- Voted FOR the Baucus
health-care plan, breathing new
life into its chances of passing. To
better understand the wound this plan
would deal to the U.S. health-care
system, please read the following
piece by economist James Capretta:
"The Baucus Death Spiral."
- Voted FOR Obama's 2009
stimulus. Thanks to Collins,
Snowe, and Specter, this abomination
can be called "bipartisan."
- Voted FOR a resolution
disapproving of the surge:
Had Snowe gotten her way,
we would have surrend-
ered 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 Snowe voted
to leave the Iraqi people, please
read the following post by Victor
Davis Hanson: "Thyestean Feast." .
- Voted AGAINST a
Republican measure to cut
350 billion dollars in taxes
over 11 years (ACU-11).
- Voted AGAINST a 2005
measure to repeal Clinton's
tax hike on Social Security
benefits. The measure also sought
to extend tax cuts by five years.
Fortunately, the Republican party was
able to pass the measure without
Snowe's help (ACU-13).
- Voted AGAINST a 2008
measure to repeal Clinton's
tax hike on Social Security
benefits (ACU-16).
- Voted FOR a 2003 measure
to force the US. to comply
with the Kyoto Treaty despite
our never having ratified it (ACU-11).
- Voted FOR a Democrat
amendment that would
make tax cuts harder to
enact (ACU-12).
- Voted AGAINST a
Republican amendment
that would make spending
increases harder to enact
(ACU-14).
- 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 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 a 2006 amnesty
bill for illegal aliens. As the
ACU explains, this precursor to the
amnesty bill of 2007 was a bill
"overhauling U.S. immigration laws
and offering a path to citizenship for
most illegal immigrants in the country."
The 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 a cap on
future discretionary
spending to hold it at 2006 levels.
She then repeated her opposition to
spending controls the following year
(see Item 7 above) (ACU-13).
- Voted FOR the Democrat's
$410 billion Omnibus
Spending Bill of 2009, a mere
four weeks after voting for Obama's
$710 billion stimulus. In so doing, this
is what Snowe voted for:
- More than 8,000 earmarks.
- An 8% increase from the previous
year's budget.
- The cancellation of a school voucher
program in the District of Columbia.
(Rugy-1).
- Voted FOR a 2005
amendment that would
have hiked taxes on the oil
industry (ACU-13).
- 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 repealing
dividend taxes. An affront to
economic growth and economic
liberty, this practice constitutes double
taxation against private investors.
One of only three GOP senators to
vote against the repeal, Snowe
teamed up with John McCain and
Lincoln Chafee to nearly sabotage
this effort at tax reform. Dick
Cheney's tiebreaker is all that
prevented these three senators from
getting their way (ACU-11).
- Voted AGAINST a 2006 ex-
tension of tax cuts worth
$70 billion dollars. This
extension also protected cuts in
capital gains (ACU-14).
- Voted FOR formally admon-
ishing the FCC for imple-
menting 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,
Snowe sided with Hollings.
- 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 FOR an amendment
that bans “means testing”
when implementing the
Medicare prescription-drug
benefit. Such means-testing seeks
to target an entitlement to only those
individuals most in need, thus limiting
the scope, cost, and bureaucratic
reach of the program (ACU-11).
- Voted FOR a 2005
amendment to remove
language in the budget that
would have safeguarded
tax cuts (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 justifications 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 AGAINST drilling for
oil in ANWR in 2005 (ACU-13).
- Voted AGAINST school
vouchers (ACU-9).
- Vote AGAINST offshore oil
and gas drilling in the Gulf
of Mexico. (ACU-14).
- Voted FOR bailing out the
auto industry (ACU-16). Four
months later, our president was firing
CEOs. Either Olympia Snowe favors
nationalizing industry, or she's too
short-sighted to deserve our trust.
Either way, she's bad for the G.O.P.
- Voted AGAINST a 2007
amendment that would
have extended Bush's '01
tax cuts (ACU-15).
- Voted AGAINST a 2007
measure to end the
Alternative Minimum Tax
(AMT). Like so many federal
measures, the AMT began somewhat
modestly--aimed at taxing only the
wealthiest Americans--but it grew with
inflation until it had swallowed 20-
million middle-income earners.
Providing, perhaps, one of the best
glimpses into this senator's soul,
Snowe's support for the AMT leaves
little doubt that she favors a statist
government that, once unleashed,
cannot be scaled back (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 AMT. In so doing,
she gave the Democrats (and herself)
cover for raising taxes. If you want to
know the senator's true feelings about
the AMT, please see the previous item
(ACU-16).
- Voted AGAINST ending the
death tax (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 2007
measure allowing the state
of Virginia to drill for oil off
its own shores (ACU-15).
- 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 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
strengthening missile
defense (ACU-16).
- 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 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, Snowe's 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, Snowe refuses to fight
high fuel prices by increasing fuel
supplies; rather, she chooses to fight
high fuel prices by taxing fuel.
- Voted AGAINST limiting
2009 spending to $1 trillion
(ACU-16).
- Voted FOR imposing a cap
on CO2 emissions in hopes
of changing the climate (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 p
uts 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 FOR expanding 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,
Snowe 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)
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 Olympia Snowe.
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