Abortion or Diapers --taxpayers will fund

Rosa Luisa DeLauro (born March 2, 1943) is the U.S. Representative for Connecticut's 3rd congressional district since 1991. She was an administrative assistant and chief of staff for Senator Chris Dodd and executive director of EMILY's List before entering the House. She is married to political strategist Stan Greenberg. They are close friends with former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

She is one of the most "progressive" (read: leftist liberal) as well as one of the richest people in congress. She is strongly pro-abortion, her main issue, while calling herself a Roman Catholic. DeLauro supports the use of federal subsidies for abortion procedures. In 2006 DeLauro voted against HR 6099, a bill that would require abortion providers to follow specific procedures and formalities before performing abortions. She also voted NO in 2006 on a bill that makes the transportation of pregnant women under the age of 18 across state lines in order to obtain an abortion illegal.

Aggressively anti-Second Amendment, she strongly supports and has consistently voted for increased gun control.

One of the reasons for the huge $16+ trillion national debt is Rep. DeLauro’s voting record. No bill is too large or too small for her. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named her Porker of the Month recently for proposing the Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act (DIAPER). The bill would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 to include diapers among the grant-eligible items. Capitol Hill’s diaper diva issued a press release on October 7 recognizing “the work of Joanne Goldblum, who has been operating a Diaper Bank in Connecticut for years now, and whose good work has served as the inspiration for this legislation.” However, the Diaper Bank has done more than just inspire. In the fiscal year 2009 Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Act, Rep. DeLauro disposed of $133,000 in taxpayer money with an earmark to the Diaper Bank. DIAPER “is another example of the mission creep within federal programs that gives taxpayers a bad rash,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Even as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is holding hearings on how to…wrangle some control over spiraling government spending, members like Rep. DeLauro are still trying to load on more spending and more debt. On behalf of taxpayers, we think this bill is, well…just offal. It should be left on the congressional compost heap.” For discharging a bill that needlessly dumps on taxpayers, Rep. DeLauro is CAGW’s October Pooper – er – Porker of the Month. (clever copy from CAGW release)

The conservative but non-partisan Heritage Action scorecard rates congress from a constitutional, free market perspecive. DeLauro naturally ranks near the bottom while the Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal rating agency, calls her an ADA Hero. The Club for Growth ranks congress on their votes promoting growth of the economy --DeLauro is at the very bottom for her lifetime statist, anti-growth votes. (She has her money and the hell with everybody else!) And the National Taxpayers Union has her at low single digits which receives their "Big Spender" classification.

The pattern here is obvious. Rosa Delauro believes that the government should be in control of virtually every aspect of life in the country. She disses her church teaching, she does not honor her oath to defend the Constitution and doesn't trust the people to manage their own lives. If a mother avoids the abortion subsidies and has a baby, then DeLauro will provide diapers --paid for by others, of course. How thoughtful and kind she is when not pushing for taxpayer paid abortions. But she punishes the survivors by indebting future generations with a national debt that is really generational theft on a grand scale.

Term limits offer a chance to limit the damage that entrenched politicians like Rosa DeLauro can do to what is left of the Republic.

Your Typical Career Politician. Or, why we have a $16+ trillion debt

(updated 2/5/12 re term limit amendment vote.) Clarence William "Bill" Nelson is the senior U.S. Senator from Florida, (my home state since 1973). As most of our Posters, he is a lawyer having obtained his law degree in 1968 after which he went to work for then governor Reubin Askew. He was elected to the House of Representatives for six terms from 1972 to 1991 and ran for governor in 1990 and lost to Lawton Chiles. Then he ran for Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner in Florida and won two terms before running for the U.S. Senate where he has been ever since. Again, fitting the poster profile in not having any real life experience in the productive private sector. When one spends his entire adult life in politics one becomes adept at getting reelected and, of course, for a professional politician that is Job #1.

On 2/2/2012 on the vote to limit the terms of congress it is telling that the senators who voted against term limits have been in the Senate for an average of 13.6 years compared to just 6.4 years for those who support them. The longer people are in Congress, the more power they get, and the more they lose touch with the voters who elected them. See how your Senator voted: www.senateconservatives.com/site/votes/112/2/11?c=5R4F2B4F9B3A137 hint: All Democrats but Joe Manchin of WV voted AGAINST the reform even though they know full well that a super-majority of their constituents are in favor of term limits.


