The Anti-Sam Brownback Blog

Over at the DCist, Martin writes:

Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes Magazine, advocated a federal flat tax in his 1996 and 2000 presidential bids. Brownback may be prepping for the same — he is a rumored candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

This is exactly what Brownback is planning.

He already has the social conservative vote, they will vote for Brownback just knowing what they know now. However, the fiscal conservatives are clamoring for more favorable policies from republican leaders. A flat tax proposal would go long way towards building a coalition of fiscal and social republicans.

This is an interesting strategy. Brownback already has the social radicals, now he appears to be targeting fiscal conservative radicals as well. The more extremist the views held by a voter, the more likely s/he will participate in a primary. This could be a canny strategy for the primary battle that is bound to be hotly contested and crowded with similar candidates.

For those of us who know Brownback, his pandering to radicals is no surprise. He consistently defends positions that are at odds with the vast majority of Americans.

Senator Sam Brownback: Raging Radicals Unite!

You know BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closing commission. The giant political boondoggle that every year targets those not in the majority and pushes pork to the majority’s members. Brownback wants to have a similar system in place to review all federal programs. This can get a little complicated, so I’ll let ombwatch.org explain:

CARFA was modeled on the Defense and Base Closure and Realignment Act (BRAC), which was first used during the Kennedy administration in the 1960s and then resurfaced in the late 1980s to close unneeded military bases while avoiding political skirmishes among representatives. CARFA, however, had important differences from BRAC. First, while BRAC required a bipartisan commission, comprised equally of Republicans and Democrats, the CARFA bill would have allowed the president to choose all the members of the commission. Further, while a straight up-or-down vote saved the closing of military bases from political infighting, voting up or down on CARFA proposals would play only into special interests; by selecting programs to be eliminated but never addressing unmet needs, CARFA would act as a one-way ratchet, slashing needed government programs without addressing gaps in protection. Whereas a commission more closely comparable to BRAC would recommend closures of specific program sites, such as one Head Start center, a CARFA commission would recommend the elimination of entire programs, such as Head Start itself.

In the last Congress, Brownback put forth the same legislation, but with several important changes. First, Brownback’s legislation, which was also introduced in the House by Tiahrt, excluded entitlement programs as well as those operated by the Department of Defense from review by the commission. Second, the bill would have required the president to develop a review methodology, present it to the commission for approval, and conduct reviews of at least half of all government programs. The Brownback version would have required program assessments to be “based primarily on the achievement of performance goals.”

Why is this bad? The commission would be appointed by the President so would be completely partisan. It would recommend throwing out the baby with the bathwater by axing entire programs.

Plus, and this really gets me because conservative republicans are supposed to be all about reducing bureaucracy, it would create a powerful unelected body that would have the power to build an entirely new bureaucracy. How much time will all of these programs likely to be under the knife have to spend lobbying and filling out mounds of paperwork to keep their essential services afloat? Why do republicans love big government?

It seems that Brownback is going to focus on this issue more while glossing over the realities that it would create mounds of new paperwork and cut vital programs needed by middle class Americans.

I have been asked what issues Senator Brownback might run on in a republican primary and what he needs to do between now and then to bolster his support. While I obviously am not included in Brownback’s strategy meetings, we can glean from his public appearances what he will attempt to use.

1. First we’ll hit abortion, his most obvious issue of affection. Brownback makes the issue of abortion work for him. Practically all of his name recognition outside of Kansas is within anti-abortion groups. These religious organizations also make up a large part of his speaking tours. On this issue Brownback is more extreme than any other likely primary opponents. In the next two years I expect Brownback to begin utilizing this network of passionate conservatives to raise money and awareness for his campaign. Of special interest is Brownback’s friend from college, Chuck Hurley, who now is the president of the Iowa Family Policy Center. Hurley has already endorsed Brownback for president and has vowed to use his organization to spearhead a Brownback Iowa caucus effort.
2. Next is the group of people he loves to hate. Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgender people have been constantly attacked by Brownback and his supporters. His current pet project, the anti gay marriage constitutional amendment, is only the latest in a long history of discriminatory acts. This issue also feeds his hardcore religious conservative base and goes hand in hand with abortion. Brownback has been grooming this issue ever since the Christian fundamentalist were ignored by the white house after Bush’s 2004 election. They were promised action on the amendment and Bush went with Social Security destruction instead. Now Brownback is trying to give them what they want, and they will love him for it.
3. “But wait!” conservatives will scream. “He’s not all social issues! What about his work in the Sudan?” Sudan is Brownback’s attempt at gaining the moderate vote. Putting the compassionate back into the conservative, so to speak. I have in the past applauded the attention that he has helped to bring to the situation there and I will continue to agree with him (gasp!) when he says more needs to be done. I will be interested to see how much he focuses on the Sudan in the next two years. I think it is an issue that will play well with moderates, but he will have to show he can make a difference there and not just make speeches.

