Nonetheless he VASTLY preferable to his liberal Dem opponent.
Last I checked McConnell is....
pro-life
pro-Second Amendment
pro-traditional marriage
pro-coal
pro-oil
pro-nuclear
pro-drilling
pro-Keystone
pro-business
pro-defense
In addition, he voted against....
1) Obamacare
2) The Porkulus
3) Dodd-Frankenstein
4) Crap and Trade
5) Harry Reid
6) BHO’s SCOTUS appointments.
Is he perfect? Of course not. No one is. Ronald Reagan would be called a RINO by some people around here. There is no satisfying purists. Nothing in life is perfect, least of all politics. We have to work with what we have.
Top 10 Bad Votes by Mitch McConnell
1. McConnell Voted to Let Harry Reid Fund ObamaCare (2013, RCV 206) Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky voted to end debate and allow Senate Democrats to re-insert funding for ObamaCare into the Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government. Although McConnell did vote against the final bill, he and all Republicans knew that voting for cloture to end debate would allow Senator Harry Reid to fund ObamaCare by a party-line vote, and thus a vote for cloture was a de facto vote to fund ObamaCare.
2. McConnell Voted for the Fiscal Cliff Tax Hike (2012, RCV 251) The fiscal cliff was a fake crisis created by Congress and the president. In which President Obama threatened to shut the government down if Republicans refused to massively raise taxes. In response, Senator McConnell personally negotiated with Vice President Biden and produced a New Year’s Day 2013 fiscal cliff deal that raised payroll taxes on 77 percent of U.S. households and contained no real spending cuts.
3. McConnell Voted for the Ineffective “Super Committee” Debt Hike (2011, RCV 123) During the 2011 debt ceiling impasse, McConnell came up with the idea of allowing President Obama to increase the debt limit three times in exchange for allowing Congress a symbolic vote of disapproval each time. McConnell’s idea carried the day and he voted to pass the Budget Control Act, which allowed over $2 trillion in new debt. In return, taxpayers got stuck with the “super-committee”, which failed to come up with any agreement on targeted spending cuts and gave us the across-the-board sequestration cuts instead.
4. McConnell Voted for the Wall Street Bailout (T.A.R.P.) (2008, RCV 213) Senator McConnell voted for the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Taxpayers should never have been forced to pay for the reckless lending practices of the big banks. McConnell took credit for being a major part of negotiating the bailout, and called the passage of T.A.R.P. “the Senate at its finest.”
5. McConnell Voted to Bail Out the Housing Market (2008, RCV 186) Senator McConnell also voted to bail out the government-sponsored mortgage lending companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The risky lending activities of these organizations were a major factor in creating the housing bubble that led to the financial collapse of 2008, yet McConnell and the Senate voted to allow Fannie and Freddie to borrow up to $300 billion of the taxpayers’ money.
6. McConnell Voted to Increase the Federal Minimum Wage (2007, RCV 42) Senator McConnell voted for the Fair Minimum Wage Act that increased the federal minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour in 2007. Raising the minimum wage is a bad idea because it reduces employment especially among low-skilled workers. The cost of raising the minimum wage is passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices for goods and services.
7. McConnell Voted to Give the Government Unprecedented Surveillance Powers (2006, RCV 25) In spite of warnings by 4th Amendment and privacy advocates, Senator McConnell voted to make most of the USA-PATRIOT Act’s provisions permanent in 2006. He also voted for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which granted immunity to U.S. telecommunication companies for giving information about their customers to the government without a warrant (2008, RCV 168). Together, the “Patriot Act” and the FISA Amendments Act authorized unprecedented surveillance powers that have been used by the FISA courts to allow bulk data collection on U.S. citizens without a warrant. Yet McConnell called the Patriot Act “one of the most important and overdue pieces of legislation in a generation”, and declared that perhaps “it did not go far enough”.
8. McConnell Voted against Eliminating the Federal Ethanol Mandate (2005, RCV 138) Senator McConnell voted to table an amendment that would have eliminated the federal mandate that forced ethanol to be blended into the fuel supply. The ethanol mandate is a market-distorting disaster that has increased the cost of gasoline, while environmentalist groups admit that it is actually bad for the environment (not to mention your car).
9. McConnell Voted for Massive New Energy Subsidies and Regulations (2007, RCV 430) Senator McConnell voted for final passage on an omnibus energy bill that created massive new subsidies for green energy development, while also tightening environmental regulations in some areas. The bill massively tightened fuel mileage requirements for passenger vehicles and created a new renewable fuels standard, both of which have increased the cost of both cars and fuel. Also, this is the bill that started the infamous phase-out of incandescent light bulbs.
10. McConnell Voted for Medicare Part D (2003, RCV 457) Senator McConnell voted to pass Medicare Part D, a massive entitlement expansion that conservatives rightly predicted would tremendously expand the deficit and add trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities to the federal rolls.
Ted Cruz is pretty dang close......