Now, at age 68 he is running again for another 6-year term. His voting record has generally been down the Democrat Party line over 93% of the votes with some exceptions for local political realities. One exception is his more recent vote for elimination of the estate tax (after having voted for the tax in previous years) given the senior-heavy demographic of Florida --seniors don’t want half of their estates taken by FedGov. Of course, it has yet to be repealed. Nelson supports continued restrictions on Cuba as Florida has a huge Cuban exile population.

Five Senators up for reelection in 2012, including Nelson, sent a public letter to VP Biden asking him to reaffirm his commitment to leaving Medicare unchanged in his negotiations with the bipartisan negotiators on the budget. They did this to impress (read: fool) their voters knowing full well that the ObamaCare that they themselves voted for just a few months before cuts over $500 billion from Medicare, raiding Medicare to fund Obamacare. Honesty is just another casualty of Job #1 –getting reelected. Reelection efforts take precedence over all for, by the reasoning of a career pol, “how can I continue to help the people if I don’t get reelected?”

The non-partisan National Taxpayers Union has given him an “F” in all but one year when he earned a “D” placing him firmly in their “Big Spender” category. Our Poster Children most of whom are in that category are the main reason we have a $14 trillion debt and $zillions more in unfunded liabilities. Another non-partisan organization, the Club for Growth, confirms NTU’s rating by giving Nelson a 13% lifetime score, near the bottom for voting consistently against pro-growth policies regarding spending, taxes, regulations, free trade and legal reform. Citizens Against Government Waste gives Nelson a lowly 18% “Hostile to Taxpayers” lifetime rating for wasteful spending. Clearly, it is the professional politician that has put our country in the dire financial and overall economic position we find ourselves in today.

Votes and ratings on other issues:
• Rated 100% by NARAL for his aggressive support for abortion.
• Voted for TARP, so-called Stimulus bills and against paying down the debt and against a modest $40 bil reduction in overall spending.
• Rated 89% by the HRC, indicating a pro-gay-rights stance.
• Rated 86% by the NAACP, indicating a pro-affirmative-action stance.
• Rated 91% by the NEA, indicating pro-union education votes and opposition to school vouchers and for greater FedGov spending and control of education.
• Consistently votes against domestic energy production; for cap and trade tax plans; for global warming restrictions on the economy; Voted YES on reducing oil usage by 40% by 2025.
• Rated 79% by the LCV, indicating pro-environment votes. Voted for Cash for Clunkers. Fund projects for international conservation of cranes. (Sure, why not –China will loan us the money.)
• Rated 16% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-Family-Value voting record.
• Rated 33% by CATO, indicating a mixed record on trade issues.
• Voted NO on requiring photo ID to vote in federal elections. Voted NO on require photo ID (not just signature) for voter registration. (Why do you suppose?)
• Opposes Second Amendment rights to gun ownership.
• Supports More Federal Funding for Health Coverage. Rated 100% by APHA, indicating a pro-government health record.
• Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act.
• Voted YES on continuing federal funds for declared "sanctuary cities".
• Voted to restrict employer “interference” in union organizing; eliminate the secret ballot for employees on joining a union (for “card check”); raise the minimum wage to $7.25/hr.
• Voted No to confirm Samuel Alito and Yes to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
• Social Security: Opposes efforts to partially privatize; Voted NO on establishing reserve funds & pre-funding for Social Security.

Our point, as always, is the fact that the longer one is in the Congress, the more he will vote to expand the size and scope of the federal government because he is responding to special interests that support his tenure by contributing to his election campaigns. Each special interest has got to get its way which usually means special favors from FedGov such as tax breaks, subsidies, mandates –whatever. That relationship explains our multi-million word tax code and the uncountable regulations imposed on all segments of society.

It needs to end and term limits on Congress is one reform that is most effective as proven by the limits already on many other levels of government throughout the country. Go here to support the proposed congressional term limit Constitutional Amendment: www.termlimits.org

Her Biggest Fan

Rep. Kaptur is appearing in a Michael Moore movie about the evils of capitalism Another Poster that illustrates the need for term limits if we’re ever to get back to enjoying the benefits of a Constitutional Republic. First, we must stop the headlong rush into the welfare state with its unsustainable promises and spending inevitably resulting in reduced freedoms, opportunities and prosperity. Entrenched politicians like 15-term Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) carry the blame for the massive $16+ trillion debt we’re passing on to our children.


