AL – Bonner, Jo

Jo Bonner was elected to the House in 2002 during a good Republican year, and has held his seat for five terms. In 2011, he was the biggest underperformer in Alabama. Worse, he is on the appropriations committee. 

While conservatives cheered on the effort to keep the GOP pledge by cutting $100 billion from the 2011 budget, this member deemed it “misguided.” Bonner is one of those who used his membership with the Republican Study Committee as a means of concealing his affinity for big-government from his conservative constituents.  After years of voting against every single RSC proposal, and after realizing that the group would not roll over and genuflect before leadership, he summarily terminated his membership.

Throughout his career, he has been a reliable vote for CAFE standards, ethanol, price and wage controls, and all sorts of subsidies.

His southern Alabama district is so conservative that he faced no Democrat opponent in 2010. His nearest competition was from the Constitution Party. Bonner is a true red state statist.

Statist co-sponsorships:

• H.R. 4105 Countervailing Tariffs on Imports – This bill is nothing more than a backdoor tax increase that induces higher prices on imported products for countries in southeast Asia.