As the circus that this Presidential race has become enters its last stretch, I think we're finally getting back to the issues.  Back in February I began looking at Barack's record as a State Senator because I felt that after all was said and done, this campaign would be won on the issues.  I wrote about his awful record knowing that in the last weeks of October my non-political friends will call me for advice; and the only advice they will listen to will be about the issues.  Between now and the week when absentee ballots hit houses I will re-post my writings here, in chronological order.  Enjoy!

Obama Watch: Barack on Business

(Feb. 18, 2008) Ok all, enough talk about the primary.  It's time to move on to the general.  If Hillary wins, well, we all know the dirt.  Now if Barack wins...

Forgive me for not being one of those Republicans who is "freaking out" over Barack Obama.  I have heard him speak and yes, he is a great orator.  But I have also seen his record, and I am confident that once the voters see it, they will reject his far left agenda.  He is outside of the mainstream on almost every issue that is important to independent voters.

With that said, let us turn our attention to some of Barack's votes during his time in the Illinois State Senate; in a new segment we will call Obama Watch.  It's time to spread the knowledge.  Let's begin with Barack on Business.

During his time as a state senator Barack was no friend of business.  Let us look, for example, at four pieces of legislation authored by the good conservative State Senator Chris Lauzen, from Aurora. In 1999 the 91st Illinois State Senate was controlled by a Republican majority.  This is the time when Senator Obama famously began voting "present" as opposed to "yes/no" on controversial issues that could hurt his chance of unseating incumbent Democrat Congressman Bobby Rush, from the south side of Chicago.  His bid for Congress nonetheless failed, but that didn't keep him from voting "present" over one hundred and fifty times during the rest of his time in the State Senate. 

In 1999 Senator Lauzen (who recently lost a Republican primary to replace Dennis Hastert) authored two pieces of good pro-business legislation.  SB 879 was created in order to reduce the minimum contribution tax rate for the unemployment system and SB 777 was created in order to eliminate the "unemployment insurance fund building tax".

Senator Obama was one of 17 Senators (all Democrats) who voted "no" on SB 879.  This law would have cut the unemployment tax rate by 52% for IL employers that already pay the minimum employment insurance tax rate.

Senator Obama voted "no" on a party line on SB 777.  For those who don't know what the "unemployment insurance fund building tax" is, it's basically an extra 0.4% tax imposed on top of the federal and state unemployment tax formulas that businesses in Illinois were asked to pay during the early 1980's to deal with a fund deficit (over two billion dollars at the time).  With the economy taking a turn and the increased tax revenues, the fund was even by 1987 and by 1990 hit a surplus of one and a half billion dollars.  SB 777 simply aimed at eliminating the 0.4% increase after the problem was already solved.

In 1995 the Illinois legislature passed a tax cut much like SB 879 and instead of the fund going bankrupt like the Democrats predicted, the fund continued to grow and jobs were created.  In retrospect they should have probably passed something like SB 777 at that time, but I digress.  The Democrats took the opportunity to advocate for higher benefits for employees.  Even with that growing strain, by 1999 the fund's balance was at a record surplus of over two billion dollars.  At this time Republicans like Senator Lauzen decided it was once again a good time to pass similar tax cuts to stimulate the economy.   Obama and his colleagues thought otherwise.  Both SB 879 and SB 777 passed the Senate, but both bills failed in the Democrat controlled House.  Benefits to employees continued to grow in the meantime.

Two years later both the national and state economy were beginning to significantly slow down.  Employers felt the crunch and began cutting jobs.  This was compounded by the fact that unemployment benefits had gone up by twenty five percent in the last five years.  The fund took a heavy hit and Republicans pointed to the last session as a time when they could have done something about it.  They still held control of the Senate, so Lauzen re-introduced the legislation.  SB 879 was re-introduced as SB 795 and SB 777 was re-introduced as SB 796.  Instead of learning from the past, Senator Obama and his colleagues campaigned heavily and voted against both bills, which were killed in the House.

Six months later 9/11 happened.  The country went into a recession and Illinois followed suit.  The fund surplus began to disappear into thin air, and by 2003 it was down to four million dollars.  It was at that point that Governor Blagojevich got involved and decided that he would fix the problem by increasing taxes and issuing a 1.4 billion dollar bond! Precious.

Currently Illinois is borrowing their way into oblivion.  According to the Illinois Republican Party, the '07 budget proposals by the Democrats included "the largest tax increase in Illinois history, a multi-billion dollar health care proposal, and the continued selling off of state assets".

So what was Senator Obama occupied with the same day SB 796 hit the floor of the Senate? He was busy lobbying for the Halal Food Act, which made it illegal for a restaurant or food manufacturer to claim that their food is acceptable to Muslims if it wasn't.  "Halal" means "approved by God".  Certainly a much better use of his time than saving the state's economy right?

Stay tuned for the next segment of Obama Watch.