Kaptur’s main claim to fame is that she is currently the longest-tenured woman in the House; she ranks 25th out of 435 members in seniority and serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. At a House committee hearing her questions about the sub-prime mortgage crisis were intended for the then Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson, but she was actually questioning Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. She said, “Seeing as how you were the former CEO of Goldman Sachs…” Bernanke corrected her but it was clear that she had no clue. Long seniority puts people like her in positions for which they have had no relevant experience, no real life experiences outside of government jobs and politics.
The experience she did have after college was with the Lucas County Plan Commissions from 1969 to 1975 and as director of planning for the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs from 1975 to 1977. She later was a domestic policy advisor during the Carter Administration. Kaptur earned a Master’s Degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan in 1974 and did post-graduate study in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.

After introducing the World War II Memorial Act to the House of Representatives in 1987, 1989, 1991, it finally was passed in 1993. The legislation authorized the American Battle Monuments Commission to establish a World War II memorial. And a fine memorial it is.

Another area where she has an intense interest is on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights issues. Her votes for gay marriage, for adoption by homosexual couples and virtually all GLBT bills got her a 75% rating by The Human Rights Campaign indicating a strong pro-gay rights stance. On the other side of that coin is the Family Research Council’s lowly 6% rating on pro-family issues.
In a Youtube piece, Kaptur urged Americans facing foreclosure to “be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave -- Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Foreclosures in her district skyrocketed 94% last year. Is that responsible adult behavior?

Under some pressure from the tea parties -- “Joe the Plumber” is a constituent and soon to be challenger for her seat in Congress-- Marcy Kaptur expressed strong opposition to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s tactyics in:
•Forcing Congress to rush the stimulus spendidng decision.
•Disarming the public through fear. Controlling the media enough to ensure that the public will not notice that this bailout will indebt them for generations taking from them trillions of dollars they earned and deserved to keep.
•Controlling the playing field (hiding info from the public, holding private hearings, and private teleconferencing calls).
•Diverting attention and keeping people confused.
•Having the goal to privatize gains and socialize losses.
After all that rhetoric she voted for the bailouts and stimulus bills and she laid all of the blame on Wall Street executives for their greed and held them responsible for the crisis saying, “You have perpetrated the greatest financial crimes ever on this American Republic. You think you can get by with it because you are extraordinarily wealthy, and the largest contributors to both presidential and congressional campaigns in both major parties.” [See Posters for Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to begin to determine blame for the financial crisis.] She went on to suggest that the Federal Regional Reserve Banks should have a new job to help renegotiate mortgages and any refinancing gains should return a major share of any profits to a new Social Security and Medicare lock box. Brilliant!

She backed The American Clean Energy and Security Act inserting an amendment that would authorize the Secretary of Energy to create power marketing authorities in regions where none currently exist. One such area would be in her district, the Great Lakes region. Kaptur said the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation could serve as the vehicle for administering up to $3.5 billion in loans from taxpayers (more debt!) to stimulate economic development through creation of green energy such as solar power and wind power. We know how well that worked out --think Solyndra for starters. Kaptur said the $3.5 billion would promote "regional equity" and serve as a powerful engine for job creation in a region that has suffered from high energy costs --as if solar and wind would reduce those costs.

In 1996, Kaptur was asked by Ross Perot to be his vice presidential running mate because, like him, she was an anti-free trade protectionist. They both opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement –remember Perot’s “giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading to Mexico if NAFTA passed? She wasn’t quite that stupid and turned him down. She consistently voted against job-creating trade bills most recently with Singapore, Peru, Columbia, Panama and Korea despite the high unemployment in her district in order satisfy the unions. Union $upport insures reelection which is Job#1 for career pols, so they take priority over constituents.

She was listed by the Nation magazine, self-described as he "flagship of the left," in its “Most Valuable Progressives” awards as the “Most Valuable House Member” in 2008. But the congresswoman is often at odds with members of her own party over her position against free trade and abortion. As expected for a progressive Democrat, her voting record puts her at the bottom of the Citizens Against Government Waste ratings –at a lifetime 10%, she is determined to be “hostile” to taxpayers. She was CAGW's "Porker of the Month" in July 2010. Confirming her progressive credentials, the American Conservative Union rates her at a lowly 15% while the leftist Americans for Democratic Action rates her highly at 85%. The Club for Growth gives her a "7" lifetime of a possible 100 for her growth-stifling voting record and her numerous votes against efforts to curb earmarks. For a comprehensive record of her votes go to www.ontheissues.org/OH/Marcy_Kaptur.htm

Marcy Kaptur is a Big Spender of taxpayer’s money and that resulted in the huge national debt being passed on to our progeny --generational theft of colossal proportions! Would a term-limited representative succumb to such spending? Maybe, but far less likely than a professional politician whose reelection depends on appeasing the leadership of the party and giving lobbies what they want in exchange for campaign money. You can help promote Sen. Jim DeMint’s proposed constitutional amendment to term limit Congress by signing the petition at www.termlimits.org.

