Incoming Senate More Conservative

American Conservative Union Foundation ^ | 9 Nov 04 | John Berthoud

[Ed Current]

The 2004 election brought significant turnover in the United States Senate. What will the Senate election mean for taxpayers? Because most of the incoming Senators have previous service in the House of Representatives, a comparison can be made of the fiscal records of the outgoing Senators and most of the new Senators.

To undertake the analysis, this Issue Brief utilizes the most recent National Taxpayers Union (NTU) Rates Congress grades for outgoing and incoming Senators. Of course, 2003 grades were available for all nine outgoing Senators. Grades were available for six of the nine incoming Senators (Senator-elect Obama (IL), Senator-elect Salazar (CO), and Senator-elect Martinez (FL) did not have previous service in the United States House of Representatives).[1]

The NTU Rates Congress data presents a comprehensive picture of the fiscal records of these Senators and Senators-elect. Unlike those of other organizations, NTU's annual Rating does not simplistically focus on only a handful of equally-weighted "key votes." For this reason, it has received praise from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. NTU's Rating is based on every roll call vote affecting fiscal policy (in 2003, NTU included 287 House and 269 Senate votes), and assigns a "Taxpayer Score" to each Member of Congress that indicates his or her commitment to reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation.

Table 1 provides an overview of all nine states with new Senators. Among the highlights of the data:

• The latest NTU Rates Congress grade of four of the nine outgoing Senators (44 percent) was "F."

• The lowest grade earned by any of the six incoming Senators with previous House service was "B-." Only three of the nine outgoing Senators (33 percent) achieved a "B-" or better in the 2003 NTU Rates Congress.

• In five of the six cases where both outgoing and incoming Senators had grades in NTU Rates Congress, the incoming Senator has a better mark. In the sixth instance (Oklahoma), both the outgoing and incoming Senator received an "A" in their most recent NTU ranking. In other words, in no instance does a new Senator have a lower grade than the outgoing Senator.

Table 1. The Latest NTU Grades of Outgoing & Incoming Senators
State	Outgoing Senator	Latest NTU Rates Congress Grade	(Year)	Incoming Senator	Latest NTU Rates Congress Grade	(Year)
Oklahoma	Nickles	A	2003	Coburn	A	2000
South Carolina	Hollings	F	2003	DeMint	A	2003
Georgia	Miller	C+	2003	Isakson	B	2003
Louisiana	Breaux	D	2003	Vitter	B-	2003
North Carolina	Edwards	F	2003	Burr	B-	2003
South Dakota	Daschle	F	2003	Thune	B-	2002
Colorado	Campbell	B-	2003	Salazar	N.A.
Florida	Graham	F	2003	Martinez	N.A.
Illinois	Fitzgerald	B	2003	Obama	N.A.

The bottom line is that supporters of limited government and lower taxes got very good news in the 2004 Senate elections. Come January 2005, taxpayers will have new allies in the Senate on critical votes on appropriations bills, budget process reform, pending energy and transportation bills bloated with pork, Social Security reform, and tax relief.

John Berthoud is President of the National Taxpayers Union

Notes

[1] As of the writing of this Issue Brief, Senator Lisa Murkowski was leading her race in Alaska, but results had not been finalized.

[Mount Athos]

salazar is a real wild card isn't he? We know obama is going to be like ted kennedy or something

[DollyCali]

whoa... golly, is that a giffy ping or what??? awesome

[MHGinTN]

Great post, Ed! I do hope and pray that Coburn is placed on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Arlen is totally removed from the committee. But it is not as likely that Coburn will be put on the Judiciary as it is that Specter will be kept from the seat of the Committee.

I do so look forward to having Doctor Coburn speaking on the Senate floor for the next six years ... refreshing breeze after Kennedy, Harkin, Boxer, and clinton. The next four years will be crucial to the culture of life, to resist exploitation of embryos for their body parts, to ban human cloning for body parts, and to reduce dramatically the abortion on demand stranglehold on America.

Imagine what it means to be a nation that defend and condones the serial killing (institutionalized no less!) of alive unborn children for reasons of convenience! I liken it to the schizophrenic nation of the mid 1800's and the irrational defense of black human beings counted as only 3/5 human! It is astonishing to see supposedly humane people defending the partial birth serial killing of alive, struggling children on the grounds that the fifteen thousand or so children heinously slaughtered each year that way must continue in order that the abortion on demand holocaust be kept legal!

[Smartass]

I WONDER IF SPECTER COULD LOOK INTO THE EYES OF
45 MILLION ABORTED CHILDREN...WITH A STRAIGHT FACE

[peyton randolph]

When 40% of all black pregnancies end in abortion, one has to wonder about the underlying motives of abortion advocates.

[MHGinTN]

One need not speculate why Sanger advocated abortion ... she was all for reducing the black population. But to ascribe that to today's 'lie'brals is to miss two important points:

1) since black voters spend 90 to 95% of their votes for democrats, abortion has shorted the democrats by a few million votes since 1973 (31 years, voting age being 18, 15 years of voters that could have voted for democrats;
2) keeping the serial killing legal is an empowerment scheme for liberals and they don't give a damn whether the 'things' being slaughtered are alive children or not, nor to what race they belong, because it is the continued slaughter that empowers the liberal leftists, so they aren't focused on one race or another, just the serial killing as empowerment.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Remember_Salamis]

OntheIssues.org has Salazar pegged as a moderate populist:

[hocndoc]

Happy birthday, and a happy Thanksgiving for our nation, indeed.

[hocndoc]

Thank you for the ping.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[visualops]

Happy Birthday!


When I look at the comparisons, I just gotta laugh at the Dems. Yep, we're just a bunch of stoopid redneck losers who only voted for conservatives because we're afraid of queers. Who was the Dem talking head who in fact said red-staters voted against their fiscal best interest because of "moral values".

You know what the good thing about self-sufficiency is?
After you bake your cake, you can eat it. And the Dems: empty plate.

[TOUGH STOUGH]

Breach of Trust sounds like an excellent book. I will be looking for it in the bookstores.

[SuziQ]

One need not speculate why Sanger advocated abortion ... she was all for reducing the black population.

It wasn't just blacks, she wanted to reduce the numbers of immigrant poor people being born, including Italians, Irish, Poles, you name it. She was very Nazi in her outlook, something that's NEVER brought up when the pro-abortion people speak so glowing of "The Father of Modern Eugenics", Margaret Sanger.

[lainde]

bttt

[Mr. Silverback]

ProLife Ping!

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