicated; you can be sure that every loophole is bought and paid for by lobbyists.

Lobbyists are uniformly against any term limits on their “honest” politicians. They define “honest” as those who, once bought, stay bought. We need a law requiring members of Congress to wear logos like race car drivers and golfers wear to advertise who gives them money.

Typical of this kind of politician is Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). We mentioned Collins in our poster of Olympia Snowe, also a Senator from Maine. Both are considered “moderates” in the Republican Party and both vote with Democrats so often that many Republicans refer to them as RINOs –Republicans In Name Only. Recently, as taxes, regulation overreach and onerous executive orders have mired the economy in recession, Sen. Collins has taken note and written a mostly reasonable piece in the Wall Street Journal (9/26/2011).

However, in this op-ed she calls for a one-year “time out” on excessive FedGov regulations. What? A time out? Beam me up, Scottie! She writes, “A one-year moratorium on such regulations is a common-sense solution that would help create jobs.” That's preposterous. The common-sense solution is to tear up the regulations permanently. Businesses will not start hiring with only a one-year window of certainty regarding regulations. Uncertainty is one of the major problems, and with a one-year "timeout," uncertainty would not be eliminated. What we need is a permanent solution, not a short-term gimmick. This is just another glaring example of a career pol showing how out of touch with reality she is.

Who is Susan Collins?
Collins was born and raised in Caribou, Maine. Both parents served in elected positions and her uncle was a state Supreme Court justice. She met Sen. Margaret Chase Smith —whose Senate seat she now holds-- in 1971 while participating in the U.S. Senate Youth program in Washington D.C. In 1975 she graduated from St. Lawrence University with a degree in–what else?—government.

She was a legislative assistant to Congressman and later U.S. Senator William Cohen until 1987 when she returned to Maine to join the governor’s cabinet and other political jobs in the State capitol until 1992. President George Bush appointed her to the Small Business Administration for a few months after which she went to Massachusetts to become Deputy State Treasurer for another few months. Back to Maine she won an eight-way primary race in the 1994 gubernatorial election but didn’t get support from conservative Republicans and came in third behind an independent and the Democrat. After a short job at Hussen College she ran for the Senate with Sen. Cohen’s help when he went on to join President Clinton’s cabinet. She won a four-way primary and beat the Democrat 49% to 44%. She’s been a fixture there ever since.

Notice once again the typical route to Congress--no practical experience in the free market, no position in the private sector much less ever having to meet a payroll or create a job. Yet these are the people who tell us how to run our businesses and make decisions that affect every aspect of our lives!

Collins is aggressively pro-abortion. She is a member of Republicans for Choice and was one of only three Republicans to vote against the Partial Birth Abortion Act. A major LGBT organization, the Human Rights Campaign, endorsed her campaigns. Collins voted in favor of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. Both Collins and Snowe voted to acquit Clinton in his impeachment trial admitting he broke the law by committing perjury, but they didn’t think that was serious enough to remove him from office. She voted against restrictions on travel to Cuba, harsher punishments for drug users, and amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages. She was the recipient of the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Award (10/5/2011); curiously, her co-recipient was Rep. Ellison (D-MN), a Muslim.

A protectionist, she regularly votes against free-trade, including the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In 1999 she and Snowe were two of the four Republicans (with Jeffords and Specter) to vote for an amendment to the Trade and Development Act of 2000 which would have conditioned trade benefits for Caribbean countries on "compliance with internationally recognized labor rights." This vote for what is in effect world governance put her to the left of many Democratic senators including Edwards, Dodd and Biden. Just last week she was the only Republican to vote against the trade agreement with Columbia that is expected to create thousands of jobs in the US.

She wrote in that WSJ article, “…the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule on fossil-fuel emissions from boilers that—by the EPA's own admission—would cost the private sector billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. The owner of a small business in Maine told me the proposed rule would require him to scrap a new, $300,000 wood waste boiler he recently installed.” She’s just finding this out after sponsoring such bills herself like the Cantwell-Collins bill (S. 2877), also called the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act, that creates a program to regulate fossil fuels. How many thousands of regulations in those bills?

She voted for the confirmation of two U.S. Supreme Court nominees, Alito and Roberts but she also voted for President Obama's nominees, Sotomayor and Kagan.

Collins was one of just three Republican lawmakers to vote for the so-called stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and in mid-December 2009, Collins was again one of just three Republican senators to back a $1.1 trillion appropriations bill for the fiscal year beginning in 2010. You can see how the $14.7 trillion deficits happen.

In January 2009 Collins voted in favor of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. But she voted against ObamaCare in December 2009 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Currently, she is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Feel safer now?

Collins has an unbroken voting record in the Senate, never missing a single vote since becoming a senator in 1997. Too bad.

We really need term limits www.termlimits.org