- For info on the faulty science behind
the legislation, please see the
following piece by Jonah Goldberg and
Kim Strassel: "The Shrinking Consensus."
- For info on the even faultier
economics behind the legislation,
please see the following piece by Guy
Benson from National Review Online:
"Cap and Trade Doesn't Work."
- Voted AGAINST the right of
workers to a secret ballot
when voting on whether to
unionize (ACU-6).
- Voted AGAINST speeding
up construction on the
border fence (ACU-6).
- Voted AGAINST off-shore
drilling in 06 (ACU-4).
- Voted AGAINST off-shore
drilling in 07 (ACU-6).
- Voted AGAINST easing
McCain / Feingold
restrictions on political
speech in the weeks before
an election (1 of only 10 in the
GOP)
- Voted FOR Pelosi's "light-
bulb ban" that, as the ACU
explains, regulates "lights and
appliances (including a ban on the
incandescent light bulb), creating new
programs for alternative energy
sources, imposing more regulations on
energy companies and mandating
vastly increased use of ‘renewable’
energy” (ACU 6).
- Voted FOR Barney Frank’s
Housing Trust Fund of 2007
(ACU-5), which Speaker Pelosi boasted
as “the largest expansion in federal
housing programs in decades” (Pelosi 1)
and which the Bush administration
opposed as “a duplicate program”
that “would create an undue and
counterproductive reliance on Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac” (Woolley & Gerhard
1) .
Bush’s veto of the State
Children’s Health Insurance
Program (SCHIP) expansion
(ACU-6). 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. By joining
forces with the Dems, Lobiondo chose
to do the following:
- Re-define "children" to mean "21-year-
old adults."
- Re-define "just above poverty" to
mean "$80,000 income."
- 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 Democrat's
2007 Energy Policy that
mandated reliance on biofuels while
not allowing oil supplies to increase.
The policy also stiffened regulations
and raised taxes $2 billion (ACU-6).
- Voted FOR applying
McCain / Feingold to
grassroots organizations (ACU-
4) NOTE: Undoubtedly, in this
instance, the dems were the good
guys. This was GOP-sponsored and
nearly ALL republicans voted for it.
However, we at Remove the Rinos
believe there is no excuse for voting
against the 1st Amendment no matter
how many republicans do so and no
matter how reprehensible George
Soros’ 527s are. And if John McCain
were to jump off a bridge…..??
- Voted AGAINST a 2006
conservative budget
alternative that would have
extended Bush’s tax cuts while
trimming more than 300 billion dollars
of discretionary spending, done away
with close to 150 programs, and
increased funds for the military and for
veterans. It also would have opened
ANWR for drilling (ACU-4) .
- Voted AGAINST drilling in
ANWR in 2005 (ACU 2).
- Voted AGAINST drilling in
ANWR in 2006 (ACU-4) .
- Voted FOR raising CAFE
standards (ACU-2) For a look at the
link between higher CAFE standards
and increased traffic fatalities, as well
as the folly of the economic
justifications for higher standards, see
what Dennis Kneale has to say: "New
CAFE" (CNBC-1).
- Voted AGAINST an
amendment that would
keep government funds
from being used to enforce
trigger-lock regulations (ACU
4). Critics argue these regulations
have little value in promoting gun
safety and are primarily punitive in
design, adding cost and red tape to
gun ownership. Still worse, these
trigger locks would hamper, if not
outright nullify, a gun-owner's ability to
use the weapon in self-defense. This
suggests another Machiavellian gun-
control strategy: if you can't make a
gun illegal, do the next best thing--
make it useless.
- Voted AGAINST a bill
protecting property owners
from eminent domain
abuses. The bill would guarantee
access to the federal court so that
citizens could sue to stop the
government from taking their property.
- Voted AGAINST an
amendment to cut
discretionary spending by
2% while protecting the
Bush tax cuts (ACU 2).
- Voted AGAINST the 2005
Republican Budget
Resolution that, according to the
ACU, established "broad spending and
revenue targets for five years, limiting
discretionary spending to $843 billion
in fiscal 2006, and requiring $70 billion
in tax cuts and $34.7 billion in savings"
(ACU 2).
- Voted FOR banning 50-
caliber rifle exports (ACU 2).
According to the NRA-Institute for
Legislative Action (NRA-ILA 1), this bill,
which was sponsored "by notoriously
anti-gun Representative James
Moran," outlawed exports of .50-
caliber rifles, and it marked the first
congressional vote on any kind of .50-
caliber ban.
- Voted FOR raising min-
imum wage after the Dems
rejected tax cuts that would
have protected entry-level
workers and small
businesses (ACU-6) . For insights
into the harmful effects the measure,
in its House form, would have meant to
workers and small businesses,
National Review Online consulted with
four leading economists. All four
economists agreed that only politicians
stood to gain from the measure : "At
Minimum…Should Republicans fight back against a
minimum-wage increase?"
- Voted AGAINST reforming
the Endangered Species Act
(ACU 2). to reimburse property owners
for losses suffered from not being able
to develop their land. It also clarified
species designations, better protecting
the species in need of protection and
better targeting the properties in need
of oversight (Marano and Lieberman).
- Voted AGAINST the Online
Freedom of Speech bill,
which would have prevented e-mail
and blogs from being regulated by the
Federal Election Commission (ACU 2). In
essence, this bill's defeat leaves open
the possibility that McCain/Feingold
could reach its way dramatically into
the Internet (Hayward).
- Voted FOR a 700% increase
in funding for the HOPE VI
Public Housing Program,
even as $2 billion remained in the
coffers, unspent. This was a program
that Bush had marked for elimination
(ACU-8).
- Voted AGAINST the 2008
Republican budget
resolution that, according to the
ACU, "would have made the Bush tax
cuts permanent, capped discretionary
spending at $973 billion, reduced
mandatory spending by $12 billion
over five years, and imposed a
moratorium on pork barrel 'earmarks'”
(ACU-8).
- Voted AGAINST a 2008
motion to allow drilling in
ANWR, the Outer-
Continental Shelf, and other
territories in the West (ACU-8).
- Voted FOR permanently
raising taxes on businesses
while temporarily extending tax credits
on “green” initiatives. This was
presented to the American people as
"tax relief" (a deed that the ACU
appropriately describes as "legislative
sleight-of-hand") (ACU-8).
- Voted FOR penalizing
energy producers. As part of
an ongoing assault on the energy
sector at a time when we most needed
to encourage exploration and drilling, D
iaz-Balart voted with the democrats on
a bill that, as the ACU explains, would
have placed "new requirements and
penalties on holders of federal oil and
gas leases" (ACU-8).
- Voted AGAINST lifting the
ban on oil and gas
production in the Gulf of
Mexico. Introduced in September
08, this measure would have given
states the power to choose whether to
allow production off their own coasts
(ACU-8).
- Voted FOR the economic
stimulus bill of September
2008 (ACU-8).
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