The Liberal score of Congressional Progressives

In order to reinforce my case about the intentions and ideology of the progressives in Congress I am going to rely on those sources that endorse these people.

Groups that traditionally seek radical solutions in American politics give progressives very high marks and those marks establish a history of their support for extremely liberal legislation, each of which move this nation inexorably into the abyss of socialism. By conservative estimates, the national debt will reach a staggering 101% of the Gross Domestic Product, the entire earning capacity of our economy by 2011, a level that has not been seen since the years immediately following the massive spending required by World War II.

World War II was certainly an excellent reason to take the nation into debt. It took a full thirty years to lower that debt to a nearly acceptable 33% of GDP and that was before trade agreements and tax increases sent many of our manufacturing industries overseas. The current estimates show that the National Debt during the first four years of Mr. Obama’s Presidency will increase an additional $6.6 Trillion dollars; an amount that is equal to the increase in debt during both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations combined. So what is the reason for the outrageous spending now?

Even though we are looking at a financial meltdown, President Obama and his friends in Congress are still pushing forward to enact additional massive expansion of entitlement spending and the economy crippling taxes that are contained in the healthcare reform and cap and trade bills. This makes no sense unless the goal is to destroy the Federal Treasury and collapse the capitalistic economic system in the United States. There are those who believe this would force this nation into socialism and eventually, all nations into a single world government as the world financial system fails in a globalist’s expansion of the Cloward-Piven Strategy. Certainly, a willing socialist movement in Congress would be needed to perpetrate such a grand scheme. So how can we identify that willing faction?

From Wikipedia “The group [Americans for Democratic Action] was established by prominent Democratic Party leaders in 1947 with the stated goal of combating what those leaders perceived to be an acceptance of, or even an alliance with, American communists. ADA's leaders considered communism (especially as practiced in the Soviet Union) to be both morally wrong and a threat to the United States.”

The original founders of Americans for Democratic Action were Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and John Galbraith. The truth of the matter is that many “new dealers” were part of the foundation of this organization and their real goal was, and remains, to sneak a socialist agenda into the American political system under the radar. By claiming to fight against communism they had hoped to promote socialism in the United States under the banner of progressivism. Today members and associates of the Americans for Democratic Action say more about their mission than their mission statement does. Overt socialists such as Ed Asner, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Faux and Ann Lewis are installed as Honorary Vice Presidents as are many members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) issue “scores” for legislators based on the frequency with which they vote for progressive and liberal causes. With a score of 100 indicating the most liberal and left leaning, I am proud to say that I visited their website and after taking their on-line test to determine how liberal I really am, I scored a perfect zero! I wish I could say the same for members of Congress, particularly the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. So what scores have the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus earned from the ADA?

Let’s start with the founder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders ADA Score – 100%

Bernie Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, but because he does not belong to a formal political party, he appears as an independent on the ballot. He is the first person elected to the U.S. Senate to identify as a socialist. Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments. He was also the only independent member of the House during much of his service there. He is one of two independent Senators in the 111th Congress, along with Joe Lieberman. Sanders left the House in order to run in the 2006 election for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring fellow independent Jim Jeffords and won the election with 65% of the vote.

So how do the rest of them stack up? Let’s see the scores state by state….
Arizona: Ed Pastor – 100%, Raúl Grijalva – 100%,
California: Lynn Woolsey – 80%, George Miller – 95%, Barbara Lee – 100%, Pete Stark – 90%, Michael Honda – 95%, Sam Farr – 100%, Henry Waxman – 95%, Xavier Becerra – 100%, Judy Chu – not rated yet - assumed office July 2009), Diane Watson – 100%, Lucille Roybal-Allard – 95%, Maxine Waters – 95%, Laura Richardson – 100%, Linda Sanchez – 100%, Bob Filner – 100%
Colorado: Jared Polis – not rated yet (assumed office January 2009)
Connecticut: Rosa DeLauro – 100%
Florida: Corrine Brown – 95%, Alan Grayson – not rated yet - assumed office January 2009), Robert Wexler – 90%, Alcee Hastings – 95%
Georgia: Hank Johnson – 100%, John Lewis – 95%
Hawaii: Neil Abercrombie – 95%, Mazie Hirono – 100%
Illinois: Bobby Rush – 30% (don’t get excited – according to the Freedom Index Mr. Rush just doesn’t vote very often), Jessie Jackson Jr. – 100%, Luis Gutierrez – 90%, Danny Davis – 80%, Jan Schakowsky – 100%, Phil Hare – 100%,
Indiana: André Carson – 75%
Iowa: Dave Loebsack – 90%
Maine: Chellie Pingree – (not rated yet - assumed office January 2009)
Maryland: Donna Edwards - (not rated yet - assumed office June 2008), Elijah Cummings – 100%
Massachusetts: John Oliver – 100%, Jim McGovern – 100%, Barney Frank – 100%, John Tierney – 95%, Ed Markey – 100%, Mike Capuano – 95%
Michigan: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick – 95%, John Conyers – 100%
Minnesota: Keith Ellison – 100%
Mississippi: Bennie Thompson – 90%
Missouri: William Lacy Clay Jr. – 100%, Emanuel Cleaver – 90%
New Jersey: Donald Payne – 95%, Frank Pallone – 100%
New Mexico: Ben R. Luján - (not rated yet - assumed office January 2009)
New York: Jerry Nadler – 95%, Yvette Clark – 100%, Nydia Velazquez – 100%, Carolyn Maloney – 95%, Charles Rangel – 85%, Jose Serrano – 100%, John Hall – 95%, Maurice Hinchey – 95%, Louise Slaughter – 95%, Eric Massa - (not rated yet - assumed office January 2009)
North Carolina: Mel Watt – 100%
Ohio: Marcy Kaptur – 100%, Dennis Kucinich – 95%, Marcia Fudge - (not rated yet - assumed office November 2008)
Oregon: Earl Blumenauer – 95%, Peter DeFazio – 90%,
Pennsylvania: Bob Brady – 100%, Chaka Fattah – 95%
Tennessee: Steve Cohen – 100%
Texas: Sheila Jackson-Lee – 100%, Eddie Bernice Johnson – 100%
Vermont: Peter Welch – 90%
Virginia: Jim Moran – 95%
Washington: Jim McDermott – 95%
Wisconsin: Tammy Baldwin – 100%, Gwen Moore – 95%

There are two more members of the Caucus that we cannot score because they are non-voting members from the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. They are Donna Christensen and Eleanor Holmes Norton.

So far adding them all up, the average score is still 99% in favor of extremely liberal legislation. There are even more members of Congress that score equally as high but do not belong to the Congressional Progressive Caucus for one reason or another. Combined, these are the people that think that Obama hasn’t gone far enough. These are the people that would empty the treasury to fund redistributive programs and raise taxes to stifle an already stricken economy. These are the same people that salivate at the idea of massive new programs that will expand the Federal Government to twice its present size and still want more. These are the people that must be voted from office while there is still a United States of America under a lawful Constitution.

Tomorrow….Cloward and Pivens; evil personified.

Paul