Senator Jon Kyl Gets an ‘F’, as in “Fuck You, Middle Class!”

Jon Kyl gets an F for fairness to the middle class from the Drum Major Institute. Scoring just 13 on a 100 point scale, Kyl clearly demonstrated his contempt for the intelligence of the voters, and the needs of middle class families with his votes.

The bills examined by DMI include major changes to our laws that impact the bottom lines of millions of families across the country and tilt the playing field of our economy heavily toward vested corporate interests at the expense of consumers and tax-payers.

On negotiating Medicare drug prices, Kyl voted to restrict the ability of the government to save taxpayers money, so that drug companies could maintain higher prices. Kyl’s vote constitutes a multi-billion dollar subsidy to an industry that is already the most profitable on earth at the expense of American taxpayers and patients.

On the Bankruptcy Act of 2005, Kyl voted to restrict existing bankruptcy law which will result in many families being held hostage to creditors as a result of hard times. Kyl will defend his vote as a needed reform to combat fraud, but that’s merely an excuse without factual foundation; his vote was simply a gift to financial services companies at the expense of the average American family who gets into financial trouble and will now find it harder than ever to get back on their feet.

On the Class Action Act, Kyl voted to make it harder for consumers to bring their injuries to court, making them wait longer than ever for justice and compensation. Those harmed by industrial pollution, unfair labor practices, deceptive marketing, and defective products, many of whom have life-long health conditions which must be cared for, will now have a harder time thanks to Kyl’s solicitude for big business at the expense of the victims of corporate negligence and greed.

On the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 Kyl voted to slash the funding of Medicare, Medicaid, and student loans, in order to reduce the deficit by just $38.8 billion over five years. It was a major failure to address the budgetary profligacy of this Administration and this GOP Congress that harmed millions of middle class folks rather than shut off the unfair tax bribes given to the ultra-wealthy by the GOP.

Even now. Kyl is demonstrating his real and enduring fealty to serving the wealthiest 1/10,000th of Americans by his ceaseless campaign to repeal the Dynasty Tax. America’s handful of wealthiest families seek to eliminate what they term the ‘Death Tax’ so that they can go on concentrating wealth in the hands of just a few dynastic families. Kyl’s main political goal is to help them accomplish this goal and to eliminate billions more in federal revenue, which will have to be made up by average taxpayers, or stripped from vital programs by such sort-sighted measures as the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Kyl voted for the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) which, like NAFTA, lacks protections for American workers and will cause sharp reductions in the living standards of the poor in the partner countries of Central America and the Carribean basin. At the same time as Kyl is voting for a trade agreement that will almost certainly spark a new wave of economic immigrants to this country, Kyl remains committed to a punative and unrealistic immigration policy that fails to address the causes of Mexican immigration, and fails to constructively engage the issue.

Kyl also voted down the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005, denying American workers a livable wage. The current minimum wage puts a full-time worker under the federal poverty line. Such shamefully low, exploitation wages are truly destructive to American families. Kyl will say that small business can’t afford such wages, but states with higher minimum wages than the federal floor grew their small business sectors nearly twice as fast as those without. Kyl only cares about ensuring maximum profits for corporate interests, not about an expanding economy that benefits all Americans.

Finally, Kyl remains committed to privatizing Social Security and slashing benefits. His refusal to vote for the Sense of the Senate in Support of Social Security resolution, which expressed the need for solutions that do not produce large short-term dificts (as privitization would do) or require deep benefit cuts, says all that needs be said about Kyl’s determination to put average and most vulnerable Americans last.

Kyl is proven again and again that he is wrong for middle class Arizona, and wrong for middle class America. His voting record is class warfare of the most insidious sort. He’s not a leader; he’s a political vulture picking off the dying and weak for his corporate masters. He is willing to lie and mislead the public about his record to serve his real masters, the Neo-Con cabal of the GOP and the wealthiest corporate interests able to give him millions in legalized bribes to maintain his power over Arizona. Arizonans should be furious, and should demand a change.

Oh, and in case you were suffering under the delusion that Senator John McCain is any better or any different, he also got an F and scored just 25. Some maverick.