Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) wrote today in today’s Washington Post:
[Obama’s budget] shows very clearly where the president and the Democratic majority want to take our country: sharply to the left
With all due respect, Senator Gregg, have you seen the 2008 election results? Did you watch the campaign? That’s exactly what they said they would do, and that’s why they’re the majority today. That’s what most people want.
Reaganite Republicans have grown so fossilized in their thinking that accepting reality is now considered to be a leftist principle. The prime precepts of their alternative budget are to cut taxes, freeze most spending for five years, halt stimulus and slash federal health programs for the poor and elderly. This is basically saying the fiscal policies that exacerbated the current situation can fix it if we just do them to a greater degree. Yes, the bursting of the housing bubble brought this on, but the uneven expansion of the Bush era, a lack of reliable spending on infrastructure maintenance, and weakening of the social safety net have made the current recession much deeper than it needs to be. All they left out was a loosening on bank and financial regulations. That should fix things right up.
These guys honest to God don’t get it. For weeks I thought liberal-leaning commentators were overexuberant when predicting the Republicans were on their to becoming a rump party. If they keep this up, I’m not so sure.
Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Oink
It’s hard to know how worked up to get about Congressional earmarks. Forget what Republicans say about fruit flies and bullet trains; much earmarked spending is beneficial and necessary. It’s also true it makes up a small proportion of federal spending, less than two percent in the recently passed omnibus spending bill.
Still, these are tough times; if they’re such an insignificant percentage of the total bill, we can probably get along without them. A symbolic gesture in the direction of fiscal responsibility would be appreciated, since we don’t have the money to pay for any of this stuff right now. Even in good times, worthwhile spending should be able to pass the muster of public scrutiny; After all, it’s our money.
While Republicans get most of the headlines for their constant railing against tax-and-spend Democrats, they are hardly blameless, as six of the top ten Senate earmarkers are Republicans. (David Vitter is on the list. I couldn’t tell how much of his $249 million is for Bourbon Street hooker.) In the interests of fairness, it should be pointed out that Democratic senators have their names on earmarks costing 20% more. (Comparisons are easy, since this is last year’s bill, when both parties had 49 senators. The two independents—Lieberman and Jeffers—were relative misers, spending on average only 28% as much as their peers.)
So it can be stipulated that both parties are at fault here. Democrats earmark more per capita; Republicans have a much higher hypocrisy quotient, because they constantly bitch about earmarks while still bringing home the bacon, to mix metaphors. (Since I’m establishing a precedent and trying to be fair, seven senators attached their names to no earmarks at all: Republicans Coburn, DeMint, McCain, and Stevens; Democrats Feingold, McCaskill, and Obama. Remember, this bill came from last year’s Congress.)
In a perfect world (one run by me), there would be no earmarks. Every dollar spent would be subject to scrutiny, to be defended by its proponents. This might mean Congress would have to work four days a week, but this is a perfect world we’re talking about here. We all know neither of these are going to happen. I propose a compromise: cap the dollar amounts for every member of Congress. The average cost per senator in this bill is $200 million; the median is about $75 million. In the spirit of saving money, let’s say that senators can put their names on earmarks totaling no more than $50 million. Representatives would be capped at about $12 million each, because of their greater numbers and generally smaller districts.
This won’t solve the problem, but it would be a start.
Still, these are tough times; if they’re such an insignificant percentage of the total bill, we can probably get along without them. A symbolic gesture in the direction of fiscal responsibility would be appreciated, since we don’t have the money to pay for any of this stuff right now. Even in good times, worthwhile spending should be able to pass the muster of public scrutiny; After all, it’s our money.
While Republicans get most of the headlines for their constant railing against tax-and-spend Democrats, they are hardly blameless, as six of the top ten Senate earmarkers are Republicans. (David Vitter is on the list. I couldn’t tell how much of his $249 million is for Bourbon Street hooker.) In the interests of fairness, it should be pointed out that Democratic senators have their names on earmarks costing 20% more. (Comparisons are easy, since this is last year’s bill, when both parties had 49 senators. The two independents—Lieberman and Jeffers—were relative misers, spending on average only 28% as much as their peers.)
So it can be stipulated that both parties are at fault here. Democrats earmark more per capita; Republicans have a much higher hypocrisy quotient, because they constantly bitch about earmarks while still bringing home the bacon, to mix metaphors. (Since I’m establishing a precedent and trying to be fair, seven senators attached their names to no earmarks at all: Republicans Coburn, DeMint, McCain, and Stevens; Democrats Feingold, McCaskill, and Obama. Remember, this bill came from last year’s Congress.)
In a perfect world (one run by me), there would be no earmarks. Every dollar spent would be subject to scrutiny, to be defended by its proponents. This might mean Congress would have to work four days a week, but this is a perfect world we’re talking about here. We all know neither of these are going to happen. I propose a compromise: cap the dollar amounts for every member of Congress. The average cost per senator in this bill is $200 million; the median is about $75 million. In the spirit of saving money, let’s say that senators can put their names on earmarks totaling no more than $50 million. Representatives would be capped at about $12 million each, because of their greater numbers and generally smaller districts.
This won’t solve the problem, but it would be a start.
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