Democratic Senators Choose Big Oil Over Working Families

It's possible for a Democratic Senator - even one as supposedly not just progressive but actually liberal as Russ Feingold - to vote against a desperately-needed stimulus bill on the grounds of reining in the deficit, even though it's a false choice.

Twelve Democratic Senators did that yesterday in joining every repug to kill a jobs bill that would have been the only thing standing between us and a full-blown Depression. One that would, as a side-effect, sweep repugs back into power this November.

And it's possible for a Democratic Senator to vote against canceling the gigantic subsidies for Big Oil, even as a way of paying down the deficit and cleaning up the Gulf Coast devastated by Big Oil itself, on the false but convenient grounds of job preservation.

But surely no Democratic Senate could, in the very same day, vote against the jobs bill on deficit grounds and also against the deficit-lowering subsidy ban?

We are so naive.

The Senate is neither a representative nor a democratic body-- nor was it ever meant to be. The world is very changed since it was first established and it has long since worn out whatever usefulness it ever had. Now it just gets in the way of change and channels billions of dollars of corporate bribes into a corrupt and corrosive political system. It's time for the U.S. to do what the Parliament Act of 1911 did for the U.K.-- make the Senate a ceremonial body that can't do any more harm to normal American citizens. I suppose step on would be abolishing the filibuster, something KagroX is both working on and was blogging about yesterday. And he blogged about it in terms of just what I intend to write about today, the sorry demise of the House-passed Jobs Bill, which failed in the Senate yesterday, 45-52. And, of course, every single slimy Republican elitist in the upper chamber voted no. They were joined by a dozen Democrats, a combination of political cowards and conservative swine: Evan Bayh (IN), Mark Begich (AK), Russ Feingold (WI), Herb Kohl (WI), Mary Landrieu (LA), Claire McCaskill (MO), who fits both categories, Robert Menendez (NJ), Bill Nelson (FL), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR), Jim Webb (VA). Lieberman voted with the Republicans and Blanche ducked the vote.

For conservatives, and the cowards who help enable them, phony deficit concerns are always more important than the lives of ordinary American families. So they merrily voted against expired and expiring programs... like unemployment benefits and stimulus packages for states to help fight a recession and help foster a recovery. By the end of the week over 900,000 unemployed workers will notice they're not getting checks anymore-- a number than will rise by another 300,000 the following week. Should all million of them hunt down and give their senators a taste of their own medicine? Well, I'm not one for advocating violence but it would behoove voters to remember which senators voted against working families today-- all Republicans and 12 Democrats.

And if you doubt that this vote was part of the class warfare the rich and their bought-and-paid for senators are waging against ordinary non-millionaires, consider a vote in the ole Senate they took the day before, a very straightforward amendment by Bernie Sanders that would "eliminate big oil and gas company tax loopholes, and to use the resulting increase in revenues to reduce the deficit and to invest in energy efficiency and conservation." Who could possibly vote against that-- especially as the Gulf States turn into an uninhabitable mess compliments of B.P.? Most senators, that's who. It failed 35-61, again, every single Republican following Miss McConnell's lead to stand with their Big Oil donors against America. And which poor excuses for Democrats joined with them?

Dan Akaka (HI)
Max Baucus (MT)
Evan Bayh (IN)
Mark Begich (AK)
Michael Bennet (CO)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Kent Conrad (ND)
Chris Dodd (CT)
Byron Dorgan (ND)
Kay Hagan (NC)
Daniel Inouye (HI)
John Kerry (MA)
Mary Landrieu (LA)
Joe Lieberman (I-CT)
Blanche Lincoln (AR)
Ben Nelson (NE)
Mark Pryor (AR)
Jon Tester (MT)
Tom Udall (NM)
Mark Udall (CO)
Mark Warner (VA)
Jim Webb (VA)

The Democrats with the bolded names are the ones who both voted against the jobs bill extending unemployment benefits and against ending tax loopholes for Big Oil giants to close the deficit. Hypocrisy, a little?