Cross-posted from The Apollo Report
Congresswoman Cheri Bustos (D-IL-17) appears to be supporting President Obama's plan to cut Social Security benefits by implementing Chained CPI...after all, she has refused to sign the "No Cuts" letter to the President authored by Progressive Democratic Congressmen Alan Grayson and Mark Takano.
My friends at the progressive blog Prairie State Blue wrote this post encouraging Bustos's constituents to call her office and tell her to sign the Grayson/Takano letter to oppose cuts to Social Security.
However, if Bustos does not sign the Grayson/Takano letter, she could very well face a primary challenge, and Social Security won't be the only big issue if Bustos draws a credible primary challenger. One has to remember that Bustos was elected to Congress in 2012 after a group of workers at the Sensata plant in Freeport, which is in the northern part of the 17th Congressional District of Illinois that Bustos represents in Congress, walked off the job and protested against offshoring and outsourcing of American jobs overseas after hearing that the Sensata plant was slated to be closed and the jobs there were to be shipped to China. Bustos promised the Sensata workers, as well as everyone else in the 17th District, that she'd support the Bring Home the Jobs Act if she won election to Congress. Bustos won the election, but she hasn't done anything whatsoever to support the Bring Home the Jobs Act since the election. While Republicans control the House of Representatives, Bustos could introduce the Bring Home the Jobs Act at any time just to see if Republicans are willing to publicly defend shipping American jobs overseas by opposing the bill.
Could one of the Bainport protestors defeat Cheri Bustos in a Democratic primary in 2014? It's certainly possible.
The Apollo Report is my new progressive political blog where I write posts about Illinois, Wisconsin, and national politics. I will repost some of my Apollo Report articles on DailyKos from time to time. You can also "like" The Apollo Report on Facebook.