Politicians & Pundits: Marco Rubio

Barriers To Reform: The Anti-Immigration Policies And Extremist Money Blocking Progress In The Senate

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As immigration reform moves forward in the Senate, the success of any legislation will depend on the cooperation of conservative lawmakers with troubling histories on the issue. However, it is not only their past policy positions and quotes that are disturbing. These key conservative senators also share a history of campaign contributors who also fund extremist anti-immigrant organizations, including those labeled as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Each of the Republican senators in the immigration “gang of eight” have supported extreme positions and aligned themselves with anti-immigrant forces. Beyond the “gang,” leading conservatives such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sens. John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, David Vitter, and Ted Cruz will figure prominently into the fate of immigration reform despite having similarly concerning records.

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Romney’s “47 Percent” Comments Reflect Conservative Dogma

The Mother Jones video of Mitt Romney telling his donors that the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax are entitled, dependent “victims” is consistent with the nominee’s preference for addressing inequality “in quiet rooms.” But this is no mere pander to wealthy Republican donors. In the Obama era, conservatives have fully embraced the notion that those who owe no federal income tax must have more “skin in the game.” That means raising income taxes on the bottom 47 percent of earners.

In August of last year, the Wall Street Journal labeled this soak-the-poor idea “the new Republican orthodoxy.” Indeed, Republican leaders, movement activists, and powerful conservative institutions have pushed for “skin in the game,” for higher taxes on the bottom half of the income distribution.

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Conservatives Turn A Cold Shoulder To Climate Science

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Agreement among climate scientists and scientific organizations that the globe is warming and humans are contributing to it is nearly unanimous, and the hard evidence to back up that position is readily available. Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve been any time in the last 400,000 years; arctic ice is melting; and the global temperature has been steadily increasing, with all ten of the warmest years since recordkeeping began occurring within the last 12 years. As recently as 2008, the political consensus roughly mirrored the scientific consensus on the reality of climate change, but thanks to a concerted effort from corporations and industries that stand to benefit financially from lax oversight of emissions, the conservative establishment has slowly embraced climate change skepticism, with some flat-out denying that warming is occurring and others merely hedging on whether or not it’s a problem that needs to be addressed.

Many National Conservative Figures Are Climate Skeptics – A Change From 2008

In 2008, Both GOP And Democratic Candidates Believed In Global Warming. From the New York Times: “In 2008, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president, Barack Obama and John McCain, warned about man-made global warming and supported legislation to curb emissions.” [New York Times, 10/15/11]

By 2012, GOP Presidential Candidates Were Skeptical Of Climate Science. From the New York Times: “But two years later, now that nearly every other nation accepts climate change as a pressing problem, America has turned agnostic on the issue. In the crowded Republican presidential field, most seem to agree with Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that ‘the science is not settled’ on man-made global warming, as he said in a debate last month. Alone among Republicans onstage that night, Jon M. Huntsman Jr. said that he trusted scientists’ view that the problem was real.” [New York Times, 10/15/11]

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