Unfortunately For Maine, It's Always Snowe-ing

The Democratic Party is in a desperate fight to hold onto the Senate-- it's a desperate fight not just for career-oriented party hacks but also for the people of America, who could be saddled with dangerous and unchecked fascism if the GOP wins the majority. And it looks like the GOP will win the majority. The Democrats are putting a lot of hope, as they should, in a victory by Elizabeth Warren (you can help her here) in Massachusetts that will displace Wall Street puppet/gay icon Scott Brown. Massachusetts is a solidly blue state and it makes sense to invest in making the progressive case there. Obama won each of Massachusetts' 10 congressional districts with between 55 and 86% of the vote. Unfortunately, the Democrats are putting as much hope-- and plenty of resources in winning in some really unlikely places-- like North Dakota (where Obama only managed 45%, a significant improvement from Gore's 33% and Kerry's 36%). With Kent Conrad retiring, Democrats are counting on former state Attorney General (and failed gubernatorial candidate) Heidi Heitkamp to beat current Republican Congressman Rick Berg. They'll be appealing to the same voters who elected Berg last year with 55% of the vote over longtime Democratic incumbent Earl Pomeroy. Or maybe they can win open Republican seats in Arizona or Texas? They hope so-- and have recruited candidates in each.

But where Democrats seem to be making no effort at all is in Maine, a state that voted heavily for Obama, Kerry and Gore in the last three presidential elections and has two Democratic congressmen (out of two districts). Everyone's afraid of 3-term incumbent Olympia Snowe. Last time she ran, in 2006, she crushed the Democrat, Jean Hay Bright, 398,723 (74%) to 109,727 (21%). This time she has two inconsequential teabaggers running in the GOP primary against her, Scott D'Amboise and Andrew Ian Dodge and two well-meaning but not very strong Democrats who want to take her on. Friday Jamison Foser explained what a great senator she's been-- for Maine's 375 multimillionaires. Mainers buy into her fake moderate pose that has allowed her to spend years rushing the legitimate aspirations of the 99% and protecting her own class. Snowe is one of the wealthiest members of the Senate and always votes in favor of the rich and against ordinary families... despite her rhetoric to the contrary. Last week, she said she supports extending the payroll tax cut "to some extent." Thursday night, we found out the extent of that support As Foser put it, "she's in favor of it as long as she can use it as an excuse to fire public servants, but opposed to it if it means raising taxes on a few hundred of the richest Mainers."

Snowe voted against the Democratic payroll tax proposal, which "would give a worker earning $50,000 a more than $1,500 tax cut," paid for by a surcharge on taxpayers who earn at least $1 million. Only 375 Mainers would pay that tax-- though it's worth noting that Snowe, who is worth between $12 million and $44 million, may be among them.

Then, Snowe voted for a less-generous Republican proposal that "would provide a $1,000 tax cut" for a worker earning $50,000, paid for by cutting 200,000 government jobs and freezing federal employees' pay through 2015. That essentially means giving them a pay cut, as inflation will erode their purchasing power. (Roughly 15,000 Mainers are employed by the federal government.)

Put the two votes together, and Snowe chose to give every working Mainer a smaller tax cut, and to pay for it by cutting jobs and forcing stagnant wages on thousands of Maine workers so she could spare 375 Maine millionaires a small tax increase. It's almost better if Snowe is among the tiny number of wealthy people she voted to protect-- at least then her vote would be understandable as an act of selfishness.

So how did Snowe explain her vote? Nonsensically, of course:

I do not want to see the existing payroll tax holiday end, and I could support a one-year extension if it is paid for sufficiently, fairly, and in a way that will not damage our economy. A permanent tax increase that will harm small businesses is the wrong prescription for our economy, and it won't promote economic growth.

Snowe's idea of paying for an extension "fairly" is to do so by cutting middle-class jobs and exacerbating wage stagnation among those lucky enough to be employed rather than asking millionaires to pay a little more.

And the damage Snowe claims the millionaire surcharge would do to small businesses and the economy? It's a figment of her imagination. The Democratic proposal would cut taxes for every small business with employees, and only about one percent of small business owners would be affected by the surcharge-- the "small business owners" whose businesses are actually fairly large. Given that the economy is struggling due to lack of demand-- something Olympia Snowe used to understand-- Snowe's preference is exactly backwards. She wants to keep money in the pockets of rich people who are least likely to spend it rather than helping those who are living paycheck to paycheck and would therefore be most likely to spend extra money. Middle class consumers, not Olympia Snowe's fellow wealthy elites, are the real job creators. 

Olympia Snowe's approach hurts the vast majority of Mainers, and it suffocates the economy by favoring wealthy elites who aren't creating jobs instead of consumers whose increased spending would give businesses a reason to hire. On the other hand, she saves 375 of her richest constituents a little bit of money.

