Dave Brat: America’s bottom 80 percent is sinking
Dave Brat: America’s bottom 80 percent is sinking
FRESH BLOOD: U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., breaks the stereotype of corporate Republicanism.
By Kenric Ward | Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. – U.S. Rep. Dave Brat says he wants to be the “most boring guy in Congress.” That doesn’t mean the freshman congressman is quietly going along to get along.
The populist Republican who knocked out House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last fall in a stunning Virginia primary says his first eight weeks on Capitol Hill “seemed like 14 years.”
“I’m even more in favor of term limits,” the former Randolph-Macon College professor said.
“We need some big, big changes,” Brat told Watchdog.org in an interview. But he said he sees no sign of things turning around as long as D.C. remains mired in politics as usual.
“I’m a macro-economic guy,” the former economics and ethics instructor said. “I vote no if it’s bad for the country.”
Citing recent examples, the 7th Congressional District lawmaker opposed the bloated Cromnibusspending bill, as well as funding for the Export-Import Bank, derisively known as “Boeing’s Bank” for its corporate dealings. He also voted against returning John Boehner as House speaker, while managing to hold onto his seats at the budget, education and workforce committees when the Ohio Republican was re-elected.
Brat urges conservatives – and Americans at large — to stay focused on “big issues.”
“The Keystone pipeline is symbolic. Don’t over-hype it. What’s most important is speeding up the whole economy,” he said.
In that vein, Brat said the country would be better served by “getting rid of the EPA, which is killing off small businesses.”
Defying corporatist conservatives and libertarians alike, Brat calls illegal immigration a linchpin to the coming elections.
“When you increase the supply of cheap labor by 12 million workers through amnesty, wages go down,” he said.
Sounding more like firebrand Democratic Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren than buttoned-down Mitt Romney, the GOP congressman notes, “The bottom 80 percent of American workers are losing. This is what 2016 is all about: Who’s really going to help the middle class?”
While Brat and Warren talk tough about crony capitalism, he parts company with the Massachusetts liberal on policy. “They have no solutions,” Brat said of Warren and other statist Democrats. “We do.”
The prescription, he said, starts with smaller government, free markets and, most importantly, the rule of law. If voting that way is boring or discommodes the Republican establishment, so be it.
“I ran on economics, and everyone is going to know how I’m going to vote because I follow the Constitution. It’s about what’s good for the country — not what’s good for special interests.”
Kenric Ward is a national reporter for Watchdog.org and chief of the Virginia Bureau. Contact him at kenric@watchdogvirginia.org or at (571) 319-9824. @Kenricward
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