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Howard Coble's Voting Record
Below are just some of Howard’s votes. For a detailed list please
go to the following link:
http://www.themiddleclass.org/
Howard's Vote on Trade
Howard has voted for practically every free trade bill that progressed through Congress. He voted for the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), Most Favoured Nation Trading (MFN) for China, etc. "Free Trade" has been a failure for America.
On Howards’ Congressional website he states that our textile, furniture, and tobacco industries are "in transition".
Employment in textiles from 1990 to 2006 in NC has dropped from about 290,000 to 80,000, a 72% drop. Furniture employment has dropped from about 95,000 to 55,000, a 42% drop. Tobacco employment has dropped from about 16,000 to 10,000, a 38% drop. The tobacco figures don’t include the recent loss of 2,500 jobs at the Phillip Morris plant in Concord which closed because production was moved to Europe.
I don’t know what dictionary Howard uses but I don’t call that "in transition". I call it free-fall, under assault or Armageddon. These are terms which accurately describe the situation in those industries.
Howard is Out of Touch
Howard is out of touch. He also states High Point is the Furniture Capital of the World. Howard, the Furniture Capital of the world is Guangdong Province, China. High Point has been reduced to the Furniture Retail Capital of the World for Chinese furniture.
In the last campaign he still touted his “Free Trade” mantra: “If the vote were tomorrow, I would vote in favor of NAFTA again,” he said. “I think NAFTA has been a nicely compacted trade deal with our friends to the north and to the south. I think it’s served us well…. I think it has served not only America favorably, but Mexico and Canada as well.”
Our trade deficit with both countries has climbed from $8 Billion in 1993 to $143 Billion in 2008. An estimated 879,000 jobs were estimated to be lost in America during the first eight years of NAFTA. NAFTA also indirectly suppressed wages of workers remaining in the US because corporations could merely threaten to move to Mexico to keep American wages from rising.
Howard's Vote for Wall Street
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999-S 900.
Howard voted for this act.
This is the one of the biggest reasons we had the
subprime mortgage explosion. This act repealed the Glass-Steagall
Act of 1933 which separated commercial banks from investment banks.
This allowed Wall Street to get into the business of taking subprime
mortgages, packaging them into Mortgage Backed Securities and
selling them all over the world. In other words, banks then made
poor quality loans, paid Wall Street to package them to appear
Triple-AAA rated and sold them to unsuspecting buyers like pension
funds and foreign governments. Since this enabled the banks to
dispose of the worse loans, the banks had no problem making poor
quality loans because they had no liability for loans they dumped.
CFTC Modernization Act of 2000-HR 4541.
Howard voted for this act.
This act kept financial derivatives from being regulated and kept them off open, transparent exchanges. This act allowed Enron to make the big bets it made and ultimately collapse--a warning for what was ahead. It also led to an explosion on Wall Street in gambling on Credit Default Swaps. This is why Enron and AIG failed. Firms like Goldman Sachs sold bundled subprime mortgages to unsuspecting pension funds and then bet against them by buying Credit Default Swaps from AIG that those same mortgages would default. Then these Swaps were paid off to Wall Street banks at 100 cents on the dollar via the $180 Billion bailout of AIG when they were practically worthless.
Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention And Consumer Protection Act Of
2003-HR 975.
Howard voted for this act.
This was a classic bait and
switch by the Republican Party. This bill was sold to the American
public as a way to crack down on crooked CEOs protecting their
assets from creditors after they imploded their companies. The
poster boys’ for this legislation were the Enron executives who were
insulating their money by building multi-million dollar mansions
that were safe from bankruptcy. The credit card companies saw this
as a chance for their lobbyists to make credit card debt practically
impossible to extinguish in bankruptcy and that’s what this act
accomplished. America’s families have resorted to their declining
incomes by having both parents work, then having one parent get a
second job, and finally by running up credit card debt to
unscrupulous credit card companies. With this bill Howard has helped
turn these people into debt slaves.
Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act of 2006 H Amdt 772
To read how everyone voted click here.
Howard
voted against this act.
Howard has voted against most Student Aid
reform. Student Aid is another way the financial services industry
has loaded the American public up on debt with an assist from the
Republican Party. Sallie Mae was a government sponsored enterprise
(GSE) but was privatized. But student loans are still guaranteed by
the federal government. For this guarantee the loan providers are
supposed to offer a lowered interest rate but the fact is the
interest savings over a credit card are minor. Plus since becoming
private Sallie Mae has resorted to credit card tactics to further
indebt our kids. Make a late payment or two and your interest rate
sky rockets plus you’re burdened with fees. Also, because the loan
is federally guaranteed it can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. Sallie
Mae can garnish your wages and even your Social Security check. This
has turned our children into indentured servants to the financial
services industry just when they’re starting out on their own. From
1999 to 2006 the two CEO’s of Sallie Mae made $367 million and
during that same time Sallie Mae set aside $3.6 Billion in stock
options for executives. Republican House Minority Leader John
Boehner is a favorite politician of Sallie Mae receiving $122,470 in
campaign funds from 1989-2006. The average student loan debt for the
college class of 2007 was $20,000. We are creating an entire new
class of debt slaves to Wall Street before they even start working.
For more information please go to
www.StudentLoanJustice.org
Howard's Vote on Health Care
SCHIP-HR 976.
Howard
voted against this act.
Howard voted against providing health coverage to
uninsured children. This is interesting considering Howard’s
anti-abortion stance. He wants to force women who realize they can’t
care for a child to have the child and then let the child suffer for
lack of medical care.
Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 2003 - HR 2427
To read more click here
Howard
voted against this act.
This act allowed the re-importation of
prescription drugs from overseas. Howard is for free trade when it
comes to textiles, furniture, and tobacco but not the pharmaceutical
companies. They need to be protected from re-importation, while 80%
of the ingredients used by pharmaceutical companies are imported. We
pay twice as much for drugs as Canadians pay. In 2003, the US spent
almost $200 Billion on prescription drugs. That’s $600 for every
man, woman and child in the US. The pharmaceutical companies will
say they need these high prices to pay for research. But they spent
more money on advertising than they do for research. Howard has
received $235,000 from the pharmaceutical industry in campaign
contributions.
Howard's Vote on the Budget
Restore Pay-As-You-Go Tax Cut Amendment of 2004 S Amdt 2748
Click here to read more about budget.
Howard
voted against this act.
This warrants some further
investigation. Howard Coble is a classic "Charge and Spend
Republican". The Democrats may have been "Tax and Spenders" in the
past, but at least they paid for what they spent. The republicans
just resort to deficit spending. A classic example of this is
Howards signing the taxpayer protection pledge at Grover Norquist’s
Americans for Tax Reform. By signing this pledge Howard is to fight
against any increase in tax revenue to the government to pay for the
Iraq War, for inflation or any unforeseen circumstance. Tying your
hands like that is no way to run a government, a business, or a
household.
| Taxpayer Protection Pledge |
| I pledge to the taxpayers and to the American people that I will: |
| ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and Credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates. |
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