Friday, October 13, 2006

Going to war. Crafting budgets. Proposing constitutional amendments. Taking care of the elderly, sick and poor.

These are the tasks of our representatives in Congress, one of whom - Republican Mark Green - is running for governor based on his experience in the House of Representatives.

But Green's voting record shows that he's been a loyal foot soldier in President Bush's War on Terror, as well as the president's war on civil rights, bipartisanship and separation of church and state. As Democrats are quick to point out, Green has voted with the president's agenda 92% of the time, in one case providing the deciding vote for the controversial Medicare Part D program.

The president and vice president have returned the favors by stumping for Green in the state, raising money during their brief campaign stops.

Whether voters will want Bush-style policies implemented in Wisconsin will be decided on Nov. 7. But with Bush's approval ratings slumping at 33% nationally, and a Wisconsin Policy Research Institute poll placing his approval in June at 37% among Wisconsinites, will voters make the connection between Green's votes and the president's unpopular achievements?

Here are just a few of Green's votes that helped shape the Bush presidency:

Stem-Cell Research: Back in the summer of 2001, an untested President George W. Bush emerged from vacation in Crawford, Texas, to make a major announcement, one he hoped would prove that he could unite and lead a nation that didn't give him a majority of its votes. His big news was to limit federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to only a few stem-cell lines.

Five years later, his decision stands, despite a congressional vote to buck Bush and loosen the 2001 restrictions. Bush vetoed that bipartisan bill, drawing howls from the majority of Americans who support all forms of this promising research. Green voted right along with the president, even supporting Bush's veto. On the campaign trail, Green has been trying to explain that he supports stem-cell research - just not all kinds of stem-cell research, including the type that has made Wisconsin a leader in the field.

Off to War: Green supported Bush's decision to invade a country that posed no threat to the United States. Maybe Green believed Bush's dubious claims about weapons of mass destruction or Saddam Hussein's links to the 9/11 attacks, or maybe Green felt that the war truly would be a "cakewalk," as the administration promised.

Green also believed that the news coming from Iraq wasn't so bad, although the media made it sound terrible. So Green helped to form the "Victory in Iraq" caucus, intended to show the progress that U.S. troops were making. You know, the "good news" that the media wouldn't report. But Green isn't making much of the victory caucus now, and doesn't list it on his Web site. Who knows? Perhaps Green is among the 58% of Americans who now believes that invading Iraq was a mistake.

Sheer Torture: Perhaps the photos that emerged from Abu Ghraib didn't shock Green, as they shocked the rest of the world. Or perhaps reports of torturing enemy combatants, the applicability of the Geneva Conventions or the exact definition of waterboarding didn't make Green think twice about the morality of torturing human beings. Perhaps that's why Green voted for the recent torture bill, which, despite protestations from Sens. McCain, Warner and Graham, actually does legitimize torture by allowing the president to determine which interrogation techniques are OK to use.

Ballooning Budgets: George W. Bush grew up in a privileged family, which may be why he never got the hang of drawing up a budget and living within his means. Now, as president, he's trying to wage expensive wars while cutting taxes for the wealthy, a double-fisted strategy whose true costs won't be felt until he's out of office. Green voted for the Bush budgets that have turned a surplus into a huge deficit.

Got Faith? Then you can get some taxpayer money. Green endorsed the president's faith-based initiatives, which were sold as an efficient way to get more social services to those in need. According to one of Green's press releases, "Green has established himself as the leading proponent of faith-based solutions in Congress," and he sought to create a permanent faith-based office in the White House. But the program has been criticized for blurring the line between church and state.

Dismantling the Social Safety Net: Green cast the deciding vote to pass the Medicare Part D prescription program, which intends to cover senior citizens burdened by the high cost of medication. Although the terms confused many seniors (and their kids and caretakers), and although it threatened state-based programs such as SeniorCare and doesn't allow the government to negotiate for lower drug prices, Part D actually has a more troubling legacy. Not only is the program more costly than originally billed, but according to an article by Trudy Lieberman in The Nation, "Medicare Part D represents the free market run amok" and "insurers are benefiting from a massive congressional giveaway."

Leaving Kids Behind: Back when Bush attempted to be a compassionate conservative, the president made much of his education program, No Child Left Behind, since he claimed it worked in Texas. Green voted for it. But the program has been plagued with difficulties, from its test-based curricula to its lack of funding (it's now $56 billion below what it should be).

A Break for Paris Hilton: The estate tax doesn't affect many people, just the super-rich. But Green was looking out for this minority when he voted on the controversial proposal to give the ultra-wealthy yet another tax break. Good thing the Republicans were kind enough to sneak it into a bill on raising the minimum wage.

Using the Constitution as a Political Tool: Even Laura Bush saw through Republicans' efforts to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. The "Marriage Protection Amendment" was intended to shore up conservative Christians' support by banning gay marriage, but all it did was invite ridicule. The president endorsed it, but without enthusiasm. Green supported it.

Destroying the Environment: Enjoy the pristine Alaskan wilderness? Mark Green thinks it would be better to run a pipeline through it and drill for oil. That's why he voted to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, even though most experts have stated that it just isn't worth it.