Monday, July 11, 2011

Maryland - a pro-war state.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/votes/?votenum=532&chamber=H&congress=1121

All of the Maryland Representatives, except for John Sarbanes (MD district 3), voted to pass this bill, authorizing full funding for the Department of Defense, including an increase over last year's budget.

Now, I typically vote Republican, so I'm generally pro-DOD. But America's deficit has been getting out of hand. I recognize the need to make some cuts. We had to cut the shuttle program, and that's a damn shame. We may be cutting the next generation Hubble telescope. Also a damn shame, but in times of budget crisis, I guess some things have to go and NASA had to take some hits.

So why did we increase the DOD's budget? Did we seriously scrap the space shuttle just to make room for more Department of Defense spending? Could we not maybe find a few billion to cut out there? I'd like to see cuts in big spending entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid too, and I was willing to see cuts in DOD spending as well. Everyone's gotta give a little, right?

Apparently not.

If you wanted any proof that the defense industry is out of control with spending, look no further than Donna Edwards: staunch Democrat, supposedly a liberal, yet even she can't resist voting YES to more war machines.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Donna Edwards - seriously, what the heck

This was really just a proof-of-concept site I made and then didn't do anything with. Lately, though, the votes coming out of Maryland have been too baffling to not comment on.

Donna Edwards:

Votes YES to authorizing the fighting in Libya. The overall House rejected the bill, 123 to 295. For those of you playing along at home, Donna Edwards is a Democrat, voted into power in a very liberal area. I seriously doubt anyone voted her in on a pro-war platform.

Votes NO to the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011, which was meant to help pave the road to domestic energy production.

Votes NO to limiting the use of funds for attacking Libya.

Votes YES to raising the debt limit. (Personally, I keep wondering what the point of a "debt limit" is if you keep raising it. It's like the parents who tell their kids, "No more" and after their kid gets whiny, it's "okay, one more, then that's it" and this cycle continues until the kid has exactly what they wanted to begin with. It's only a limit if you actually hold to it.)

Votes NO to Libya troop withdrawal.

Votes NO to prevent tax payer money from funding abortions except in the cases of rape, incest or medical necessity. In other words, Donna Edwards voted to allow taxpayer money to pay for any abortion, for any reason. (I'm pro-choice, but I don't approve of using tax money for this.)

Votes NO to Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act. Well, let's keep making Canadians and South Americans rich as we buy their oil, while blocking American companies from doing the same thing, I guess. Does that make sense in some universe? Donna Edwards doesn't think Americans need jobs in the oil production field.


I dunno, sure seems like Donna Edwards is a little pro-war, pro-debt, pro-spending, anti-energy. To be fair, she's probably just toeing the party line, but the party line hasn't been doing much good for us over the last few years, has it? We can't be pro-spending and anti-business at the same time. This is something most of Maryland's politicians fail to understand (as we watch jobs flood to Virginia).

I bet she's hoping the people of Maryland don't care enough to find out about her pro-war votes on Libya, at any rate.

I bet she's pretty safe on that hope. I'd wager the vast majority of people have no idea what their representatives are voting on.