Perhaps more important to many voters in Maine right this moment is the Republican attempt to sabotage the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP Heating Aid. Snowe paints herself as the Republican who will bridge the gap between the pro-LIHEAP Democrats and the anti-LIHEAP Republicans. But in the end it is the power of the Republican Party-- something voters in Maine enable by electing Snowe-- that has put LIHEAP in jeopardy.

Two weeks ago Portland state Rep Jon Hinck launched a bid for the Democratic nomination to take on Snowe. He hopes to get Mainers to look at Snowe's actual voting record and forget the self-perpetuated hype about what a grand moderate she is. "She makes some really bad votes that cost us a lot," Hinck told the Portland Daily Sun when he announced. "So I may as well say, for example, in the last 10 years, I would have voted against the Iraq War; I would have voted against the Bush tax cuts; I would have voted against Medicare Part D (prescription drug benefit). I am quite certain, I know that was my position when each of those came up. When the war came up, I was a lawyer in private practice, but I joined a rally and march in the streets of Portland, with my daughter, who was only five years old, I think. I saw her start to chant, 'No blood for oil.'"

Opposing the Bush tax cuts, he said, was a "no brainer" based on costs to the Federal Treasury and effects on the economy. Regarding the Medicare Part D benefit, "I'm not that keen on unpaid-for expensive things, I know that comes back to bite us later; and secondly it was a giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies, part of my legal career has been doing legal battle with pharmaceutical companies over defective drugs and medical devices, and I'm not inclined to sweeten the deal with taxpayer money and pay them off."

Hinck's list of Snowe's wrong votes, he said, contributed to the current federal fiscal climate.

"If we did not do those three things, if the votes against them had prevailed, we would not be in the budget crisis that we are today," he said. "Our current senator was on the wrong side of those votes, and the consequences of us going the wrong way are stunning and enormous."

"If I was in Congress right now," continued Hinck, "there would be another vote for the Jobs Bill...This is where she breaks from a vast majority of Mainers. The proposal was a very small tax increase on the income someone makes above $1 million in a year. In this instance, the 5,000 jobs by far and away are a greater benefit than any possible harm from a small tax increase when someone has already made $1 million in a year. It is part of a bigger picture where unfortunately they're playing into an agenda which will not do the right thing for this country because they want to turn the president out of office. That, too, is grounds not to rehire the incumbent."

Just under a year from now Snowe's going to be running for another term against the backdrop of the dueling OccupyWallStreet and Tea Party movements and heightened public unrest over the economy. Her legislative strategy all year has been to move sharply to the right to placate the teabaggers-- and their gorilla-in-the-room financial backers-- while ignoring the arguments being advanced by the 99% Movement.

Hinck said he understands the frustration reflected in the conservative and progressive public protest movements.

"Hubris and greed and also corruption" possibly played a part in the corporate bailout policy that infuriates many Americans, Hinck said.

"It seems to me that some of those bailouts were preventing an imminent financial disaster, and I bear in mind it's difficult for decision makers to get everything exactly right in an emergency like that. I can be harsh in criticism as other outsiders are. However, there's no way that taxpayer money can be forked over like that without conditions," Hinck said, noting that it's not right for bonuses to be covered by taxpayer money.

UPDATE: Filibustering

Snowe's disgraceful vote to continue the GOP filibuster of Obama's nomination Caitlin Joan Halligan of New York to the U.S. Circuit Judge shows what a craven, mindless partisan she's turned into-- mostly, I suspect, in fear of teh teabaggers. I think President Obama had Snowe in mind when he issued this statement, having hoped that her "moderate" hype would have been true enough today for her to do the right thing.

I am deeply disappointed that a minority of the United States Senate has blocked the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ms. Halligan has the experience, integrity, and judgment to serve with distinction on this court, and she has broad bipartisan support from the legal and law enforcement communities. But today, her nomination fell victim to the Republican pattern of obstructionism that puts party ahead of country. Today’s vote dramatically lowers the bar used to justify a filibuster, which had required “extraordinary circumstances.” The only extraordinary things about Ms. Halligan are her qualifications and her intellect.

Currently, Senate Republicans are blocking 20 other highly qualified judicial nominees, half of whom I have nominated to fill vacancies deemed “judicial emergencies” by the Administrative Office of the Courts. These are distinguished nominees who, historically, would be confirmed without delay. All of them have already been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee–- most of them unanimously-– only to run into partisan roadblocks on the Senate floor. The American people deserve a fair and functioning judiciary. So I urge Senate Republicans to end this pattern of partisan obstructionism and confirm Ms. Halligan and the other judges they have blocked for purely partisan reasons.

Mainers should look at what Olympia Snowe has actually become, not at a carefully crafted reputation as a moderate that no longer fits.