The U.S. Senate voted today on an amendment sponsored by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint that would have stopped the raid of social security dollars to spend on unrelated programs. We made this vote a key vote in our Prosperity Ratings for all of the reasons I explained in my NYSun column on Tuesday.  I wrote about the DeMint Amendment specifically last year on NRO.

Senator DeMint is a true hero on this issue and for keeping some momentum going for Social Security reform.

The only Democrat to vote to stop the raid was Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. We commend her for putting doing what's right ahead of partisan politics. This is especially noteworthy because her predecessor, Sen. Jim Talent, voted against the DeMint Amendment last year.

Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting to continue the raid: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Gordon Smith of Oregon.

Smith is also sponsoring an amendment to hike the federal cigarette excise tax by over 150 percent. (We are scoring a vote against this amendment as a vote for prosperity in our Prosperity Ratings.) Whether these left turns by Sen. Smith are good for his re-election chances or not they are certainly against the interests of taxpayers.