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Tipsheet

Santorum: You Know That Cruz And Paul Are Really Just ‘Bomb Throwers,’ Right?

With 2016 rumblings abounding, we forgot about Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania Senator threw some early punches last week at his potential rivals, calling Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “bomb throwers,” who had no real accomplishments on their resumes (via NYT):

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Discussing Mr. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Mr. Santorum raised four policy issues that he said would prompt questions about Mr. Huckabee’s fealty to conservative principles. Mr. Santorum was even harsher when discussing Mr. Paul of Kentucky and Mr. Cruz of Texas, both first-term senators, dismissing them as “bomb throwers” with scant achievements.

“Do we really want someone with this little experience?” Mr. Santorum asked, referring to Mr. Paul, Mr. Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is also in his first term. “And the only experience they have basically — not Rubio, but Cruz and Paul because I don’t think Rubio is going to go — is bomb throwing? Do we really want somebody who’s a bomb thrower, with no track record of any accomplishments?”

As for Huckabee, Santorum noted that the former Arkansas Governor once supported cap-and-trade legislation:

Reminded that Mr. Huckabee had once backed a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions, Mr. Santorum exclaimed: “Climate change. This guy was for climate change.”

Mr. Huckabee’s spokeswoman declined to address the individual issues, instead criticizing Mr. Santorum for “pulling the pin on grenades tossed in our own G.O.P. tent.”

So, while we’re on legislative records, let’s rehash RedState’s Erick Erickson’s 2012 post about Santorum’s voting record in the U.S. Senate, where he voted against a flat tax, the National Right To Work Act, food stamp reform, Medicaid reform, and paying off the debt within 30 years.

As Erickson wrote back then, “the only real justification for supporting him [Rick] now is he is not Mitt Romney.” He then added that Santorum personifies “big government conservatism,” something I do not think the party base will find palatable after eight years of Obama in 2016:

Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You will have to deal with it. He is a big government conservative. Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion of the welfare state. In fact, he has been complicit in the expansion of the welfare state. Suddenly we’re all forgetting what a big government conservatism is. The term was coined by Fred Barnes in defense of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservative” agenda. Bush intended to use domestic social welfare policy for conservative ends. In the process, he expanded the welfare state to do so through No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit, etc. Rick Santorum was a willing participant in this. Santorum is a conservative. He is. But his conservative is largely defined by his social positions and the ends to which government would be deployed. But he has chosen as the means to those conservative ends bigger government. We see big government conservatives most clearly when they deviate from the tireless efforts of people like Mike Pence and Jim DeMint and the others who were willing to oppose George W. Bush’s expansion of the welfare state.

NEA

Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.

Bankruptcy

Voted for a Schumer amendment to make the debts of pro-life demonstrators not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Defense and Foreign Policy

Voted for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Voted against requiring the President to certify that the CWC is effectively verifiable.

Voted against requiring the President to certify that that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, and all other countries determined to be state sponsors of terror have joined CWC prior to submitting the instrument of ratification.

Voted for the START II Treaty

Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.

Voted to ban antipersonnel landmines

Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.

Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same payraises as uniformed military.

Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyranical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.

Voted to limit the President’s authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.

Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.

Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea

Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions. If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.

Voted against delaying the India Nuclear until the President certified that India had agreed to suspend military-to-military exchanges with Iran.

Voted against the Conventional Trident Missile Program

Nominations

Voted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture)

Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge

Voted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN

Voted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge

Voted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit

Voted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge

Voted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge

Voted for James Brady to be District Judge

Labor 

Voted against National Right to Work Act

Voted against Real of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages 

Voted for Alexis Herman to be Secretary of Labor 

Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding 

Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance. 

Voted for Job Corps funding 

Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization 

Voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations. Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here

Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board. 

Voted to exempt IRS union representative from criminal ethics laws. 

Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.

Guns

Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun. 

Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device 

Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons” by those under 18. 

Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools. 

Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill.

Reform

Voted for funding for the legal services corporation. 

Voted twice for a Congressional payraise. 

Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapits, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections. 

Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional. 

Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians. 

Voted for a McCain amendment to require State and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.

Immigration

Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators

Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens

Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.

Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to to the earnings of their sponsors.

Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border partrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.

Taxes

Voted against a flat tax.

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.

Voted twice for internet taxes.

Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.

Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.

Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.

Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.

Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.

Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.

Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.

Welfare

Voted against food stamp reform

Voted against Medicaid reform

Voted against TANF reform

Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion

Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000. Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.

Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.

Waste

Sponsored An amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million

Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Project (WA)

Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion

Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.

Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million

Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL)

Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry

Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state’s highway allocation

Just some food for thought given that most of the candidates considering a 2016 bid so far are not what conservatives are looking for in 2016.

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