- Voted FOR Obama's 2009
stimulus. Thanks to Collins,
Snowe, and Specter, the stimulus can
be called "bipartisan."
- Voted AGAINST a Repub-
lican plan for comprehen-
sive tax cuts (ACU-18). This G.O.P.
alternative to Obama’s stimulus would
have
- cut taxes on capital gains
- done away with the “marriage
penalty”
- made the Bush tax cuts
permanent
- given a $1,000 tax credit for
each child
- eliminated the “death tax” for
inheritances under $5 million
- lowered corporate rates from 35
to 25 percent
- done away with the Alternative
Minimum Tax.
Instead, Snowe chose to back O-
bama’s “stimulus” (i.e., to print $800
billion for random Democrat pork
projects)
- Voted FOR a resolution
disapproving of the surge:
Had Collins gotten her way,
we would have surrendered
to Al Qaeda, granting them
victory in their most clearly
defined battlefield against
us (ACU-15).
- For an inside look at the
importance of Iraq to Al Qaeda,
please read the following field
report, courtesy of Michael
Totten and Colonel Mike
Silverman: "Al Qaeda Lost"
- For a poignant reminder of the
hands into which Collins voted to
leave the Iraqi people, please
read the following post by Victor
Davis Hanson: "Thyestean Feast." .
- Voted FOR forcing the US.
to comply with the Kyoto
Treaty despite our never having
ratified it (ACU-11).
- Voted AGAINST a 2009
amendment to reinstate the
Bush/Reagan policy of
withholding aid from
foreign agencies that
perform abortions—a.k.a.
“Mexico City Policy” (ACU-18).
- Voted FOR formally
admonishing the FCC for
implementing a rule that
allowed more freedom in
broadcast ownership (ACU-11).
This admonishment, a thinly veiled
attack on Fox News, is best
remembered for Rupert Murdoch’s
deadpan dismissal of Fritz Hollings
during a senate hearing (Fallows). Not
surprisingly, Collins sided with Hollings.
- Voted FOR a Democrat
measure to make tax cuts
harder to enact (ACU-12).
- Voted AGAINST a Repub-
lican measure to make
spending increases harder
to enact (ACU-14).
- Voted FOR a 2005 amend-
ment to remove language
in the budget that would
have safeguarded tax cuts
(ACU-13).
- Voted FOR extending the
“assault weapons” ban (i.e.,
ban on collectibles) (ACU-12). For
more info about this infringement on
ownership rights and the truth about
these weapons, please see the
following by gun-rights advocate Alan
Korwin: "New York Times Recognizes 10 Years of
Errors."
- Voted AGAINST school
vouchers (ACU-9).
- Voted FOR raising taxes
$7.2 billion to expand
“green energy” programs
(ACU-14). Just as an aside, these
programs only cost $4 billion. No word
where the other 3.2 billion went (WP-5).
- Voted AGAINST a Constitu-
tional safeguard for Cam-
paign-Finance Reform (s. 27,
roll call 59) According to the ACU, the
amendment would have ensured “that
if one of several specific provisions in
the underlying bill, mainly the ban on
soft money, disclosure requirements
for issue-group advertising, and hard
money limits, [were] found to be an
unconstitutional infringement of the
First Amendment, then the other
provisions specified would also be
invalid.
- Voted AGAINST requiring
unions to get permission
from dues-paying members
before spending those dues
on political activities. The
requirement also would have applied
to corporations and their shareholders
(ACU)
- Voted AGAINST a cap on
future discretionary
spending to hold it at 2006 levels.
She then repeated her opposition to
spending controls the following year
(ACU-13).
- Voted FOR raising CAFE
standards (ACU-13). For a look at the
link between higher CAFE standards
and increased traffic fatalities, as well
as the folly of the economic justifi-
cations for higher standards, see what
Dennis Kneale has to say: "New CAFE"
(CNBC-1)
- Voted FOR a 2005 job-
killing bill in hopes of
keeping the climate from
changing. The real kicker is that
the bill, which required "greenhouse
emissions" be brought down to 2000
levels, openly acknowledged it would
kill jobs. For more information about
the bill's recklessness (and zaniness),
please see the following National
Review piece by Iain Murray of the
Competitive Enterprise Institute:
"Surrender Monkeys in The Senate: Senate
Republicans follow the French president’s lead on
global warming" (ACU-13).
- Voted FOR a 2008
amendment imposing a cap
on CO2 emissions in hopes
of keeping the climate from
changing (ACU-16). With a flair for
short-sightedness usually reserved for
democrats, Snowe voted for this
economically devastating amendment
(devastating, had it passed) in June of
2008, just as the economy's downhill
slide was picking up speed.
- For insight into how this kind of legislation cripples
an economy, you can turn to Europe, where CO2
caps have already been tried. In his address to the
British Institute of Energy Economics, former Energy
Secretary Lord Howell of Guildford puts it clearly:
"After the Credit Crunch Comes the Energy Crunch."
- For info on the general silliness of the global-
warming debate, please see the following piece by
Nigel Lawson, another former U.K. Energy
Secretary: "The REAL inconvenient truth: Zealotry
over global warming could damage our Earth far
more than climate change."
- Voted AGAINST an amend-
ment to better enforce
immigration. As the ACU
explains, the amendment “would have
increased funding for immigration and
customs enforcement by about $200
million, added 5,760 detention beds,
and permitted the hiring of more
immigration enforcement personnel”
(ACU-13).
- Voted FOR Campaign
Finance Reform, one of the
greatest abridgments of free speech in our
history (WP-6).
