PART 3 of 4
By
Kelleigh Nelson
February 12, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
Rick Santorum
"I believe there are more instances of abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations ..." -James Madison
Many of you who read my articles and write me wonderful letters and even take the time to send me gifts have actually become wonderful cyber friends. Because so many of you have requested these articles on the GOP candidates, I've had to dredge through their backgrounds and their voting records for documentation. It has not been an easy task, and I'm always relieved when I'm finished with writing about another one of these traitorous leaders. In the previous article on Santorum, the research was on his somewhat hypocritical pro-life stance. In this article we'll be looking at his voting record and fiscal policies. The articles on Rick Santorum will be three parts.
Rick Santorum has the dubious distinction of being one of the most corrupt politicians in America, and one of the most corrupt senators in his brief so-called ‘representation’ of Pennsylvania–when he didn’t even live there. His rhetoric may be that of a conservative, but research shows he's closer to the communist Santorum clan in Italy than they or we know. Perhaps the acorn hasn't fallen far from the tree.
No Child Left Behind
January, 2012 marks the 10-year anniversary of the day Bush signed NCLB into law in Hamilton, Ohio. By his side were the leaders of the education committees in Congress, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, the bipartisanship duo that made this horrible Act possible. Rick Santorum voted for and strongly supported legislation that doubled the size of the Department of Education and he was a big supporter of NCLB who joined with Kennedy to push passage of this Act.
This legislation, which passed 381-41 in the House and 87-10 in the Senate in January 2002, is accompanied by the largest dollar increase ever in federal education aid. Education Week, 1/9/02, describes the No Child Left Behind Act as follows: "The mega-measure is accompanied by the largest dollar increase ever in federal education aid. The Department of Education's overall budget will rise by $6.7 billion in fiscal 2002, to nearly $49 billion." The legislation, although pretending to terminate the highly controversial Goals 2000 and the School-To-Work (STW) legislation passed in the nineties under President Clinton and initiated in the eighties under Presidents Reagan and Bush, Sr., actually continues the totalitarian agenda because all states have implemented the requirements of Goals 2000 and STW.
On her website Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt , the brilliant education researcher and former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, has a wonderful article exposing the truth about this horrid legislation. A quote from it states:
Although Pres. Bush, according to a Washington Times article by Bill Sammon, 1/9/02, said in regard to the education bill he signed that "Parents will have more information about the schools and more say in how their children are educated . . . from this day forward, all students will have a better chance to learn, to excel and to live out their dreams." Pardon me, but this is a plain lie, and a lie embraced by Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy and others (like Rick Santorum John Boehner) supporting this legislation as well. How can parents have a say in how their children are educated when the federal government is mandating testing of children's attitudes and values? (Sixty percent of the test items on National Assessment of Educational Progress - NAEP are attitudinal.) Bush's mandate for testing will of course call for a mandated federal curriculum since one can't test what one hasn't taught. What tiny bit of local control remained prior to this legislation will be swept away. School superintendents and good teachers are already complaining about having lost control. Even the New York Times has problems with Leave No Child Behind. It bragged that the more than 1000-page giant education bill will "dramatically extend the federal role in public education" and, indeed, is "a breathtaking intrusion of the federal government on states' control of education."
Rick didn't stop there, he voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing, and to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.
Second Amendment
Senator Santorum has a mixed record on the second amendment. He claims he's staunchly pro-second amendment. However, in the 90s, he voted to support the Lautenberg Gun Ban, which stripped for life, law-abiding gun owners of their Second Amendment rights, simply because they spanked their children or did nothing more than grab a spouses wrist.
He voted for a bill in 1999 disguised as an attempt to increase penalties on drug traffickers with guns… but it also included a provision to require federal background checks at gun shows. And then he voted with gun-controlling Democrats Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Frank Lautenberg to mandate locks on handguns in 2005. (S Amdt 3230 Gun Lock Requirement Amendment)
Worst of all, Rick Santorum has a storied history of bailing out anti-gun Republicans facing reelection. Santorum came to anti-gun Arlen Specter’s defense in 2004 when he was down in the polls against pro-gun Republican Pat Toomey. Specter won and continued to push for gun control during his years in the Senate.
Santorum also flip-flopped here by voting FOR Title: Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill and then he voted against S1805 – Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill. In 2004, Senator Santorum voted for legislation to require child locks on all weapons. That same legislation contained the Gun Free School Zone Act. That legislation made it illegal to be in possession of a firearm on school grounds.
Senator Santorum has repeatedly supported Project Exile. Project Exile was a federal program started in Richmond, Virginia in 1997. The project was designed to shift the prosecution of illegal technical gun possession offenses from state courts to federal court, where they carried a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison under the federal Gun Control Act of 1968.
Santorum Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun. Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device. Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons” by those under 18. Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools. Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill. Sounds to me like Rick Santorum made a lot of unconstitutional deals.
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Fiscal Responsibility
Rick Santorum voted five times to raise the debt ceiling adding trillions to the debt and stated, "I am no longer a deficit hawk, I had to spend the surpluses." (The Hill, 2/5/03). While in office, Santorum voted to spend taxpayer money to fight AIDS globally, to help underprivileged children in third world countries, to pay off debts owed to the US by other nations and to combat political instability in Sudan. Where is any of this allowed in our constitution?