When Perfect Attendance is Costly

If our $14.7 trillion dollar debt is any indication, the majority of the 535 members of congress are qualified for these posters. Who else would spend so much more than they take in and for what reason?

Well, if you are a professional politician with no real talent or skills in the private sector, then being a politician offers great rewards; as long as you’re willing to do or say almost anything to get elected. And then to disregard your solemn oath of office in doing all that is necessary to get reelected. The career politicians we’ve exposed so far have spent all, or nearly all, of their working lives in politics. With no experience in the real world, they create legislation in areas they have no knowledge of or experience in, resulting in bills they seldom actually read. Then these bills go to a huge bureaucracy to administer by writing thousands of regulations that the working population has to follow--or be fined and maybe even go to jail. They, themselves are routinely unaffected by the laws they pass. Sometimes they even specifically exempt themselves from these laws.

Special interests have thousands of lobbyists offering big bucks to these elected officials to pass laws favorable to them. They need this money for reelection, and they pile up $millions for that purpose. Our laws end up with too many exceptions for favored industries, and as a result our tax code is extremely complicated; you can be sure that every loophole is bought and paid for by lobbyists.

Lobbyists are uniformly against any term limits on their “honest” politicians. They define “honest” as those who, once bought, stay bought. We need a law requiring members of Congress to wear logos like race car drivers and golfers wear to advertise who gives them money.

Typical of this kind of politician is Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). We mentioned Collins in our poster of Olympia Snowe, also a Senator from Maine. Both are considered “moderates” in the Republican Party and both vote with Democrats so often that many Republicans refer to them as RINOs –Republicans In Name Only. Recently, as taxes, regulation overreach and onerous executive orders have mired the economy in recession, Sen. Collins has taken note and written a mostly reasonable piece in the Wall Street Journal (9/26/2011).

However, in this op-ed she calls for a one-year “time out” on excessive FedGov regulations. What? A time out? Beam me up, Scottie! She writes, “A one-year moratorium on such regulations is a common-sense solution that would help create jobs.” That's preposterous. The common-sense solution is to tear up the regulations permanently. Businesses will not start hiring with only a one-year window of certainty regarding regulations. Uncertainty is one of the major problems, and with a one-year "timeout," uncertainty would not be eliminated. What we need is a permanent solution, not a short-term gimmick. This is just another glaring example of a career pol showing how out of touch with reality she is.

Who is Susan Collins?
Collins was born and raised in Caribou, Maine. Both parents served in elected positions and her uncle was a state Supreme Court justice. She met Sen. Margaret Chase Smith —whose Senate seat she now holds-- in 1971 while participating in the U.S. Senate Youth program in Washington D.C. In 1975 she graduated from St. Lawrence University with a degree in–what else?—government.

She was a legislative assistant to Congressman and later U.S. Senator William Cohen until 1987 when she returned to Maine to join the governor’s cabinet and other political jobs in the State capitol until 1992. President George Bush appointed her to the Small Business Administration for a few months after which she went to Massachusetts to become Deputy State Treasurer for another few months. Back to Maine she won an eight-way primary race in the 1994 gubernatorial election but didn’t get support from conservative Republicans and came in third behind an independent and the Democrat. After a short job at Hussen College she ran for the Senate with Sen. Cohen’s help when he went on to join President Clinton’s cabinet. She won a four-way primary and beat the Democrat 49% to 44%. She’s been a fixture there ever since.

Notice once again the typical route to Congress--no practical experience in the free market, no position in the private sector much less ever having to meet a payroll or create a job. Yet these are the people who tell us how to run our businesses and make decisions that affect every aspect of our lives!