- Read what Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation
says about Campaign Finance Reform: "Campaign
Capital; Repeal McCain-Feingold Law And
Mandate Disclosure Instead."
- Hear what McCain himself says about it on The Don
Imus Show: "John McCain Admits That McCain-
Feingold Is Unconstitutional."
- Read what Doug Patton of Humanevents.com, says
about this criminalization of free speech: "McCain-
Feingold Doing What Its Authors Intended."
- Voted FOR a 2005 amend-
ment that would have hiked
taxes on the oil industry (ACU-
13).
- Voted AGAINST drilling for
oil in ANWR in 2005 (ACU-13).
- Voted FOR a 2008 mortgage
bailout scheme that, according
to the ACU, “would further nationalize
the mortgage industry, raise limits on
some risky loans, and [add] another $4
billion grant program to be handed out
by local governments” (ACU-16).
- Voted FOR bailing out the
auto industry (ACU-16). Four
months later, our president was firing
CEOs. Either Susan Collins favors
nationalizing industry, or she's too
short-sighted to deserve our trust.
Either way, she's bad for the G.O.P.
- Voted FOR forcing the U.S.
to withdraw from Iraq by
June 2009. Had the measure
passed, it would have forced
withdrawal by back-handedly allowing
congress to micro-manage our troops
and place untenable restrictions on
their efforts (ACU-16).
- Voted AGAINST strength-
ening missile defense (ACU-16).
- Voted FOR a 2006 amnesty
bill for illegal aliens. This
precursor to the amnesty bill of 2007,
as the ACU explains, was a bill
"overhauling U.S. immigration laws and
offering a path to citizenship for most
illegal immigrants in the country." This
bill was spun as a "guest worker
program" (ACU-14).
- Voted AGAINST a border
fence that, according to the ACU,
would have provided for "the
construction of 370 miles of double-
layered fencing and at least 461 miles
of vehicle barriers along the U.S.-
Mexico border" (ACU-14).
- Voted AGAINST ending the
death tax (ACU-15).
- Voted FOR a 2008 measure
that camouflaged a
permanent tax hike on
energy by hiding it in a one-year
suspension of the Alternative Minimum
Tax. In so doing, she gave the
Democrats (and herself) cover for
raising taxes (ACU-16).
- Voted AGAINST a 2007
measure allowing the state
of Virginia to drill for oil off
its own shores (ACU-15).
- Voted FOR the Dems' 2007
Energy Policy, which
imposed draconian new
regulations on the energy
sector. As the ACU explains, these
measures included "a rise in
automobile mileage to 35 miles per
gallon by 2020, a ban on the
incandescent light bulb, new energy
efficiency mandates for appliances, the
use of 15 billion gallons of biofuels by
2015, and the taxpayer subsidy of new
energy technologies" (ACU-15).
- Voted AGAINST a 2008
measure allowing states to
drill for oil off their own
coasts and allowing oil
exploration in ANWR (ACU-16).
For the record, Collins' vote came just
as the U.S. neared the height of the
2008 gas crisis.
- Voted AGAINST allowing
greater oil exploration on
the outer-continental shelf
(ACU-16). Once again, her vote came
just as the country neared the height
of the 2008 gas crisis (see above).
- Voted FOR hiking taxes on
energy companies to fund
"green initiatives" (ACU-16).
Mysteriously, Collins refuses to fight
high fuel prices by increasing fuel
supplies; rather, she chooses to fight
high fuel prices by taxing fuel.
- Voted AGAINST 2008
earmark reform that would have
imposed a one-year moratorium on all
pork-barrel earmarks. After the
moratorium expired, the reform would
have continued to make these ear-
marks more difficult to pass (ACU-16).
- Voted AGAINST Eminent
Domain protections that,
according to the ACU, "would have
prohibited federal, state and local
governments from using eminent
domain to take farmland or grazing
land and use it for parks, open space
or similar purposes" (ACU-15).
- Voted AGAINST undoing
the '93 tax hike on Social
Security benefits (ACU-16).
- Voted AGAINST limiting
2009 spending to $1 trillion
(ACU-16).
- Voted AGAINST a 2009
amendment that would cap
attorney fees in medical
malpractice suits (ACU-18).
- Voted FOR Cash for
Clunkers (ACU-18).
- Voted FOR the 2007
expansion of the State
Children’s Health Insurance
Program (SCHIP) by $60
billion (ACU-15). This program was
created in 1997 only to provide
insurance to children from uninsured
families who were narrowly above
poverty. But 10 years later, the Dems
moved to expand the program--and, as
always, the devil was in the details.
Under threat of Bush veto, Lugar
chose to join force with the Democrats
and do the following:
- Re-define "children" to mean "21-year-old
adults."
- Re-define "$80,000 income" to mean “just
above poverty."
- Let some taxpayers pay for other
taxpayers' insurance (even if the former
make less than the latter and purchase
their own insurance).
- Give incentives for states to “recruit” new
enrollees and thus make this big program
even bigger. (Carney-1)
- Voted FOR the 2009
expansion of the State
Children's Health Insurance
Program (SCHIP) by $32.8
billion. According to the ACU, “The
bill raises taxes, expands the program
to include legal immigrants and
pregnant women, and loosens
citizenship requirements. Although the
program was designed to help poor
children, the bill prohibits the
government from covering poor
children first” (ACU-18).
Every time you hear it said that "once
Washington puts something into place,
it's just going to keep getting bigger
and bigger"—you can and should think
of Susan Collins.
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