Turn Tahoe Blue: So Many Resons To Vote Against Ensign

Monday, October 30, 2006

So Many Resons To Vote Against Ensign

Here's just one. The latest "Outrageous Ensign Vote of the Day" from the Carter Blog:

What issues do you think a Nevada Senator would be especially likely to care about? Agriculture? Sure. Rural Development? Of course. Child Nutrition programs? All Senators would care about those. Now imagine that you had the chance to vote on all of those issues at the same time, in the same bill. And imagine that everyone else in the Senate voted for the bill. Is there any doubt as to how you’ll vote?

Yes there is, if you’re John Ensign. You’ll make the Outrageous Vote of the Day.

On November 6, 2003, the Senate passed H.R. 2673, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2004 by a vote of 93-1. This bill contained the year’s appropriations for: Includes appropriations for (1) Agricultural programs: Hazardous Materials Management, Agricultural research, Ag Economics, Native American Institutions Endowment, Extension activities, Outreach for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers, Animal and Plant Health Inspections, Agricultural Insurance; (2) Conservation programs: Soil and Watershed Conservation, Flood Prevention, Resource Conservation; (3) Rural Development programs: Rural Housing Insurance Fund, Rental Assistance, Mutual and Self-Help Housing Grants, Rural Housing Assistance Grants, Farm Labor Program Account, Rural Development Loan Fund, Rural Economic Development Loans, Rural Cooperative Development Grants, Rural Empowerment Zones, Renewable Energy Program, Rural Electrification and Telecommunication Loans, Rural Telephone Bank, Distance Learning, Telemedicine & Broadband Program; (4) Domestic Food and Nutrition programs: Child Nutrition Programs, Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants & Children, Food Stamps, Disaster Assistance; (5) Foreign Assistance: Foreign Agricultural Service, International Food for Education and Child Assistance Grants, (6) FDA & Related Agencies: Food and Drug Administration, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Farm Credit Administration.

That looks like a pretty good set of programs for a state like Nevada. So who was that one Senator voting against it?

Do you really have to ask? The Lone Ranger was John Ensign, of course. He voted against this bill just like he voted against the Fiscal Year 2006 bill (there the vote was 97-2) and other years as well, never with more than a handful of fellow negative votes.

Ensign, of course, was making a point about the deficit. He’s dressing up as a deficit hawk for Halloween this year. But it’s just a costume. A real deficit hawk would increase revenues by rolling back the enormous tax breaks for the rich under the Bush Administration – originally justified by the Clinton surplus that they then squandered – and would not give the President a blank check to spend as much as he wanted in Iraq. But Senator Ensign just wants to play at being a deficit hawk. That’s why he targets programs like Rural Housing Assistance Grants and Child Nutrition Project. Voting against them is an easy way to make a cheap point. It’s playing at politics.

We’re lucky people in the Senate didn’t listen to him. They’ll listen to Jack Carter.