- 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 FOR allowing the
EEOC to sue employers
who require English be
spoken in their workplace (1
of only 7 in the GOP)
- 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, Smith 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 RemoveRinos 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 banning
taxpayer dollars from going
to the U.N. to renovate, or build
anew, their headquarters in the United
States (ACU 4).
- 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 an
amendment to cut
discretionary spending by
2% while protecting the
Bush tax cuts (ACU 2).
- 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 drilling in
ANWR in 2005 (ACU 2).
- Voted AGAINST drilling in
ANWR in 2006 (ACU-4) .
- Voted FOR spending an
additional $100 million on
Public Broadcasting (ACU)
- 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 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 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 AGAINST the 2005
Deficit Reduction Act that,
according to the ACU, "allowed oil and
natural gas leasing and pre-leasing
activities for Outer Continental Shelf
areas, terminated subsidies for
broadband telecommunications
services in rural areas, and provided
for energy production on a small
portion of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge."
- 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 the Democrat's
Mortgage Bailout (Round
One). Introduced in May 08, this bill
set the tone for the bailout fever that
would soon infect Washington. Under
threat of Bush veto, Smith voted in
favor of the bill, which sought to further
distort the marketplace by increasing
the Federal Housing Authority's
influence, guaranteeing hundreds of
billions of dollars in Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac loans. Simultaneously, it
provided a multi-billion dollar trust fund
available to parties of questionable
relevance and repute, such as ACORN
(ACU-8).
- For background into the
bill's tie-in to our current
bailout woes, see the
following prescient NRO
editorial: "Do Nothing,
Congress."
- Voted FOR the AMT
"Relief" Bill, which raised
taxes on U.S. energy
producers. At a time of record-
high energy prices when some
legislators were calling for a tax
holiday at the gas pump, Smith was
voting to raise taxes on the energy
sector (ACU-8).
- Voted AGAINST off-shore
drilling in 06 (ACU-4).
- 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,
Smith 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 FOR the Paycheck
Equality Bill, which--at its best--
duplicated anti-discrimination laws
already in effect, and--at its worst--
moved the burden of proof in
discrimination cases from the
employee to the employer (a clear
violation of the innocent-until-proven-
guilty principle) and opened the door
to oppressive intrusion into the labor
market (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).
D.C. residents to own
firearms (ACU-8).
- Voted FOR the economic
stimulus bill of September
2008 (ACU-8).
- Voted FOR bailing out the
auto industry (ACU-8).Four months
later, our president was firing CEOs.
Either Smith favors nationalizing
industry, or he's too short-sighted to
deserve our trust. Either way, he's bad
for the G.O.P.
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