- Voted FOR a measure to
make gun manufacturers and
sellers libel for gun deaths
(ACU-12) .
- Voted AGAINST a cap on
future discretionary spending
to hold it at 2006 levels (ACU-13).
- Voted FOR forcing the US. to
comply with the Kyoto Treaty
despite our never having ratified it (ACU-
11).
- 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 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 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 a Constitu-
tional safeguard for
Campaign-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 changing
senate rules to make it
harder to increase spending
from one year to the next (ACU-
14).
- Voted FOR allowing illegal
aliens to claim social security
credit for work done prior to receiving
a social-security number (ACU-14).
- 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." 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 FOR the amnesty bill
of 2007 by means of his cloture vote
(ACU-15). Here's a reminder as to why, in
spring of '07, conservatives flooded the
senate with phone calls, practically
shutting the lines down:
- At Kennedy and McCain's bidding, the
Senate tried to advance this bill through the
dark of night, using the same methods the
current congress has employed for the
stimulus and health care packages. The below
interview, in which Hannity debates Ohio's
Voinovich, perfectly encapsulates the head-
butting context of conservatives vs. RINOs at
this key juncture in the party's decline. For
the record--the only reason Voinovich isn't
listed as one of our featured RINOs is that he
doesn't plan to seek another term.
2. For a succinct summary of the features that made
this bill so distasteful, John Boehner and Lou Dobbs
say it best:
- 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 FOR extending Social
Security benefits to illegal
aliens (ACU-15).
- 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 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 an anti-
military-bias measure that
would have transferred funds
from the city of Berkley to
the Marine Corps. As the ACU
explains, this measure would have done
away with "earmarked taxpayer
spending for the city of Berkeley, Calif.,
after the City Council denounced the
Marine Corps and encouraged
protestors to stop recruitment. Funds
saved would have been transferred to
the Marine Corps" (ACU-16). Not even
Olympia Snowe voted against this
measure!
- Voted FOR bailing out the
auto industry (ACU-16). Four months
later, our president was firing CEOs.
Either Richard Lugar favors nationalizing
industry, or he's too short-sighted to
deserve our trust. Either way, he's bad
for the G.O.P.
- 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 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, 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)
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
Richard Lugar.
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