Collins is aggressively pro-abortion. She is a member of Republicans for Choice and was one of only three Republicans to vote against the Partial Birth Abortion Act. A major LGBT organization, the Human Rights Campaign, endorsed her campaigns. Collins voted in favor of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. Both Collins and Snowe voted to acquit Clinton in his impeachment trial admitting he broke the law by committing perjury, but they didn’t think that was serious enough to remove him from office. She voted against restrictions on travel to Cuba, harsher punishments for drug users, and amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages. She was the recipient of the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Award (10/5/2011); curiously, her co-recipient was Rep. Ellison (D-MN), a Muslim.

A protectionist, she regularly votes against free-trade, including the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In 1999 she and Snowe were two of the four Republicans (with Jeffords and Specter) to vote for an amendment to the Trade and Development Act of 2000 which would have conditioned trade benefits for Caribbean countries on "compliance with internationally recognized labor rights." This vote for what is in effect world governance put her to the left of many Democratic senators including Edwards, Dodd and Biden. Just last week she was the only Republican to vote against the trade agreement with Columbia that is expected to create thousands of jobs in the US.

She wrote in that WSJ article, “…the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule on fossil-fuel emissions from boilers that—by the EPA's own admission—would cost the private sector billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. The owner of a small business in Maine told me the proposed rule would require him to scrap a new, $300,000 wood waste boiler he recently installed.” She’s just finding this out after sponsoring such bills herself like the Cantwell-Collins bill (S. 2877), also called the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act, that creates a program to regulate fossil fuels. How many thousands of regulations in those bills?

She voted for the confirmation of two U.S. Supreme Court nominees, Alito and Roberts but she also voted for President Obama's nominees, Sotomayor and Kagan.

Collins was one of just three Republican lawmakers to vote for the so-called stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and in mid-December 2009, Collins was again one of just three Republican senators to back a $1.1 trillion appropriations bill for the fiscal year beginning in 2010. You can see how the $14.7 trillion deficits happen.

In January 2009 Collins voted in favor of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. But she voted against ObamaCare in December 2009 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Currently, she is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Feel safer now?

Collins has an unbroken voting record in the Senate, never missing a single vote since becoming a senator in 1997. Too bad.

We really need term limits www.termlimits.org

Masters of the Liberal Plantation

We shouldn’t have to mention the fact obvious to any honest American that the color or shade of one’s skin is not a meaningful distinction to differentiate among ourselves. Discrimination by race is long gone in our society. Using long past abuses to gain some advantage today is just a political ploy.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is a monolithic group with virtually identical voting records, disgusting behavior and a complete disregard for their oaths of office. They lack the knowledge, principle and integrity to hold their high positions, but unfortunately, there they are: All of them, but one, Poster boys for term limits. Let's look here at just one more. We’ve already reviewed Maxine Waters, Charlie Rangel (a co-founder of the CBC), James Clyburn, John Conyers and Hank Johnson.

Congressman Alcee Lamar Hastings, born September 5, 1936, represents Florida's 23rd congressional district, a post he has held since 1993. He spent ten years as a federal judge (1979-1989), but was (oh, my!) impeached and removed from office for corruption and perjury--making him a perfect candidate for Congress and the CBC. He was only the sixth federal judge in American history to be impeached and removed from office. (For more details, see Alcee Hastings in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia).

Students of Congress probably think that a bribe-taker who sullied his high office like that would fit right in as one of “the worst of a bad lot.” But how does one of such low reputation get elected over and over again? He has had some reputable opposition but they couldn’t come close. And that, of course, is the point of this blog: Entrenched politicians have such power and money derived from their offices that challengers have little chance of unseating them. Part of the reason that blacks like Hastings can be elected and stay in office indefinitely almost no matter what they do is the federal mandate that districts be established with majority black populations. Blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats so no Republican need apply. Many Republicans also favor this racial districting because it then concentrates more of their likely voters in their own districts. Politics has become a slimy, self-serving business.

The Congressional Black Caucus is, by definition, racist. Yet this is generally overlooked by Congress as a whole. A notable exception was Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts who famously called the group, “race hustling poverty pimps.” Because he voted as a conservative, they labeled Rep. Watts an “Uncle Tom.”

The Criminal Caucus

Hastings is not the only CBC member tainted by scandal as we’ve seen in previous posters.

There’s the case of another bribe-taker, nine-term Rep. William “Cold Cash” Jefferson. The FBI found $90,000 in cash in his home freezer in 2005, yet he was reelected in 2006. He is currently residing in other federal facilities as a result of his eventual conviction. That is one of the few ways congressmen have been term-limited.