On Welfare alone he voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two year. Santorum voted against both food stamp and Medicaid Reform, and voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.
He voted to increase welfare programs such as Healthy Start. Such social-welfare spending projects are not typically associated with the concept of Republican conservatism, or at least they didn't used to be. He also strongly supported the largest hike in welfare entitlement spending in history (prior to Obamacare) – Medicaid Part D and Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs. This was the largest expansion of entitlement spending since President Lyndon B. Johnson, creating $16 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities. This was George W. Bush’s free prescription medicine program, virtually socializing the pharmaceutical industry which is now being funded by ever increasing prescription drug prices to consumers. Santorum was quite happy to vote to enrich the industry from which he had received so many campaign contributions. In fact, Santorum was such a favorite of GlaxoSmithKline that, following the loss of his senate seat, executives wrote, “The defeat of [Santorum] creates a big hole we need to fill.” The leaked memo is evidence that unprincipled politicians, like Santorum, can still be bought and sold in the USA.
Santorum
cosponsored the Workplace
Religious Freedom Act with John Kerry. Other backers included Hillary
Clinton and Ted Kennedy. This Act would have forced all business owners
to accommodate the religious practices of all their employees. Rick believes
if companies don't cater to the different faiths of their employees, then
they should be compelled by law to do so.
From Wikipedia, "This legislation has garnered the diverse support
of various religious groups including, the Union
of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the Southern
Baptist Convention, the National
Council of Churches, the North
American Council for Muslim Women, the Sikh
American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Seventh-day
Adventist Church, the Council
on American Islamic Relations, B'nai
B'rith International, the American
Jewish Committee, Agudath
Israel of America, the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops and other groups." Can you imagine
the cost to small businesses? No true fiscal conservative would sanction
this type of law with the variety of so-called religions today.
His Tax Increases alone would disqualify him as a fiscal conservative, but truly across the board he is a big government spender. He voted to increase tobacco taxes (a sin tax) four times. He voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for this same amount in an increase to student loans. He voted twice for internet taxes. Santorum voted against the repealing of the Clinton 4.3 cent gasoline tax increase.
The Senator voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies a new entitlement. He voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt, and then he voted for giving $18 billion to the IMF! Of course paying off the debt (at $5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years didn't appeal to him either. He actually voted to raise the debt ceiling five times!
On Immigration, the Senator voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border patrol agents, paid for by reductions in some state grants. Subsequently, the border patrol was cut even further and when I wrote to my Senators, Lamar Alexander wrote back to me that he would send my letter to Homeland Security and they would answer me. (Was that a threat Senator?) I have yet to hear a word and I comment about it in every letter I write to Alexander, but back to Senator Santorum. He voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators and voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the "earned income" tax credit before becoming citizens! Excuse me, but this is blatant redistribution of wealth and to illegal aliens who have not contributed to society.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) benefited from Santorum's vote for taxpayer funding of same. He also made sure he voted against a 10% cut in the budget for the NEA. Why would Santorum, as a Catholic, vote for funding the NEA when they feel a crucifix in a jar of urine is art? This is a social conservative?
On Free Trade, Rick made the right choice and voted against NAFTA in 1993, but in subsequent votes he voted yes for the Oman, Morocco, Singapore, Chile, and Australia FTA as well as CAFTA. He voted yes to the Trade Authority as well as to normal trade relations with China.
HOW SANTORUM VIEWS GOVERNMENT
Rick Santorum made this statement, "One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a Libertarianish right. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in the cultural issues. That is not how traditional conservatives view the world. There is no such society that I'm aware of where we've had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture." [Link] [Link]
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Well now excuse me Rick, but isn't that what America was founded on, INDIVIDUALISM? Are you saying you prefer Obama's form of collectivism and communitarianism? Sure does sound like it since you and Hillary Clinton are the only two people who are directly attacking the "pursuit of happiness." You are no constitutionalist, fiscal conservative or small government politician...you are exactly the opposite.
In the final article on Rick Santorum, we'll look at his Defense and Foreign Policy record as well as his connection with pedophile Jerry Sandusky, how he's treated veterans, the "K Street Project," and the ways politicians like Santorum become quite wealthy. For part four click below.
© 2012 Kelleigh Nelson - All Rights Reserved
Click here for part -----> 1, 2, 3, 4,
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Kelleigh Nelson has been researching the Christian right and their connections to the left, the new age, and cults since 1975. Formerly an executive producer for three different national radio talk show hosts, she was adept at finding and scheduling a variety of wonderful guests for her radio hosts. She and her husband live in Knoxville, TN, and she has owned her own wholesale commercial bakery since 1990. Prior to moving to Tennessee, Kelleigh was marketing communications and advertising manager for a fortune 100 company in Ohio. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she was a Goldwater girl with high school classmate, Hillary Rodham, in Park Ridge, Illinois. Kelleigh is well acquainted with Chicago politics and was working in downtown Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention riots. Kelleigh is presently the secretary for Rocky Top Freedom Campaign, a strong freedom advocate group.
Website: www.rockytopfreedom.com
E-Mail: proverbs133@bellsouth.net
