It is time for Americans to realize that Hillary Clinton’s politics and voting record resemble not Barack Obama’s or Bill Clinton’s, but those of Bernie Sanders.
All of the talk about Mrs. Clinton “moving to the left,” which has been reported regularly in the media, is a waste of breath. This implies that there is somewhere on the left for Hillary to move. But based on her voting record over eight years in the Senate, as well as statements and proposals she has made or plans to make as a candidate, Hillary Clinton is already on the leftwing fringe.
For example, following consideration of trade legislation in the House of Representatives on June 12, Clinton sided with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who undermined President Obama’s support for the bills just hours after he pleaded his case to House Democrats in person.
As CNN’s Jake Tapper noted, when she was secretary of state, Clinton led the effort to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership on 45 occasions. Yet her opposition to the initial House bill would have jeopardized that deal. As a candidate for president in 2008, Clinton opposed the trade agreement with South Korea, but then supported it as secretary of state. As a senator, she voted for several trade agreements. But when the House first considered trade legislation, she was in agreement not with Obama but with Sanders, who voted “no” on the trade bill when it was considered in the Senate.
In addition, several reports indicate that Clinton will call on taxpayers to cover the entire cost of attending college, rather than the cost of tuition, as Sanders has suggested, or capping the amount that students must repay, as allowed under Obama’s executive action in June, 2014.
In regard to taxes and the economy, during the first economic speech of her campaign, on July 13, Clinton echoed the redistributive, socialist approach taken by Sanders more than she proposed a continuation of President Obama’s policies.
For example, she wants to go further than Obama on the tax rate for high-income earners, as well as encourage “profit-sharing” by reining in executive compensation so it can be “shared” with lower-paid employees. She criticized new business models such as shared services, including Uber and Airbnb (not named but clearly targeted), that in her mind would undermine the security and stability of more traditional jobs because they may not offer health care or other benefits, rather than praising them as innovative operations that have helped to improve the economy.
All of these positions emanate from Clinton’s ultra-liberal roots, which should not surprise anyone who tracked her votes when she served in the Senate.
According to the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, on dozens of votes that would slash the size and cost of government and stimulate economic growth, Hillary Clinton’s lifetime rating was a very dismal 8 percent. In two of her eight years, one of which was her first year, her rating was zero.
When Obama left the Senate, his CCAGW lifetime rating was 15 percent, and the current CCAGW lifetime rating for Sanders if 6 percent. In other words, if Hillary Clinton governed as she voted in the Senate, she could be almost twice as liberal as President Obama and much closer to Sen. Sanders.
The lifetime scores of Clinton, Obama and Sanders by other national conservative groups, including the American Conservative Union and Americans for Prosperity, also show that her voting record is more liberal than Obama’s and similar to that of Sanders.
Clinton’s ACU lifetime rating of 8.1 percent places her exactly in between Obama’s 10 percent and Sanders’ 6.2 percent. On AFP’s rated votes, Clinton had a lifetime rating of 4 percent, just one point higher than Sanders’s 3 percent, and much lower than Obama’s lifetime rating of 17 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, Clinton is also closer to Sanders than to Obama. Her lifetime average rating from Americans for Democratic Action was 89 percent, while Obama’s average was 79 percent and Sanders’s is 95 percent.
Based on what Americans are hearing and reading in media outlets, they are getting the impression that Hillary Clinton is a “moderate” like her husband purportedly was as president, and that she is not as liberal as President Obama.
But Clinton’s past voting record, campaign statements and promises expose her as she really is: An ultra-liberal advocate of costly, intrusive big government and higher taxes in the mold not of her husband or her former boss but of Congress’s only self-proclaimed socialist.
Thomas Schatz is president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