At one point in the 111th Congress in 2008 eight lawmakers were under formal investigation by the House ethics committee, including Rangel and Waters. All eight of them were black Democrats. The House was dominated in that session by the Democrats so cries of racism fell on deaf ears.

Membership in the Caucus is limited to black legislators –they don’t say it but if you’re a Republican or a black conservative, don’t bother. Just ask Gary Franks who was the first Republican member. He was Chairman of the Republican Party Task Force on Civil Rights that produced the 1991 Civil Rights Bill which passed by the largest plurality of any past Civil Rights Bill. And he was a supporter of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. He played a significant role in passing the Welfare Reform Act in 1995 that gave a new life to so many who were stuck on welfare. Yet he was much maligned by the Black Caucus. My congressman, Republican Allen West, elected in 2010, joined the Black Caucus and is already at loggerheads with it. West is the kind of guy you can disagree with and still be friends –but that requires a similar approach by the other side. He is reported to be reconsidering his membership.

It is a rare member of the Caucus who is not reelected with little or no opposition. Of course, that is also true, although to a lesser degree, of the the Congress as a whole. From its history we can conclude that the CBC is not so much a “Black” caucus as it is a Liberal Caucus --and a far left one at that. It routinely plays the “race card” to pursue its welfare state goals which are closely tied to the member’s reelection campaigns. By promising their constituents freebies from the government they are overwhelmingly retained. This practice is often referred to as “keeping them on the Liberal Plantation.”

The Caucus opposes education reform such as school vouchers or teacher tenure rules which keep bad teachers in the classrooms especially in minority schools. It favors ever higher minimum wage laws that have the effect of preventing the poorly educated from getting their first job; black youth unemployment is around 50%! Since blacks on average have shorter life spans they receive a lower return on their Social Security payroll taxes. Yet, the CBC opposes Social Security reform such as privatization which would give their constituents ownership of their pension accounts and a chance to build an estate.

We started with Alcee Hastings so let’s complete this poster by recognizing his time at the public trough. Like most of the other poster children, he spent the bulk of his life on government payrolls after getting a law degree. Recently, he was sued for sexual harassment and has raised concerns about how he spent overseas travel funds. Last year he introduced the Resolution to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces. No surprise that the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union has rated Hastings “F” for every year in Congress which earns him the appellation “Big Spender.” His long tenure helps explain our $16+trillion national debt. The Club for Growth gives him a score of “4” out of 100 which means he routinely votes against programs that promote growth in the economy. Specifically, he votes against trade, reform of Social Security, regulation reform, school vouchers, lower marginal tax rates and limiting spending.

So there you have it: Alcee Hastings and the Congressional Black Caucus. Another strong argument to term limit Congress. Sign the petition: www.termlimits.org

Schumer: three branches of government are "the House, the Senate, and the President"

Update: On 2/2/2012 on the vote to limit the terms of congress it is telling that the senators who voted against term limits have been in the Senate for an average of 13.6 years compared to just 6.4 years for those who support them. The longer people are in Congress, the more power they get, and the more they lose touch with the voters who elected them. Of course,Schumer voted AGAINST the reform.

See how your Senator voted: Me, Myself & I hint: All Democrats but Joe Manchin of WV and 24 RINOs voted AGAINST the reform even though they know full well that a super-majority of their constituents are in favor of term limits.

Charles Ellis Schumer was elected to the New York State Assembly at age 23 in 1974 and was reelected until 1980. He then was elected to the House of Representatives from 1981 to 1998 followed by the U.S. Senate since 1998 to date. Again, as our other Poster Children, he never had a real job in the productive economy. He has a law degree from Harvard followed by 37 years in elective office making laws for others to live under. This why we oppose unlimited terms for career politicians –they make decisions we all have to live with yet they have no experience in areas of their lawmaking. No wonder most of their laws end up causing more problems than they solve. No wonder we as a nation have a debt of $14 trillion when our representatives spend with abandon on anything that seems like a good idea or which directly helps certain supporters at the expense of taxpayers. Most of our Posters have little concept of money, for like Schumer, they have never earned any and certainly never had to budget as ordinary citizens do. Borrowing from future generations doesn’t bother them –it is all about making certain people happy at the expense of others and insuring reelection.

