By Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) Until this point, Republicans have been proud to call themselves President Bush’s partner. But the special-interest agenda Republicans have been pushing is costing Americans at home and abroad more than ever. For the past five years the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress has cost American families and will cost Republicans at the ballot box next year. Independent, nonpartisan congressional voting analysis shows that President Bush has seen a level of loyalty from his party in Congress that has not been seen by past presidents. Last year, congressional Republicans voted with the president more than 80 percent of the time. Unfortunately for the American people, those votes have been on an agenda that puts the special interests first and the interests of American families last. The priorities of the White House and the Republican Congress are at times completely divergent from the things that matter to American families. Across the country, American families are suffering. They are paying more at the pump, more at the pharmacy counter and more in home-heating costs, yet all we see coming out of the Congress are more special-interest giveaways to the very interests that control those everyday essentials. Just this month, Republicans left $14 billion dollars in subsidies for big oil in the budget at the same time they cut student aid by $14 billion — the largest cut in history. In response, the public has lost confidence in the White House and, to an even greater degree, in Congress. Two out of three Americans view Congress unfavorably. Further, in April 2002, only 12 percent of Americans said they would be more likely to support someone who opposed President Bush on major issues. This November, 55 percent of Americans now say they prefer candidates who do not support the president. There is clear evidence that the American people are wholly rejecting this Republican Rubber Stamp Congress. Perhaps there is no better example of this rubber-stamp behavior than the federal budget where the Republican Congress chose: • Corporate tax cuts for Wall Street over tax relief for main-street American families — they claimed to be fixing a $4 billion problem with a $150 billion giveaway to the special interests. • More than $14 billion in giveaways to big energy, and then they cut more than $14 billion in student aid. • A sham prescription-drug plan and dressed it up as a prescription-drug “benefit.