The president fulfilled his obligation to Arlen Specter, but now he’s stumping for his primary opponent, Joe Sestak. Via email, here’s part of what Obama had to say about Joe in Philadelphia yesterday:
“This is somebody who’s always working for you; whose door is always open; who’s helped pass 10 pieces of legislation in just three years – the first new federal funding for autism treatment in 12 years; student loan assistance for U.S. troops called to active duty; support for troops who come home with PTSD; more help and more contracts for Pennsylvania’s small businesses. He has been doing the work. In Washington, you know, they make the distinction between show horses and work horses. And Joe is a work horse. He’s been working, not talking.
“And this is somebody who’s been pragmatic. He will work with Democrats, he’ll work with Republicans, he’ll work with Independents. He’s willing to work with anybody who’s interested in actually getting the job done, and that’s the kind of person you want representing you in Washington. That’s who Joe Sestak is. That’s why you need to work for him to make him your next Senator.”
One side effect of all the focus on crazies like Joe Miller, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Carl Paladino, and Dan Maes, is that no one is talking about Pat Toomey’s record. Toomey was the president of the Club for Growth at a time when they were most active in purging moderates from the Republican Party. He has a horrible record on the issues, including a 100% rating by the National Right to Life Committee, a 97% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, and a 13% lifetime rating from the American Civil Liberties Union. He voted to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage and to ban gay adoption in Washington, DC. He earned a 0% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Zero.
Prior to becoming a congressman (1999-2005) he worked on Wall Street trading derivatives and doing currency swaps. Yet, this former head of the Club for Growth has the chutzpah to publish the following at his campaign website:
Undeserving banks have received millions of dollars, while some recipients of the bailouts enjoyed a retreat at a luxury resort. This policy is both unfair and bad economic policy.
Bailouts reward companies that took too many risks and acted irresponsibly simply because they are large and hold sway in Washington. At the same time, the bailouts punish those businesses and individuals who worked hard, acted responsibly, and succeeded. In other words, bailouts encourage failure and discourage success.
Yet, Toomey wants to cut taxes on wealth (dividends, capital gains, the Estate Tax, and the highest marginal tax rate) at the same time that he’s calling for us to erase the deficit. When we lose all that revenue off people’s winnings in the casino on Wall Street and the lottery of life, we’ll have to pick up the difference from taxes on the middle class’s work and reduced benefits and services for our seniors, our veterans, and the poor.
Toomey is a creature of Wall Street with a 100% anti-choice record. He’s truly the worst of both worlds. The only difference between Toomey and the other Republican senate candidates is that he’s just callous, not insane.
If cutting taxes on wealth really was good for economic growth and the middle class, we wouldn’t have had a massive recession at the end of Reagan-Bush’s 12-year term in office. We wouldn’t have been losing more than a half a million jobs a month at the end of Bush the Younger’s presidency. So, if you are a voter from Pennsylvania, don’t fall for Toomey’s smooth act. He is out to screw you harder than you’ve ever been screwed. That’s basically been his job ever since he left Wall Street to represent them in the halls of Congress.
