DeMint: Stimulus Is a ‘Mugging’

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said that he likes President Obama but has no love for his stimulus plan.

“This bill is not a stimulus, ladies and gentlemen; it is a mugging. It is a fraud,” DeMint said during a speech at The Heritage Foundation on Thursday, TalkingPointsMemo reported.

DeMint said that the bill was “the worst piece of economic legislation Congress has considered in a hundred years.”

“Not since the passage in 1909 of the 16th Amendment — which cleared the way for a federal income tax — has the United States seriously entertained a policy so comprehensively hostile to economic freedom, nor so arrogantly indifferent to economic reality,” he added.

DeMint, one of the upper chambers most conservative members, prefaced his attack on the stimulus by praising Obama.

“I like President Obama very much,” he said. “We were elected to the Senate at the same time and we’ve worked together on a number of common goals. I believe he wants to do what is best for our country.”

DeMint has already shown himself to be one of the Obama administration’s staunchest opponents; in addition to railing against the stimulus, he was one of only two senators to vote against confirmation for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.