Quick, Senator Voinovich… retire!:

Declaring that a major global-warming bill cannot pass the Senate, Republican George V. Voinovich of Ohio and Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia want to spend $20 billion in the next decade to develop a commercially viable way to burn coal cleanly.

If the bill wins congressional approval, the federal government would funnel billions of dollars to utility companies seeking ways to burn coal mined in Ohio and West Virginia without emitting carbon dioxide, which is believed to cause global warming.

The measure, which was introduced yesterday, would be financed with a fee imposed on utility rates paid by consumers and companies. Because the fee would amount to a tax, it very likely will be opposed by most Republicans.

I am not convinced CO2 is pollution, but it is required to believe it is to make “clean coal” a legitimate policy goal. It is possible to produce CO2-free energy from coal… but it just takes a huge proportion of the energy produced to do it.

Billions have been spent since the 1980s on various versions of this concept, including Preisdnet Bush’s “FutureGen” and the “Clean Coal Power Initiative.” The problems, we don’t know how to make coal plans cleaner AND profitable at the same time.

If something like clean coal technology has economic merit, it will have no trouble attracting investors. If it doesn’t, then no amount of fees extracted from you by Sen. Voinovich will magically give it economic merit.

And the last thing Ohio’s struggling economy needs is higher energy prices.

From The Club for Growth:

Yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint offered an amendment that would make the current 15% capital gains tax rate permanent, otherwise it is scheduled to increase to 20% at the end of this year.

The amendment failed, 40-57.  “Republican” Senator George Voinovich sided with most of the Democrat to kill the proposal.  Sen. Ben Nelson was the only Democrat to make the tax rate permanent.

Thankfully, Voinovich is retiring after this year.  He will not be missed.

Rob Portman who is campaigning to replace Vonovich, according to his website, doesn’t agree:

The current tax rate for capital gains and dividend income must be renewed by Congress rather than increased. If Washington gets its way, taxes on capital gains and dividends and taxes on investments will increase significantly. Taxing investments will kill jobs when we need to add jobs.

Because taxes are always taken out on the corporate level, capital gains taxes is double taxation. In addition, the tax does not account for the risk of inflation, which unfairly punishes the elderly and low/middle class investors, as they can’t easily afford to adjust their investment decision. All of this makes for a higher effective tax rate, which encourages investors to retain assets and inhibits new investment.

Since the best way to stop an activity is to tax it, why would America go out of it’s way to discourage more investment and economic activity?

Goodbye George

Columbus Dispatch headline: “Now is time to raise gas tax, Voinovich says”

ugh

If building roads and bridges is the goal, I’d rather the conversation be about Republican-sounding ideas, such as repealing Davis-Bacon.

But instead of the construction being about useful purposes (ie, TRANSPORTING PEOPLE AND GOODS), George Voinovich wants to use such projects as a Keynesian Obama/FDR-style jobs program.

double ugh

From WaPo:

Which is saying something. Seizing on the political opportunity of tax-filing day, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered a “sense of the Senate” resolution expressing opposition to a value-added tax. A VAT is one promising mechanism to bring in additional revenue while promoting savings. There are reasonable arguments against such a tax, but putting any mechanism preemptively off the table is deeply unwise. Disturbingly, the resolution passed by a vote of 85 to 13, with just one Republican, retiring Ohio Sen. George V. Voinovich, and a dozen Democrats bravely voting against it: Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.), Ted Kaufman (Del.), Carl M. Levin (Mich.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Tom Udall (N.M.), James Webb (Va.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.). This is not a good omen for the coming tax debate.

Obviously, our courageous Senator was standing with columnist George Will who would also support the VAT… after the 16th Amendment is repealed.

At an anniversary for the 30th Anniversary of the day he was elected Mayor of Cleveland. He was the only Republican not to not vote against moving forward on debate on socialized health care.

George is a man who will not hesitate to describe himself as a deficit hawk, so thank goodness this health care legislation will actually cut the federal deficit. ha ha ha

Update: My favorite part of Senator Reid’s statement:

Today we vote whether to even discuss one of the greatest issues of our generation – indeed, one of the greatest issues this body has ever face: whether this nation will finally guarantee its people the right to live free from the fear of illness and death, which can be prevented by decent health care for all.

Apparently, we are one step closer to immanentizing the eschaton.

From Mark Naymik The Plain Dealer:

Voinovich reiterated his belief that Strickland should raise taxes by either boosting the sales tax or rescinding the final year of the five-year, 21 percent income-tax cut approved by Republicans in 2005. But while Strickland and Republican lawmakers both refused to consider such options earlier, Voinovich said Strickland still shoulders the responsibility for the budget problems and pushing through a tax increase.

“You are the leader,” he said. “You take heat and you do what has to be done, and when you do that, the people around you have courage.”

It is really that courageous when government decides to pilfer more of your money?

Want to know why I’m so opposed to Mike DeWine? Because he is cut from the same unprincipled cloth as George Voinovich:

U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich today ripped both proposals to expand gambling in Ohio as an “attack on families.”