Schumer is a party-line guy all the way –never missing a chance to help expand the size and scope of the federal government at any cost. Citizens Against Government Waste lists pork barrel projects in their 2010 Congressional Pig Book -- Schumer himself sponsored $161,960,190 of them just that one year. These are vote-buying projects or “earmarks” used extensively by career politicians to insure reelection. Reelection to professional politicians is Job #1. Sad, but true, as the Posters confirm. CAGW gives Schumer a lifetime rating of 10% which they call “Hostile” to taxpayers. www.cagw.org

The National Taxpayers Union www.ntu.org rating on the 111th Congress puts Schumer, at 5%, in the Big Spender category. Both CAGW and NTU are non-partisan congressional watch dogs. The same is true for The Club for Growth Scorecard a comprehensive examination of each lawmaker’s record on pro-growth policies. Again, Schumer is at the very bottom with 0% in the 2010 session and 2% lifetime. www.clubforgrowth.org

Sen. Schumer is on the Banking and Finance committees. Guess where the bulk of his large contributions come from? The earmarks also generate contributions. He raised about $21 million for his own campaigns in the past five years and has $10 mil in the bank. His next election is 2012. Details at http://tinyurl.com/money-detail Schumer led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for four years, raising a record $240 million while increasing donations from Wall Street by 50 percent. Even the NY Times reported that he was one of the first to promote a Wall Street bailout and accused Schumer of "backing measures now blamed for the financial crisis.... Schumer took steps to protect (financial) industry players from Government oversight and tougher rules.... Over the years he has helped to save financial institutions billions of dollars in higher taxes." He spent hours in closed-door briefings and a weekend helping Congressional leaders nail down details of the $700 billion rescue package. At another meeting, he told a group of 20 or so finance industry execs, “We are going to be effective, moderate advocates for sound economic policies, good responsible stewards you can trust.” The message clearly resonated. The next week, executives at firms represented at the breakfast sent in more than $135,000 in campaign donations. He knows how to raise money using the power of his office. The Times article concluded with this sentence: “He is serving the parochial interest of a very small group of financial people, bankers, investment bankers, fund managers, private equity firms, rather than serving the general public,” said John C. Bogle, the founder and former chairman of the Vanguard Group, the giant mutual fund house. “It has hurt the American investor first and the average American taxpayer.” The full article is here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/business/14schumer.html?_r=1

A great site to learn how your representatives voted is OnTheIssues –here’s Schumer’s record www.ontheissues.org/senate/Charles_Schumer.htm Some items from the site:
• 100% pro abortion record including taxpayer money to support abortion in many ways. He even voted NO on criminal penalty for harming unborn fetus during other crime.
•  On the Budget and Economy -- Voted Yes on all the stimulus spending.
• Rated 60% by the ACLU, indicating a mixed civil rights voting record. More funding and stricter sentencing for hate crimes.
•  Rated 100% by the NEA, indicating his support of the teachers’ union and more federal funds for expanded control of education nationally.
• Voted YES on factoring global warming into federal project planning. Voted NO on drilling ANWR.
• Voted YES on $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program.
• Rated 0% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-Family-Value voting record.
• Voted NO on extending free trade to Andean nations; Voted YES on granting normal trade relations status to Vietnam.
• Voted YES on Congressional pay raise. YES on granting the District of Columbia a seat in Congress. Voted NO on requiring photo ID to vote in elections. Why?! So illegal aliens could vote? Sponsored DISCLOSE Act: ban political donations from Big Oil. But not from banks and other financial institutions? Hmmmm…• Voted YES on funding for National Endowment for the Arts.
• Anti-Second Amendment-- Voted NO on banning lawsuits against gun manufacturers for gun violence.
• Voted for numerous spending bills re health care, federal control of health care.
• Repeal Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, and reinstate discharged homosexuals.
• Rated 85% by the AFL-CIO, indicating a pro-union voting record. For forming unions by card-check instead of secret ballot. For increasing minimum wage by law.
• Voted NO on Social Security Lockbox & limiting national debt. Opposes flat-rate federal tax; supports increased tax rates.

With just this sampling of Sen. Schumer’s votes and his actions in fund raising one can understand how our nation has managed to sink to the brink of bankruptcy. In any business run by inexperienced managers with no concept of profit and loss, no cost/benefit considerations and no concern for the future would go bankrupt. Schumer is one of many directly responsible for the financial condition of the country today. See the other Poster Children posters and you will be convinced that we desperately need term limits on Congress. Please go to www.termlimits.org and sign on to Sen. DeMint’s proposed amendment to limit terms of congress.

