As Shakespeare said, “What’s past is prologue.” So, we should be able to make some reasonable assumptions about what Scott Brown would do if given free rein for a full six-year Senate term. Let’s push aside all the silliness we have to endure during a year-long campaign and consider the real consequences of your voting for Tea Party Republican Scott Brown in November.
FIRST UP. Should he win this fall, Scott Brown’s first vote in January 2013 would be his most important: To elect the Tea Party Republican leader of the Senate. Without doubt Scott Brown would vote to reinstate Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, who would continue to thwart a re-elected President Obama while pushing the radical Tea Party Republican agenda, which includes:
KILLING THE FUTURE: When Democrat Bill Clinton left office in 2000, the country was at peace and we had a budget surplus. George Bush reversed course, pushing the country into two unfunded wars and massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Then, we had the 2008 financial collapse on his watch. Tea Party Republicans like Scott Brown think we can downsize our way to prosperity, but it’s never happened. Look across the Atlantic. Europe is proving austerity doesn’t work. To grow the economy, we need to invest in ourselves and in the country. But Scott Brown is having none of that. In fact he’s repeatedly voted against job creation, middle-class tax cuts, extending unemployment benefits, and raising taxes on those who make more than $1 million dollars a year. He’s even against curtailing tax breaks for Big Oil, hedge fund managers, and corporations shipping jobs out of the United States. A vote for Scott Brown is a vote to make America’s shrinking middle-class disappear entirely.
KILLING SOCIAL SECURITY: Republicans have been fighting this wildly popular program since FDR passed it in 1935. Indeed, George Bush started his second term with an all-out effort to “privatize” social security. Can you imagine where seniors would be today if Bush had succeeded? Still, stalwart Tea Partiers have a plan for an abrupt phase-out of Social Security. You want to kill Social Security? Vote for Scott Brown.
KILLING MEDICARE: This is another Tea Party Republican dream. Kill Medicare by privatizing it. As if the private sector gives a hoot about your grandmother. You want to kill Medicare, vote for Scott Brown. He’ll help to make it happen.
KILLING PUBLIC EDUCATION: Tea Party Republicans hate all things government, and for whatever reason they really hate public school teachers. At a time when we should be investing in our future by spending more on public education, they want to kill it. For the billionaires masterminding the Tea Party gutting public education is another way to marginalize unions, further shrink government at all levels, and strengthen their stranglehold over all of us. Public schools are starving. If you want to kill them off, vote for Scott Brown. He’s already voted to filibuster a key component of the American Jobs Act that supported up to 6,300 education and first responder jobs here in Mass. And just recently, Scott Brown voted with the Tea Party Republicans to let interest rates double for federally subsidized student loans.
FRIENDING OIL & GAS: Scott Brown accepted $198,000 from Big Oil and Gas while voting three times to protect tax breaks for that industry – the most profitable on the planet – and against renewable energy tax credits. He also sided with dirty energy companies and voted against EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions. Voting for Scott Brown is a vote for Big Oil and against the environment.
WALL STREET’S BEST FRIEND: Even after the worst financial disaster since the 1930s, Tea Party Republicans like Scott Brown continue to fight real regulation of casino banking. JPMorgan may have lost $3 billion recently, but the $54,155 they sent to Scott Brown indicates who’s got their back. Or could it be Wall St. embraces Scott Brown simply because they’re scared of who’s running against him?
Either way, as Shakespeare also said, “The truth will out,” and when you look beyond his slick ads, it’s clear Scott Brown is not independent and certainly is not “for us.” He definitely should not get your vote for a second term.
By Lee Harrison, Chairman, Berkshire Brigades, Berkshire County’s Democratic organization
What else can Massachusetts voters expect beginning in January 2013, if Republican Scott Brown is re-elected? From the ProgressMass analysis of Brown’s voting record:
Who voted to deny unemployed citizens of Massachusetts their unemployment insurance benefits?
Who voted to double the interest rate on your childrens’ student loans?
Who voted to give $24 billion in taxpayer money to the the most profitable industry on the planet, the oil industry, while claiming we need to reduce the waste in Washington?
Who voted to allow your employer to decide what medical care your insurance will pay for?
Who voted to deny women access to affordable contraceptive care?
Who threatened to defeat the PPACA if elected and if re-elected will vote to repeal it?
Who voted for Dodd-Frank after gutting the Volcker rule and gutting the funding to enforce regulations?
Who has taken $3 million in contributions from Wall Street for his trouble?
Who voted with the people of Massachusetts only after passage of ending DADT was inevitable?
Who continues to refuse to meet with his constituents in an open “Town Hall” forum?
Who owns 5 (or 6) properties, a race horse and has a $1 million book deal but calls his opponent an elitist?
Who made $842,000 during his first year in the “people’s seat?”
Who pals around with smear merchants like Fehrnstrom and Carr?
Who waged a vicious campaign of personal attacks against Cheryl Jacques?
Who writes off their beauty aids on their income taxes?
Scott Brown, that’s who.