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Thursday, February 04, 2010

 

Kagen vs. Pelosi?

In my previous post, I mentioned Fox Banquets as a classy place for meetings and other events. At the Fox Banquets event I attended this week, I had the privilege of meeting Reid Ribble, a business man who has decided to run for Congress. I'm especially curious about something I heard from Mr. Ribble - maybe some of you can check this for me. He said the voting record of Rep. Steve Kagen is (nearly? virtually? exactly?) the same as California's Nancy Pelosi, which would be shocking if true since Kagen campaigns here as if he's something of a conservative. I think Ribble even said "100%" - but I'm not sure if that applies to all votes and issues. If Kagen's voting record is the same as Pelosi's, I want to know why! I know, I need to do my own homework on this, but I've been a bit distant from politics recently. Maybe that needs to change, given the importance of the issues we are facing today. If we do have a stealth Pelosi clone, someone who follows her lead 100% of the time, well, I'll be ticked.

If you know of an easy way to quickly compare the voting record of two people in the House of Representatives over a specified period of time, let me know. Seems like that should be easy, but I've been too far from politics to know the right resources to go to, and I'm feeling lazy today (meaning it's time to get back to my day and night job!).
Comments:
Start here: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/

From what I recall seeing a while back, he's at about a 98% concurrence level w/ Dem leadership and the White House.

Kevin Binversie - Lakeshore Laments
 
In case you haven't noticed, every politician campaigns as though they will be a voice of the people, but then feel compelled to join party ranks on everything once in Washington. I know of very few exceptions. It is a shame.

You cite several times that Kagen votes the same as Pelosi, without indicating which horrible evils this equates to. Did Pelosi vote to feed cute puppies to hungry illegal aliens or something? What were these horrible votes she made, that we should now shame Kagen for voting the same? Passing health care reform? Oh, how horrible. Why oh why would a doctor vote to provide better health coverage to the Americans he represents. The horror.

As far as voting on party lines, there shouldn't be anybody left now that hasn't seen what The Party of No is capable of. The stimulus package passed with ALL 188 Republicans voting NO. Not a single one, of 188 voted for it. Almost as though they would have preferred to kick a broken America off a cliff, just to prove a point.
 
From Open Congress.org using their head to head comparison tool

Steve Kagen and Nancy Pelosi have voted together 215 times on roll call votes since January, 2007 in votes where neither abstained, representing a voting similarity of 96%.
 
When I mentioned that I didn't want Nancy Pelosi representing me, it was partly because Ii expect Wisconsin's needs and expectations of its citizens to vary from California's on some issues, and partly because Pelosi is known to be a big spender at a time when financial restraint is needed if we are to avoid national bankruptcy and a Zimbabwe-like collapse of the economy.

Jason, step back and look at how well the stimulus has worked. It hasn't helped a bit. They told us it would keep unemployment below 8%, after which it soared to 10%. Government doesn't create wealth, but takes it from some and gives it to others - the politically favored and well-connected. They took nearly a trillion dollars out of the economy, from productive sectors and from people who could have used that to create wealth and real jobs, and transferred it to friends and well-connected failures that were "too big too fail". This is like taking a quart of blood from your artery and then transferring it back to a favored toe, losing a lot in the process.

The failure of the stimulus has been so bad that they are going to, well, try it again. District 8 citizens overwhelmingly don't want reckless spending of that kind and don't want the bureaucrats in Washington taking over businesses in massive areas of the economy. That's a reality. The way our elected representatives vote ought to reflect some aspect of what the citizens want. I think the voting record of Kagen needs to be scrutinized. If it's 96-98% Pelosi, well, he'll have some explaining to do after sounding so independent and conservative back home.
 
Far more than spin is involved here.

When Kagen campaigned against John Gard, he said that he was "too conservative to be a Republican." He said Republicans were spending too much, and he wanted fiscal responsibility. He said we needed to secure the borders and have tax cuts. This would suggest that he might indeed be more conservative than the Republican party has been, except his voting has been as a far lefty, not a conservative. He has supported virtually every big spending opportunity that has come his way and voted contrary to his promises. He's not a maverick standing against parties, but fully owned by Pelosi and her Party.

Comparing his voting record to his campaign calls for one conclusion: he lied. We were fooled two years ago. Not in 2010. Pink slip for Kagen!
 
Here's the YouTube link for Kagen's crazy ad in which he told conservative voters in his district that he was more conservative than the Republicans. Will you remember his voting record when he tries this kind of deceit again?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fqjnxQekHI.
 
When people and businesses are not spending that means the governemnt needs to spend to keep the economy going.

What most of you fail to realize is that The Party of No understands that but are just running against everything the Dems want just for the sake of getting elected, not because their policies will do anything better for this country. Which they won't, since they are the reason we are in this mess to begin with. Read up a little before throwing out baseless accusations. Reminds me of Palin.
 
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