It is time for the citizens of Florida to seriously question Sen. Bill Nelson’s thought processes and competency. Is there a correlation between lack of oxygen on his journey into space and his attempting to portray himself as a moderate?

Not having examined the good Senator’s brain, I can’t definitively answer that question. However, the Senator has never met an unconstitutional, freedom robbing bill he didn’t like.

A look at just a sampling of our “moderate” Senator’s voting record suggests a pattern of voting against the wishes of the constituents he claims to represent:

Obamacare

Even though the citizens of Florida overwhelmingly opposed the Federal Government takeover of healthcare and one-sixth of our economy, our Senator enthusiastically voted for it; proving he is a far left ideologue that puts the Obama agenda ahead of the citizens of Florida.

Sen. Nelson has never been honest with the seniors of Florida regarding the $500 billion Obamacare takes from Medicare, much less that said money was double counted through budget gimmicks.

The Senator has not come clean with seniors regarding the loss of the very popular Medicare Advantage plan as Obamacare cut $136 billion from the plan. Also absent from our Senator’s rhetoric is any mention of the $8.35 billion slush fund created to magically extend Medicare Advantage until after the election. You see open enrollment for Medicare Advantage would have begun in October, three weeks before the election so in an astounding abuse of power the Obama administration took the billions from the “demonstrations projects” fund to delay the impact of Obamacare on Medicare Advantage.

Sen. Nelson does not discuss the Independent Payment Advisory Board; the unelected bureaucrats that will be making the decisions as to whom will receive care and exactly what care they are entitled to. Remember the words of Barack Obama, “Maybe they would be better off just taking a pain pill”. Yes, Virginia, there actually is a death panel.

When asked in February, 2011 if Obamacare was constitutional, the Senator replied, “it may be or it may not be”. Way to hedge your bet Senator!

He went on to say upon being asked if the Supreme Court will strike down the law, “I think that’s a possibility, but it’s not a probability. We were very careful when we crafted this law. It is going to pass constitutional muster. There might be parts of it that might be struck down. But there is at the end of it what is called a severability clause, that says if parts are stuck down, that doesn’t strike down the whole law.” Since it is now known there is no severability clause, one wonders exactly what bill the Senator was reading.

The Senator hides from the fact that Obamacare is unconstitutional and completely ends our right to make our own health care decisions.

Stimulus

Sen. Nelson fully supported and touted the aptly misnamed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; otherwise known as the Obama stimulus. We were promised the unemployment rate would never rise above 8% if the plan was passed. Unfortunately the stimulus has been shown to be an abject failure as the unemployment rate has remained above 8% for 35 straight weeks. In fact, since passage of the stimulus plan we have lost 1.1 million jobs.

In a report by the Congressional Budget Office in November, 2011, it was revealed the stimulus plan created far fewer jobs than “expected” and “crowded out” private investment. This was not an “unexpected” revelation from economists and citizens against the plan from the beginning. Apparently our good Senator thought this was a grand scheme.

Is our good Senator aware the price tag for the stimulus has increased from it’s original $787 billion to &825 billion?

Sen. Nelson needs to be questioned on the estimate that each job supposedly created through the stimulus cost taxpayers $278,000.

$140 billion of the stimulus amounted to nothing more than State bailouts, generating no economic activity.

Billions of taxpayer dollars were handed out through the stimulus by the Obama Energy Department to “green energy” scams whose main players have been shown to have close ties to the administration. Many of the companies have filed for bankruptcy and closed down operations. Oops, there goes all those highly touted 5 million new “green energy” jobs we were promised.

A report by Tina Trent on April 16, 2012 showed another huge chunk of the stimulus money went to George Soros backed “redevelopment agencies” resulting in one of the most massive transfers of wealth in our nation’s history through the STAR (States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery) program. STAR boasts quite a membership including the Apollo Alliance, California Green Stimulus Coalition, Green For All, Progressive States Network and Smart Growth America. In his book “Throw Them All Out”, Peter Schweizer reveals that Soros helped craft the stimulus then invested in companies benefiting from it. Perhaps, Sen. Nelson, an investigation into this claim is warranted?

