After 6 Years of Bush and DeWine, Ohioans are Worse Off

CINCINNATI, OH -- President George W. Bush is scheduled to campaign for Republican incumbent Senator Mike DeWine today in Cincinnati in an effort to help the two-term incumbent's failing bid for re-election.
 
DeWine is running against Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who introduced plans to create jobs, provide affordable health care, education, and tax cuts to middle class families, and refocus our efforts on the war on terror.
 
Down in the polls since early summer, DeWine recently launched a series of attack ads in order to try to gain traction six weeks before Election Day.  Despite outspending Brown and using misleading ads that distort the truth and attempt to hide DeWine's record, support for his campaign continues to falter.
 
DeWine and Bush are expected to discuss how their tax cuts for the rich have affected the economy.  Middle class families don't remember receiving the more than $1 trillion in tax cuts, because they were overwhelmingly targeted to the top 1% and the cost-of-living for most Ohioans skyrocketed.

In Washington, DeWine supported the president more than 90 percent of the time, voting for legislation that led to job loss and stagnated wages, higher energy prices, rising health care and tuition costs, and a war in Iraq with no end in sight.
 
"Senator DeWine voted to give billions in taxpayer subsidies to oil and drug companies, corporations that outsource jobs, and billions in tax breaks to the richest one percent while abandoning Ohio's middle class," said Brown.  "Next year the president's agenda includes social security privatization, more tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and to stay-the-course in Iraq.  He won't be able to get that done without buying Senator DeWine another term, and that's why he's in Ohio, again."
 
Today marked President Bush's third visit to Ohio to campaign for Senator DeWine's reelection - Bush has now logged more visits to campaign for Senator DeWine than any other congressional candidate this cycle [Loven, AP, 9/23/06].
 
"Senator DeWine admitted that Ohio families can expect more of the same from him, which must be music to the president's ears," Brown said.  "Ohio's middle class families don't want more of the same.  It is time for a new leadership in the United States Senate, and a new direction for Ohio."
 
Senator DeWine failed to introduce concrete plans for what he would do if re-elected to the Senate.  Instead, he asked Ohioans to look at his past record to determine what he would do in the future.
 
"‘If you want to see what we're going to do in the next term, I think people need to look at the long list of things I've done in the past,' Mr. DeWine, from Cedarville, said.  ‘I think that's a pretty good indication of what I'll do in the future'" [Toledo Blade 9/24/06].
 
Below is a closer look at that record:
 
THE BUSH-DEWINE RECORD
 
Supporting special interests at a cost to middle class families
 

• After taking more than $400,000 from the energy industry, DeWine supported the 2005 GOP energy bill, based on the recommendations of Vice President Dick Cheney's oil executive-led energy task force.  The legislation provided billions in subsidies to oil and gas companies, leading to record profits for the industry, but failed to provide relief to consumers.

• After taking more than $300,000 in campaign contributions from the drug industry, DeWine supported the 2003 Bush-supported Medicare bill that gave $100 billion in subsides to the drug industry but left seniors with gaps in coverage of more than $2,000 and prohibited the agency from negotiating for lower prices like the VA does.

 
Outsourcing jobs, hurting workers
 

• After taking more than $1 million in campaign contributions from companies that outsource U.S. jobs, DeWine voted for every job-killing trade agreement that the Bush administration negotiated.  Ohio lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush and DeWine took office in 2001.

• Senator DeWine voted against raising the minimum wage nine times.

• DeWine supported the Bush tax cuts, which provide more than $1 trillion to the richest Americans and are largely targeted towards the top one percent, while largely abandoning middle class families already struggling with rising tuition, health care, and energy costs.

Failed war strategy, reduced international leverage

• As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, DeWine rubberstamped the false intelligence that sent our country to war over weapons of mass destruction that never materialized and failed to investigate the intelligence failures that led our country to war.  Just two weeks ago, he refused to sign onto a bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee report which accounted for some of the administration's intelligence failures.

• DeWine continues to support the administration's stay-the-course strategy in Iraq.  His only condition for troop redeployment from Iraq is if the country breaks out into civil war.  He failed to call on the Bush administration to develop a winning exit strategy.

• 123 Ohioans have been killed in Iraq since the war began.  More U.S. troops have now been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than Americans died on 9/11.

09/25/2006 / Permalink / Economy, Jobs, (all tags)