What a Big Government Conservative Looks Like

Erickson runs through Santorum’s voting record.  Here's some of it...

NEA

Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Defense and Foreign Policy

Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same payraises as uniformed military.
Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea

Nominations
Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge

Labor
Voted against National Right to Work Act
Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization

Guns

Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.

Reform

Voted twice for a Congressional payraise.
Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.

Immigration

Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to to the earnings of their sponsors.

Taxes
Voted twice for internet taxes.

Waste
Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion

Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies an new entitlement.
Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.

Education
Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.