President Obama's Favorite Republican

Richard Lugar, 78, Republican of Indiana was first elected to the US Senate in 1976. His political career started when he was elected Mayor of Indianapolis in 1968. President Richard Nixon called him his favorite mayor. Lugar no doubt started out in politics with best intentions to serve the people by keeping his oath to them and to the Constitution. But whatever good he did in Congress is long forgotten after 43 years of doing what he considered necessary in getting reelected as each term came to an end. And therein lays the problem.

His early good efforts are now overshadowed by his votes in recent years such as on behalf of the ethanol scam, for instance –see how that worked so well for his fellow Poster Child, Sen. Grassley (R-IA).As you read ask yourself would a Sen. who goes to Washington to serve the people sign on to such expensive, counter-productive scams? This issue is a perfect example of how career pols milk their positions of power. Ethanol is the one product that is not only subsidized by US taxpayers, but mandated that 10% of US gasoline contain it (Lugar has pushed for 15% mandate even though it hurts engines and increases pollution –many green groups oppose its use). Oh, and in case competitive ethanol pops up in the global marketplace, as it has from Brazil, then the career pols put a tariff on it. Brazilian ethanol is made from sugar and actually works cleaner than corn ethanol and costs less than gasoline to produce unlike the corn product. So, Lugar and Grassley and a majority of the Senate voted a 54 cent per gallon tariff to prevent the cheaper, more efficient ethanol from competing with their tax-supported inferior product. To make matters worse, their corn ethanol mandates, subsidies and protection have caused the cost to rise as corn is used to run cars instead of food. The one reason our duly elected representatives force this great inefficiency and expense on the people is to gain contributions and votes from their farmers and others like Archer-Daniels-Midland who reap huge profits from this boondoggle. [Boondoggle: a wasteful or impractical project or activity often involving graft.] Did I mention the 45 cents per gallon tax credit? Big bucks for beneficiaries and politicians; high taxes and debt for current and future taxpayers.

Close friends with VP Joe Biden and friendly with President Obama, Lugar was named an honorary co-chairman of their inauguration. President Obama calls him his favorite Republican. Photos of Lugar even appeared in campaign ads that helped Obama carry Indiana. Just some of the reasons he is regarded so highly by the Obama administration:
• Lugar declined to sign a brief supporting state lawsuits against President ObamaCare;
• Voted in favor of the Matthew Shepard Act, which expanded the federal hate crime statutes to include sexual orientation and gender identity;
• The first Republican senator to support for President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor and also voted in favor of his second Supreme Court nominee Solicitor General Elena Kagan. (Two more liberal judges could not be found –they both follow Obama’s view of the Constitution that it is flawed. Look for more emanations from penumbras from them over time.);
• Supported ratification of the START Treaty (Obama called Lugar to thank him for his help on it);
• Voted for the Dream Act, which was defeated but would have allowed the children of illegal immigrants to gain citizenship if they attend college or join the military.

Yet, he has a mostly pro-life record and recently voted against the “Employee Free Choice Act of 2007” (a/k/a Card Check) to eliminate the secret ballot for union members. Plus he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, limiting the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. In October 2010, he voted against repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy—which prevents homosexuals from serving openly in the armed forces. Just weeks later, Sen. Joe Lieberman announced that Lugar promised to vote to repeal the policy the next time it comes up for a vote. But then in December, Lugar voted against DADT again. Career pols have to be flexible. This vote came as a surprise to some, including Sen. Lieberman, but not to Indiana conservatives who are actively recruiting a primary challenger for 2012. It is called “pivoting” in the political trade.

When Lugar voted against an earmark ban that was championed by conservatives and tea party activists and even supported by Indiana's other senator, Democrat Evan Bayh, he lost any remaining support he had from that quarter.

These posters are limited by space-- there is a lot more that can be written both from the right and left view of this politician and not all of our examples are given as reasons for term limits. But, it cannot be denied that long-tenured professional politicians are largely responsible for the overgrown federal government and the huge debt we now carry and are putting on the shoulders of future generations. Lugar voted for many of the entitlements that now strangle the economy and, not incidentally, have no authority in the US Constitution. Limiting terms of congress is one reform that will prevent the corruption that invariably follows unlimited tenure. Help Sen. Jim DeMint by going to www.termlimits.org and sign on to support his proposed term limit amendment. Please comment on this article pro or con or to add information. Thanks.