Speaking as the Ohio Roundtable, a conservative policy group, announced a lawsuit to block Gov. Ted Strickland’s plans for video lottery terminals at horse tracks, Voinovich said both that plan and a ballot measure for full casinos in four cities would suck money out of the pockets of vulnerable people.

Voinovich recalled that he faced similar budget dilemmas, albeit less severe, when he took office in 1991. Voinovich noted that he cut the state budget four times and raised taxes, and would do so again in Strickland’s position.

“I would have raised taxes,” he said.

One of my favorite websites, JunkScience.com, is launching an important campaign against cap-and-trade in Ohio. Read more below the fold…

As expected, Ohio’s Senator George Voinovich voted to confirm our new US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

So my question for Voinovich is: Do legal ethics matter? There was a little reported story about Sotomayor’s deceptive advertising for her lawfirm:

Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor seems to think different rules apply to her than to everyone else.

On Page 143 of her Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, she said she “practiced alone” in a side legal business from 1983 to 1986 “as a consultant to family and friends.” During that time, she also was serving as a prosecutor and then as a member of a larger law firm. Judge Sotomayor listed the name of the solo practice as Sotomayor and Associates.

Advertising a solo practice as if it has more than one lawyer is a problem. Judge Sotomayor appears to have violated this minor but clear rule of legal ethics for four years.

The American Bar Association has noted that “all state bar opinions are in agreement that a lawyer may not use the term, ‘and Associates’ if there are in fact no associates in the firm.” As reported by New York Personal Injury Law Blogger Eric Turkewitz, who first discovered this detail: “in New York, the conduct would fall under DR 2-102″ of the New York Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility, “which bars misleading advertising on a letterhead. If in fact Sotomayor had no associates at her firm, it would appear she overstepped the bounds of self-promotion by making her firm seem bigger than it was.”

So while the Ohio Supreme Court was busy stripping away the law license and issuing a strongly-worded reprimand to a lawyer for exact same offense, George Voinovich confirmed Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court.

The left put their racist bigot on the highest court in the land with Voinovich’s assistance.  oh well

Is Maureen Dowd ghostwriting for Parker?

The fallout from Senator Voinovich insulting conservative Senators DeMint and Coburn has been huge, echoing throughout the blogosphere and cable news.

In response, Senator DeMint was far more gracious and polite about Ohio’s senile Senator than he had to be. What a classy guy:

And so Wolf Blitzer asked DeMint about it on CNN this afternoon: “I wonder what you want to say to Sen. George Voinovich,” Blitzer asked.

Said DeMint: “Well, he is apparently very frustrated. He has decided not to run again. And I don’t mind him taking out his frustrations on me.

“But the fact is, if you look at the southerners, a lot of our elected leadership, like Lamar Alexander, John Cornyn, I mean, these folks are southerners and we’ve got probably the most constructive working members of the Senate, Johnny Isakson, Saxby Chambliss.

“You look at Richard Burr, these are all contributing people. They’re certainly not hurting the party right now. But, Wolf, the point I’ve been trying to make is Maine doesn’t have to be like South Carolina or like California.

If Senator Voinovich was really complaining about too many Southererns in the GOP, he should instead be more concerned about the lack of non-Southerners.  But Voinovich’s insulting comments towards two men of principle, plus his support for bailouts & earmarks, opposition to tax cuts, and setting the groundwork for Ohio’s 2006 Bureau of Worker’s compensation scandals doesn’t exactly help grow the party’s numbers.

Go away, George!

When answering the question what is “The GOP’s biggest problem?”, Senator Voinovich said:

“We got too many Jim DeMints (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburns (R-Ok.). It’s the southerners. They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr.’ People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?’ ”

That may sound elitist and insulting, but senile Voninovich doesn’t really dislike them because of their accent. Instead, he hates them because they actually support conservative principles.

If you work in Sen. Voinovich’s office, please pass my following comments along to him: Errrr, errrr, errrr!

Very ironic. Today, the same day anti-gun Republican Mike DeWine announced his candidacy for Attorney General, his former Senate colleague, George Voinovich, casting one of the two critical votes against a measure which would have authorized concealed carry permit holders to carry their weapons across state lines as long as they aided by other states’ CCW regulations.

And this is only a week after Senator Voinovich showed his willingness to bend over backwards to support the sodomite lobby’s efforts to have their favorite perversions become legally recognized while silencing those who object with their lifestyle.

I really hope that 2010 will be the last year of the dynamic Voinovich/DeWine duo.

I forgot to post this yesterday, but its worth linking to.

What does Columbus Dispatch reporter Joe Hallett thinks Ohio needs to do to improve its situation? Answer: Raise taxes & re-elect George “pop tax” Voinovich.

Absolutely genius! This is why it takes two strong donkeys to carry Hallett’s heavy, massive paycheck up the stairs to his office.

Even though I agree with George on #8, Brian Rothenberg’s “Voinovich Temper Quiz” is quite funny!

(In 2005, I made a website which also made note of Senator Voinovich’s overactive tear-ducts.)