Liberals retain senate control: Voting record more important than party label

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Written By Robert Sentry

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There are still many Republicans stumped as to what exactly happened after the infamous “1994 Republican Sweep”.

I ran into a fellow the other day (the truth is he, in a daze, ran into me) wearing a T-Shirt that read “Good-Bye Department of Energy/Labor/Commerce/Education . . .” and had a caricature of Newt Gingrich with an oversized foot squashing the headquarters of these Departments.

For all the popping of champagne corks after Tuesday’s elections, the overlooked harsh reality is this—the liberals retained, and are in a super-majority in, the United States Senate.

A best case scenario for the Republicans would have the Dec. 7th run-off in LA go the Republican way and that, by a dimple or an end to the “Night of the Living Dead Voting” in South Dakota, Thune ends up winning after an election protest/contest. The Republicans would end up with 53 seats.

But set aside the the party hats and the streamers for a while and look at potential voting instead of the paRty label. That 53 majority has to be reduced by the Republican liberals like Chaffee and a number of other Jeffords wannabees. Here is how the party balloon gets deflated, ranked by the American Conservative Union Rating for 2001—the lower the number, the more liberal:

 

 

REPUBLICAN

 

ACU RATING

 

SENATE EROSION

 

Lincoln Chaffee

 

28

 

52

 

Arlen Specter

 

42

 

51

 

Olympia Snowe

 

51

 

50

 

Ben Campbell

 

52

 

49

 

Susan Collins

 

58

 

48

 

Ted Stevens

 

63

 

47

 

Pete Domenici

 

73

 

46

 

Richard Shelby

 

73

 

45

 

Gordon Smith

 

77

 

44

 

George Voinovich

 

78

 

43

 

Judd Gregg

 

79

 

42

 

Richard Lugar

 

79

 

41

 

Thadd Cochran

 

80

 

40

 

Chuck Hagel

 

82

 

39

 

Not only is that a majority for the liberals, it is a filibuster proof super-majority at 61-39.

To emphasize exactly how hard it is to find conservative Republicans in the US Senate, let’s take a look at a Republican Senator who is NOT on this list of the most liberal, Mike DeWine (R-OH), and some examples of his ideology:

  • voted against acceleration of the elimination of the marriage penalty

  • voted against capital gains tax reduction

  • voted against a bill that would withhold funds from public schools that barred Boy Scouts from using school facilities

  • voted for taking money AWAY from a Navy aircraft program so as to use those funds to increase a global trust fund for HIV/AIDS

  • voted for the use of taxpayer funds to buy more drug needles for addicts in the District of Columbia

Presenting Mike DeWine, your standard mean-spirited right-wing radical conservative. Now, do you see why this nation is moving into leftist land? If Mike DeWine is not on this list, just imagine the liberal voting record of those Republicans who are.

What was it again that the Republicans were celebrating the other night?

The label “R” may now be in the majority, but the “control” of the Senate remains firmly in the hands of the liberals.

This hang-up with labels is like some poison gas—you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, but it is killing all hope to reclaim our founding principles. For too many, the letter “R” is more important than the word freedom.

For those rare freedom fighters left in America, voting records are more important than party labels. Take a look at what happened after the 1994 Republican Sweep:

 

Year 

Inflation (CPI)

 

Federal Govt. Spending

 

Federal Govt. Tax Confiscation

1994 

2.7%

 

3.72%

 

9.03%

1995 

2.5%

 

3.69%

 

7.41%

1996 

3.3%

 

2.96%

 

7.49%

1997 

1.7%

 

2.61%

 

8.68%

1998 

1.6%

 

3.20%

 

9.02%

1999 

2.7%

 

3.04%

 

6.14%

2000 

3.4%

 

5.04%

 

10.82%

 

What Newt wrought—spending greater than inflation, and tax confiscation greater than spending, without one step backward away from the continued trend toward socialism. All this with the Republicans in control of the House and Senate.

The fanfare surrounding the 1994 Republican Sweep was truly amazing. Newt and Company said that the “era of big government was over”. There was a literal rush to argue what department and agency should be shut down first. In the end, not only was there no reduction in the size of government, nor was there a department shut down, but the growth of government accelerated to an astonishing pace.

Looking back, it is clear that the Republican Party was as much to blame for the growing tax slavery and big centralized government as the Democrats were. As you see from the table, federal government spending increased over the rate of inflation each year, and confiscation of your paycheck increased at rates even above the spending.

Again, just exactly what was it that the Republican faithful were celebrating Tuesday night? A return to Spent A. Lott (R-MS) as Majority Leader and a return to liberal Republican tax and spenders in control of the Senate?

If you thought it was an outrage to see the ghoulish celebration at the Wellstone “memorial” you should look in the mirror as you celebrate this so-called Republican control of the Senate.

Your celebration caused you to miss the real news—the liberals retained their control in the United States Senate on November 5th. Senate floor votes are more important than party labels.

If you are one who has a passion to reclaim the liberties and freedoms that we have lost, and if you refuse to accept a socialist or communist form of government in the United States, the single most important step you can take is to chuck the party label and focus strictly on the direction and movement that this nation is taking.

If we grew the socialist state unabated after the 1994 Republican Sweep, it is likely, Yogi, that it will be “deja vu all over again” as history has a tendency to repeat itself in the United “Statist” America.

Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

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