Robert P. Casey Jr. is seeking his fourth term in the U.S. Senate.
A Public Broadcasting website describes Casey as, “a key ally of labor unions and President Joe Biden. … Casey, a moderate Democrat, has backed all of Biden’s top priorities and forged a close relationship with the president…”
For the record, no one who has “backed all of Biden’s top priorities” can possibly be “moderate.”
Casey’s Republican opponent, David McCormick, is running ads claiming that Casey votes with Biden 98 percent of the time. The Congressional Record provides proof.
However, McCormick may be missing essential context.
According to left-leaning political analytics organization FiveThirtyEight, avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders only voted with Biden 90.9 percent of the time.
In that context, a case could be made that Bob Casey is more liberal than Sanders — as well as another of the Senate’s farthest left-liberal members, Elizabeth Warren — 95.5 percent.
On the House side, Casey’s “votes with Biden” percentage is more liberal than that of “Democratic Socialist” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — 91.1 percent — and Ilhan Omar — 93.8 percent.
Pro-McCormick ads also accuse Casey of fueling the record inflation that has hit Pennsylvania especially hard.
Government overspending is the real cause of inflation, a fact of which Casey would have voters remain ignorant.
Pent-up post-COVID demand was already overheating the economy when Casey voted for $4 trillion of new “stimulus” that drove inflation to a 9+ percent annual inflation rate. Overall, key staple costs are 20-30 percent higher than in 2021.
Senator Casey has voted for increases to the national debt limit, foreign aid, “environmental” programs, and other expenditures that far exceeded tax revenues. The government printed unsecured dollars to cover the shortfall, thereby devaluing the dollars people earn and save.
Today, nearly two-thirds of American households are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Pretending that he and Biden/Harris had nothing to do with causing inflation, Casey has made “greedflation” and “shrinkflation” campaign distractions.
For the uninitiated, those terms, contrived to cast anonymous corporate CEOs as shadowy, stereotypical villains, were plagiarized from Joe Biden’s pre-coup playbook. Kamala Harris is running the same plays.
They say, “blame corporate greed for inflation, not me.”
However, the Producer Price Index (PPI) reveals that the costs of materials, tools and services to producers have been tracking, sometimes exceeding the rate of consumer inflation.
Casey would punish businesses through price controls and by raising corporate tax rates. But price controls cause shortages, and corporations don’t pay taxes. Corporate taxes are added to the costs of the products consumers purchase.
Basic economics are difficult for people like Casey who have been sucking at the public teat nearly their entire adult lives.
Ironically, in a cynical head fake to fiscal responsibility, Casey voted “yea” on the toothless Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
Citing his vote “for the strongest border bill in history,” Bob Casey’s campaign ads claim that he is somehow strong on border security and illegal immigration.
Casey is “strong,” but not in the way he’d have voters believe.
Casey supported an “immigration” bill crafted by his Senate leadership that would institutionalize “catch and release,” give illegal immigrants immediate work permits and taxpayer-funded attorneys, give billions of dollars to sanctuary cities, and permit the admission of 5,000 illegal immigrants a day, or 1.825 million illegals per year, every year — forever.
Casey’s ads have also been bombarding voters with other misleading, sometimes fraudulent claims, including that, in his executive role at a large hedge fund, McCormick invested in Chinese companies, including China’s largest fentanyl producer.
But, Casey intentionally provides no context.
Every large institutional investment firm invests in international markets, including China’s. Individual IRAs and personal assets – including Casey’s – held by institutions such as Vanguard and Fidelity, as well as workers’ retirement funds, may include Chinese investments. Moreover, China is among America’s largest suppliers of pharmaceuticals, and fentanyl is a synthetic opioid pain reliever approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
If Casey expects to be taken seriously, he must produce evidence of malicious intent or criminal wrongdoing in McCormick’s/his institutional employer’s investments. He cannot.
Finally, David McCormick’s personal views on abortion are irrelevant. He’s running for national office. Abortion policy is a state-by-state matter, so single-issue, pro-abortion voters, take your grisly crusade to Harrisburg.
Bob Casey Jr. clearly thinks Pennsylvania voters are stupid, which, in his case, is a clinical example of psychological projection.
Contact columnist Jerry Shenk at [email protected]
