8-31-06, 8:55 am
When Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI, 11th dist.) voted for Bush's tax cuts for the rich, he voted against most of the people who live in his district. Tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans amounted to $56.5 billion in 2005 alone, according to the National Priorities Project. If that money had been used to support state and local programs, the people of Michigan’s 11th congressional district could have had an additional $112.5 million. That money, estimates the National Priorities Project, could have hired 1,702 elementary school teachers or provided 96,107 children with health care or provided 14,249 scholarships for university students or could have built 13 new elementary schools or hired 2,844 public safety officers. Instead, McCotter chose to set aside the real interests of his district to march lock-step with Bush and the Republican honchos in Congress to provide tax cuts for a handful of the richest Americans. McCotter has shown that he fights for the rich and forgets ordinary folk. Now he wants ordinary folk to send him back to Washington for two more years. Can the voters of Michigan's 11th district afford two more years of a representative with these priorities? For an alternative see: Tony Trupiano for Congress 2006
When Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) voted to privatize Social Security in 2005, he voted against the interest of millions of working families in Ohio and in the whole country in favor of the extremist agenda of the Bush administration and congressional Republican leaders in Washington. With his vote he said that he wanted to turn an estimated $1 trillion in public money over to private investment bankers. Not only would the bankers skim hundreds of billions off the top for their profit margins, but they also could never guarantee a retirement income for all retiring working people the way Social Security does. Instead of proposing secure ways to strengthen Social Security that would benefit working families, DeWine voted with the Republican leadership and the Bush administration to gut the program, reduce benefits to current retirees, and force working people to put their hard earned dollars into the unstable, volatile private investment sector. By voting to privatize Social Security, DeWine showed that he values the interests of bankers on Wall Street and hard-right Republican ideologues in Washington over the interests of the people of his state and the country. For an alternative, see Sherrod Brown for Senate
Despite having voted for the October 2002 war resolution that authorized an attack on Iraq and for every subsequent resolution that funded the war or expressed support for the war in any way, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT, 4th dist.) is now saying that he wants a timetable for withdrawal. It took him 14 trips over three and a half years to decide what most Americans decided long ago: that President Bush's stubbornness isn’t the correct way to bring the war to an end. While Shay's epiphany is worthy, his motives do not seem on the level. It seems that he made this very important decision not because the war suddenly became the wrong thing to do or because his primary interest is in keeping our loved-ones serving in Iraq safe from unnecessary harm, but because he faces a tough campaign for a congressional seat he has held for more than two decades. So far, voters in Shay's district have paid $1.9 billion for a war that he now wants to end. Without Shays' leadership, the people of the 4th district have had to make trade-offs to pay for the war. For the same amount of money, they could have built 157 new elementary schools or hired 28,231 new elementary school teachers or provided 885,313 children with health care coverage or provided renewable electricity to more than 4.2 million homes. Instead, they have seen their loved-ones sent to a war that Rep. Shays finally agrees is a bad idea. (National Priorities Project) Now he is asking the voters in Connecticut's 4th district to accept his cynical motives as genuine and to trust him to do the right thing in the future. For an alternative, see: Diane Farrell for Congress
When Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Oh, 15th dist.) voted to dismantle and privatize parts of Medicare under the guise of reform in 2003, she voted to create a massive and confusing private plan that may end costing taxpayers $1.2 trillion. (Washington Post) Pryce voted for a system that will scale back Medicare benefits for millions of Americans. She voted to create a prescription drug 'benefit' – the so-called donut hole – which will force 1/2 half of Medicare recipients to pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs for at least part of the year. Pryce voted for a system where deductibles simply will grow and grow, providing an estimated $139 billion in profits alone to pharmaceutical companies. Private insurers will also reap huge rewards from the system Pryce helped to create. Meanwhile, seniors will see miserly benefits that for many simply won't cover the costs of much-needed prescription drugs. Now Pryce wants the voters of her district to reward her for favoring the special interests of the powerful pharmaceutical lobby over the needs of ordinary working families and seniors. (Alliance for Retired Americans) For an alternative, see: Mary Jo Kilroy for Congress
