Posted on 03/09/2007 6:44:43 PM PST by LdSentinal
Periodically, I get e-mails from supporters of the presidential candidacy of Alpine Rep. Duncan Hunter who express disbelief, befuddlement or fury, or a mix of all three, at my flat contention that he is a populist demagogue and anything but a principled conservative. These folks cannot fathom any talk that he's not free-trade, small-government Ronald Reagan reincarnated.
Here's a typical example of Hunterista reaction to my comment that he's been against trade deals that have been important boons to our economy:
You're supposed to be a columnist, an informed person. This is not an informed statement.
OK. If you don't believe me about Duncan Hunter's RRRINOitis, here's what the influential, admired-and-respected-in-conservative-circles Club for Growth has to say about him:
Like most Republicans, he's strong on tax cuts, but he's been part of the big government spending spree of the last 6 years. He also has a protectionist streak in him. Here are some of the more troubling votes:
NO on NAFTA YES on No Child Left Behind YES on Sarbanes-Oxley YES on the 2003 Medicare Drug Benefit NO on CAFTA YES on 2005 Highway Bill YES on the 527 bill (like most Republicans, he flip-flopped, having first voted NO on McCain-Feingold) Hunter also went 0 for 19 on the Flake anti-pork amendments.
Despite being a member of the Republican Study Committee, Hunter frequently votes NO on their fiscally conservative annual budgets (2006, 2005, 2003...)
We gave him a 49% on the 2005 Club for Growth scorecard. That places him 187th within the House GOP conference, out of roughly 230 members.
National Taxpayers Union shows a more telling trend. He was strong in the early 1990s, getting "B's" and one "A", but as time went by, like most politicians, his score dropped. For the past few years, he's been getting "C's".
Those Cs are incredibly generous. As CATO noted last year, with Duncan Hunter cheering him on ...
... President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years. His 2006 budget doesn't cut enough spending to change his place in history, either.
Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush's first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton's last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush's first term.
The Republican Congress has enthusiastically assisted the budget bloat. Inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent.
The GOP was once effective at controlling nondefense spending. The final nondefense budgets under Clinton were a combined $57 billion smaller than what he proposed from 1996 to 2001. Under Bush, Congress passed budgets that spent a total of $91 billion more than the president requested for domestic programs.
And as bad as things are on the budget front, they're about to get a whole lot worse because of a pending nightmare that Duncan Hunter -- supposed tough guy, supposed truth-teller, supposed fiscal conservative -- has chosen to ignore. To borrow from what I wrote last year ...
... the single worst problem facing this country in coming years, with the possible exception of nuclear terrorism, is dealing with the massive fiscal impact of baby boomers retiring. As we slowly transition from a nation where there are 4 working adults for every adult getting Social Security and Medicare to a nation where that ratio is 2 to 1, we will face an incredible fiscal squeeze.
As a veteran member of Congress, Duncan Hunter knows this. He's heard the warnings, seen the bipartisan studies. So what did this self-declared fiscal conservative do in 2003? He voted to make the problem much, much, much worse by extending prescription drug benefits to seniors, three-quarters of whom already have coverage. The money that was saved by all the triumphant stands he claims to have taken is infinitesimal compared to the staggering long-term national debt he helped add with this one vote, which was tantamount to civic arson.
Yeah, right, our Duncan's a fiscal conservative. ... He loves spending your grandkids' money, and by the truckload.
Duncan Hunter is no Ronald Reagan. To those who say Ronald Reagan really wasn't Ronald Reagan -- that government didn't get smaller when he was president -- well, he tried harder than any president in modern times to get Congress to control spending and wipe out whole government agencies. By contrast, Hunter and the GOP Congress of 2001-2006 kept the national credit cards hanging on a string around their necks for easy and constant use.
I imagine a whole lot of Congressmen would become strong on defense to the tune of $191,473. A small price for the contractors to pay for big contracts.
One word for you, mate:
"Youarefullofcrap"
Respectfully, /s/ An Independent who would walk on hot coals for Duncan Hunter
You have been posting this same crap for weeks. Get some new lies.
heeeeeeeey LJ!
Nice to see you here my friend! Nice to see you on this thread as well! And I quite agree.
Forgot to ping you on #157. That's one funny response you got there. :-)
LBT
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But your insinuations that Duncan Hunter is bought and paid for by the Defense Industry is really a cheap shot.
All my relatives in the military are voting for Hunter. those type of pics don't sway them
Thanks, I'll check that out.
LBT
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And who are you a shill for, dear?
Thank you for posting this.
The 'flip side' is what we need in order to learn and make informed choices.
That YES on Sarbanes-Oxley is a killer. That is one of the all time WORST bills ever passed!
Mitt? MITT? He's the most dynamic of all of the candidates -- first, second or third tier.
Alright...I'll wait right here for you to link "this same crap" I've been posting for weeks...since is the very first time I've posting about Hunter.
So let me get this straight, a newspaper shows his voting record far from being a "True Conservative" yet some people still call him a "True Conservative"... This is truly bizzare....
Howdy :-)
LBT
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He has always been strong on defense starting with his father being a Marine and duncan being in the Viet nam war and his son 2 tours in Iraq.
His record has always been strong, not bought.
Not like draft dodger Rudy and Mitt and his 5 sons who never served.
I'm sure his long association with his friend Randy Cummingham, the hundreds of thousands of dollars he's accepted from defense industries and his record on military contracts is just a coincidence.
I see it the same way. The absolutists think that Fiscal Conservatism trumps all, but we learned the hard way that libs can paint you into a corner when you say you're for family values but won't vote for things like the Family Leave Act. At the very least, republicans should be putting up better alternatives that have more fiscal soundness, but instead the public hears silence and criticizing rather than an equivocal alternative. Having a healthy economy is very important, and free trade has a much better way of building it, but if the benefits won't happen for 10 or more years out, the electorate will vote you out of office before you can see the benefit. So we need free trade policies that work fast. The "rational middle ground" is fair trade.
This article has been around for a long time.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/705954/posts
Multinational companies aren't interested in helping americans build jobs here, they take advantage of loopholes like H1B visas in order to drive wages down. I see it here pretty often in silicon valley.
Do George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan count as draft dodgers as well?
And did you know John McCain was in the military?
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