Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Halfmanhalfamazing; Kansas58; Lazlo in PA
No, SatinDoll is right. From here:

On spending, Santorum has a mixed record and showed clear signs of varying his votes based on the election calendar. In the 1990s, when he was only a freshman Senator, he was a leading author on the bill that completely overhauled the country’s welfare system. He also voted for the Freedom to Farm Act in 1996 that started the process of ending direct farm subsidies. When Congress decided that it couldn’t live up to that promise, it voted to re-establish the subsidies in 2002 with the Farm Security Act, a bill that Santorum rightly opposed. He also voted for a balanced budget amendment and a line-item veto in 1995.

More recently, when he was out of Congress, Santorum opposed TARP , the stimulus , the auto bailout, and the Fannie-Freddie bailout.

However, there is a troubling part of Santorum’s record on spending, which is found in the years sandwiched between these periods of fiscal restraint. His record is plagued by the big-spending habits that Republicans adopted during the Bush years of 2001-2006. Some of those high profile votes include his support for No Child Left Behind in 2001, which greatly expanded the federal government’s role in education. He supported the massive new Medicare drug entitlement in 2003 that now costs taxpayers over $60 billion a year and has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities. He voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands of wasteful earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, in a separate vote, Santorum had the audacity to vote to continue funding the Bridge to Nowhere rather than send the money to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Indeed, Santorum was a prolific supporter of earmarks, having requested billions of dollars for pork projects in Pennsylvania while he was in Congress. Perhaps recognizing the sign of the times, Santorum finally reversed his position in 2010, saying that he was opposed to them , but one must remain skeptical about his sincerity. As recently as 2009, he said, “I’m not saying necessarily earmarks are bad. I have had a lot of earmarks. In fact, I’m very proud of all the earmarks I’ve put in bills. I’ll defend earmarks.”

And while Santorum voted against the Farm Bill in 2002, he sponsored a bill to extend milk subsidies in 2005, which he claimed he did to “save countless Pennsylvania dairy farmers.”

An examination of his scores in the NTU rating of Congress shows that Santorum compiled a very strong record on taxes and spending in the first four years of each of his two Senate terms, then a sharp swing to below the Senate Republican average in the Congress before his reelection campaign. In the 2003-2004 session of Congress, Santorum sponsored or cosponsored 51 bills to increase spending, and failed to sponsor or co-sponsor even one spending cut proposal. In his last Congress (2005-2006), he had one of the biggest spending agendas of any Republican -- sponsoring more spending increases than Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Lincoln Chafee and Thad Cochran or Democrats Herb Kohl, Evan Bayh and Ron Wyden.

Santorum also supported raising congressional pay at least three times, in 2001, 2002, and 2003.
21 posted on 03/13/2012 9:36:48 PM PDT by Utmost Certainty (Our Enemy, the State | Gingrich 2012)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: Utmost Certainty

in other words he flip flopped on both fiscal and conservative issues.


96 posted on 03/14/2012 12:03:12 PM PDT by katiedidit1 ("This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." the Irish)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson