Middle Class 2004: How Congress Voted issues each member of Congress, as well as the House and Senate as a whole, a letter grade based on their 2004 votes on selected pieces of legislation affecting the middle class. We chose bills that, if passed, would have an impact on the squeezed middle class, as well as the aspirations of low-income Americans who want to work their way into the middle class.
Middle Class 2004 concludes that Congress did not rise to the occasion when presented with the opportunity to support policies strengthening and expanding the middle class.
MAIN FINDINGS:
• Neither chamber of Congress did an adequate job of supporting the middle class. In both the House and the Senate, about half the members passed, half failed and less than a quarter received As.
• Despite a more lenient grading system than last year’s report, Congress did significantly worse overall in 2004.
• While the vast majority—90 percent—of Senate Republicans received
an F, nearly half of Senate Democrats received an A for their support
of the middle class.
• The same partisan pattern is observable in the House, where 99 percent of Republicans failed to support the middle class and slightly fewer than half of Democrats received an A.
• Democratic support for the middle class dropped off most drastically when it came to the American Jobs Creation Act (HR 4520) and the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Act (S 1920). In both bills corporate special interests lobbied heavily against the interests of the middle class.
• The Republicans showed the most support for the middle class on the
Pension Funding Equity Act (HR 3108), which was also championed
by large companies with pension plans.
• Out of the 14 votes considered, the middle-class position won out six times. However, even this feeble 43 percent success rate masks an even worse outcome, since bills like the Overtime Compensation Amendment —supported by the middle class— won votes in the House and Senate but never became law.
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