Those are the big three. Beyond those we have the issues that he has not pushed as of yet, but probably will.

1. On defense, Brownback toes the GOP party line. While this has served him well in the past, this could become a problem if public opinion about the war in Iraq continues to plummet. Look for him to become more hawkish on Iran. He has connections to several Iranian separatist movements and has already vocalized his wish for regime change.
2. On the economy Brownback is know to be friendly to corporations. His largest donor by far is Koch Industries whose owners founded the Cato Institute. He is ranked 100% compliant with the Business-Industry Political Action Committee. This could be a true stealth fundraising angle for him. The Koch brothers could conceivably raise ungodly amounts of cash for Brownback’s campaign. I doubt Brownback will make business issues more public.
3. According to the pundits, immigration is likely to be a hot button issue in 2008. Brownback currently favors a guest worker program similar to that which the president supports. This is not popular with the conservative base. I think Brownback will begin to change course on immigration to come more in line with the extreme views of his potential voters.
4. On energy he again tends to take the party line. He supports drilling in ANWR and increasing domestic oil production. He is also a ethanol brown noser for the obvious (Iowa) political reasons. I expect he will begin to focus more on energy in the next two years. Speaking on ethanol in Iowa will give him a jumping off point for a more substantive policy outlay.
5. He has addressed health care with rural health provider concerns but has not spoken out on policy issues that would help the average American pay for health insurance. I have no clue what his health care policy will entail and how he will address rising costs for employees and employers alike.

Tucked away in a dark corner of the enormous Defense Spending Bill was an appropriation of $10 million dollars for the renovation and modernizing of the Parsons, Kansas ammunition plant.

Sounds like a sound investment for the future of ammunition production and Kansas Jobs, right? Well, Brownback’s press office left out one small detail… the plant is scheduled for closing. The AP reports:

“Normally you don’t spend money on a facility that’s about to be closed,” said John Pike, a military analyst with globalsecurity.org in Alexandria, Va. “It’s basically doing an end-run around BRAC.”

Brownback spokesman Brian Hart said the decision to close the plant isn’t final and the money looks toward the future.

“While it won’t be a government-run facility, it is unclear if it will be privatized, merged or closed,” Hart said. “The best way to preserve jobs in Parsons, if we can, is to make sure the facility is fully functional and necessary upgrades are completed.”

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste in Washington, said if a private company takes over the plant after it closes, it would have an advantage over competing munitions manufacturers.

“That doesn’t sound terribly fair to the rest of the country,” Schatz said. “It also sets a bad precedent for other facilities that are on the BRAC list.”

This is a government handout to the private sector, plain and simple. Brownback may talk tough on fiscal responsibility but his actions show he loves spending just as much as his republican colleagues.

Let’s put this $10 million (tax dollar) handout in terms that Brownback can understand. $10 million could feed over 92,000 children in the Sudan for 18 months. Compassionate conservative my ass.

[Thanks for the tip from Thoughts from Kansas comments]

“To balance the budget we have to do two things,” Brownback said. “We have to have a growing economy and we have to restrain the growth in spending. The growing economy is stimulated by the proper tax cuts.”

Brownback simply does not get it. The federal government is already massively in debt. We have an immensely expensive (and unpopular) war in Iraq that shows no sign of abating while eating $200 billion a year. Now we have the effects of the horrible tragedy in the Gulf Coast. I would love to know exactly where Senator Brownback is willing to cut the $200 billion needed for Katrina recovery from other parts of the budget. Health care? Farm subsidies?

Or does he care about balancing the budget at all? Senator Brownback never seems to want to deal with problems now. I sure as hell don’t want to have to deal with them 30 years down the road. Tax cuts = more debt. Pure and simple. Who’s gonna pay for it?

As reported in the Washington Times, Senator Sam Brownback is supporting a tax on battered women who leave their abusive husbands. Brownback is the chairman of the Senate subcommittee in charge of Washington DC’s budget and is looking for ways to “encourage” low income families to stay together. The article explains:

…the program would reward low-income couples who remain married and contribute to a savings account. Those contributions, [Brownback] said, could be matched with federal funds at a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 ratio.

“It’s a part of an incentive to getting them into a program to work on developing goals, work habits and a productive citizenry,” he said.

At first glance this seems like a decent idea. We all know that working class families often struggle to pay the bills. Why not help them save many for the future?

The insidious part of this proposal is that it only applies to families that have a married mother and father. Single mothers on the run from abusive husbands? Either get re-married or forget about assistance. Single father whose wife died in a car accident who is trying to raise three kids and work two jobs? He either can get remarried immediately or lose out on the benefits. Loving, committed gay parents who work hard to provide a good life for their adopted foster children? They get nothing.

In short, a system to provide all low income workers with a government augmented savings account would be a wonderful idea. A system that only rewards people who are in a heterosexual marriage is wrong. It amounts to a tax on battered women. Senator Brownback should be ashamed.