Then we have stimulus funds being used for everything from “studying the effects of cocaine on monkeys”, “an America bashing’ puppet show in Minnesota, $1.3 million in highway signs touting the stimulus, teaching African men to wash their manhood, windows for a visitor center in Washington State that has been closed since 2007, the study of “exotic” ants on islands in the Indian Ocean, turtle tunnels in Florida, a guardrail for a lake in Oklahoma that doesn’t exist to tracking female college students to see if they are more likely to have sex after a few drinks.

Ten thousand “dead” people each received $250 stimulus checks.

The Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board estimates more than $55 billion in waste, fraud and abuse in the stimulus.

Shout out to Sen. Nelson, “Do you not see a problem here?”

Auto Bailouts

Senator Nelson voted for the unconstitutional bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, effectively authorizing the Federal Government’s takeover of private industry.

As if it weren’t bad enough that George W. Bush gave $17.4 billion of TARP Funds to GM and Chrysler, in March, 2009 Obama stepped in and diverted an ever larger amount of TARP funds to GM and Chrysler. Even though he voted against the original TARP bailout, Sen. Nelson voted to hand over the additional funds. In all, almost $77 billion in TARP funds was diverted to GM and Chrysler. The wording of TARP does not permit the funds to be used in this way. However, Sen. Nelson remained mum on the legality of using TARP funds in this manner.

A few months later the companies ended up in bankruptcy court. The government took control of the companies, wiping out shareholders in the process. Obama gave 55% of Chrysler and 17% of GM to the union.

As a result of the auto bailouts, 2,243 dealerships were ordered closed leading to approximately 112, 150 jobs being terminated. Where is the outrage from the good Senator?

The former Obama car czar, Steve Rattner, admitted in December that taxpayers will lose at least $14 billion on the auto bailouts. The Senator seems to be mute on this point also.

Sen. Nelson was an active participant in this dangerous overreach by the Executive branch.

Dodd-Frank

Once again Sen. Nelson was all in for another massive piece of government overreaching legislation, the Dodd-Frank bill.

A recent House Services Committee report found the following alarming details of Dodd-Frank:

Rule making for only 46% of the bill has resulted in more than 5,300 pages of rules. At this pace the end result will be over 12,000 pages of new rules. Perhaps Sen. Nelson’s objective was to provide busy work for government bureaucrats?

Community bankers are being forced to hire compliance officers to deal with the onerous regulations, rather than loan officers; thus, increasing the cost of banking which will ultimately be passed on to consumers. When did the good Senator plan to tell his constituents about this little detail?

Small businesses are being negatively impacted as they must spend increased amounts of time and money wading through the red tape caused by the sheer volume of the new rules and regulations. Is the Senator aware many of his constituents are small business owners?

Investors are hesitant to invest capital in our economy due to the onerous regulations of Dodd-Frank. Does Sen. Nelson feel the destruction of our economy is the right course for America?

Conclusion

This glimpse of only a few of the devastating votes made by Bill Nelson in the United States Senate should lead the citizens of Florida to ask the following questions:

Does the Senator have any concept of the limitations placed on Congress and the Executive Branch by the United States Constitution and, if so, how does he justify his votes on the above issues?

Does the Senator represent the citizens of Florida, or simply follow party ideology?

Does the Senator believe in the ideals that made this Country great?

Does the Senator read any of the massive bills thrown together in haphazard fashion, or simply rubber stamp them?

Does the Senator hear the objections of his constituents to pending legislation?

Does the Senator respond to letters and calls to his office with anything other than an abstract form letter?

Does the Senator hold regularly scheduled town halls to permit his constituents to discuss their opinions on pending legislation with him?

Has the Senator done anything to justify his return to the U.S. Senate?