This week’s taxpayer rip-off is brought to you compliments of Senator Lincoln Chafee, and it’s a double whammy.
Not only did Rhode Island’s Junior Senator vote in favor of the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, sending Hawaii millions of dollars in pork funds (Senate Vote Call #215), just last Thursday he also voted against extending $70 billion dollars worth of tax cuts (HR 4297) (Senate Roll Call Vote #10), essentially voting to raise taxes across the board.
Fortunately for hardworking Americans everywhere, the tax cuts for low- and middle-income families passed without Senator Chafee by a bipartisan margin of 66-31, including 18 Democrats.
I wish I could say I’m surprised, but Senator Chafee has a long and infamous track record of raising taxes and voting in favor of wasteful spending. He voted against tax cuts in 2001 (HR 1836), in 2003 (HR 2), and again in 2004 (HR 1308).
But that’s not even the worst of it. The Senator also voted in favor of pork-heavy bills including the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which doled out $355,000 for the independently wealthy flower industry in Hawaii.
While the large federal deficit is certainly in need of being tamed, the way to do that is by cutting special interest and pork barrel spending, not by raising taxes on ordinary, hardworking Americans.
Senator Chafee likes to call himself a Republican, but then he is a tax and spend Republican. Where I come from, we have another word for that. It’s called a Democrat.
