Incoming Senate More Conservative

The 2004 election brought significant turnover in the United States Senate. What will the Senate election mean for taxpayers? Because most of the incoming Senators have previous service in the House of Representatives, a comparison can be made of the fiscal records of the outgoing Senators and most of the new Senators.

To undertake the analysis, this Issue Brief utilizes the most recent National Taxpayers Union (NTU) Rates Congress grades for outgoing and incoming Senators. Of course, 2003 grades were available for all nine outgoing Senators. Grades were available for six of the nine incoming Senators (Senator-elect Obama (IL), Senator-elect Salazar (CO), and Senator-elect Martinez (FL) did not have previous service in the United States House of Representatives).[1]

The NTU Rates Congress data presents a comprehensive picture of the fiscal records of these Senators and Senators-elect. Unlike those of other organizations, NTU's annual Rating does not simplistically focus on only a handful of equally-weighted "key votes." For this reason, it has received praise from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. NTU's Rating is based on every roll call vote affecting fiscal policy (in 2003, NTU included 287 House and 269 Senate votes), and assigns a "Taxpayer Score" to each Member of Congress that indicates his or her commitment to reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation.

Table 1 provides an overview of all nine states with new Senators. Among the highlights of the data:

The bottom line is that supporters of limited government and lower taxes got very good news in the 2004 Senate elections. Come January 2005, taxpayers will have new allies in the Senate on critical votes on appropriations bills, budget process reform, pending energy and transportation bills bloated with pork, Social Security reform, and tax relief.

[1] As of the writing of this Issue Brief, Senator Lisa Murkowski was leading her race in Alaska, but results had not been finalized.

The Senate Judiciary Committee needs Tom Coburn instead of the feminazi Arlene Spectacle.

Newly elected senators cover political spectrum

Tom Coburn, Republican, 56. Coburn, a physician, returns to Congress four years after leaving his House seat because of self-imposed term limits.

Coburn is a leading opponent of abortion who has said he would support the death penalty for those who perform abortions if the procedure were made illegal.

He is known for his willingness to break with the party leadership.

Amazon.com: Books: Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders ...

Tom A. Coburn, a congressional maverick who kept his promise to serve three terms and then leave Washington, offers a candid look at the inner workings of Congress—why the system changes politicians instead of vice versa. Breach of Trust shows readers, through shocking behind-the-scenes stories, why Washington resists the reform our country desperately needs and how they can make wise, informed decisions about current and future political issues and candidates. This honest and critical look at "business as usual" in Congress reveals how and why elected representatives are quickly seduced into becoming career politicians who won’t push for change. Along the way, Coburn offers readers realistic ideas for how to make a difference.

Citizen Magazine - Cover Story - 'There's no one I'm afraid to ...

He has seen Congress agree to limit its spending, only to abandon its pledge at the first opportunity. Dr. Coburn's diagnosis: Another all-time greatest sin — greed. Congress often forgets whose money it's spending. Dr. Coburn's prescription: When Congress tries to sneak one past the voters, blow the whistle, even when it costs your own district millions in federal funds.

He has seen how America is prosperous but its politics are spiritually impoverished. Dr. Coburn's diagnosis: Unbelief. Congress has forgotten God, and God is brokenhearted. Dr. Coburn's prescription: Lead a Bible study for staffers and meet each week with your roommates, five other congressmen, who ask you the tough questions.

He's seen how congressmen, awed by the seductive grandeur of Washington, D.C., decide they never want to live outside this marbled city again. They impress themselves with their own accomplishments. They are indispensable. Dr. Coburn's diagnosis: Pride and arrogance. They have forgotten the Founding Fathers' vision — a body of citizen legislators who serve their country for a time and return to their farms, businesses and families. Dr. Coburn's prescription: Ask your fellow politicians to limit their term in office. That way they're less likely to trade their integrity for a highway project or a lofty committee assignment.

And if you're Tom Coburn, once you've made your rounds on Capitol Hill and done what you could, you simply go home.

Pork hunter, pork killer

Coburn is a physician by trade, but his business experience proved invaluable when he first confronted the federal budget. In six months, he had it figured out; the budget is meant to obfuscate, because there's a lot to hide. Trouble was, few members want the public to know the truth.

Coburn first aroused his colleagues' wrath in 1997, when Gingrich and other Republican leaders proposed a 10 percent increase in funding for House operations, a move that Coburn and 10 other conservatives said was inconsistent with the campaign pledges they had made to reduce the size of government.

When the 11 members singlehandedly blocked the increase, Gingrich summoned them to a room in the Capitol basement where more than 200 other House Republicans were waiting. Gingrich called them "stupid" and "shortsighted idiots," according to one of the 11, Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., and asked each of them to go to a microphone and explain their actions. Gingrich meant to intimidate them, but it backfired, said another one of the 11, Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.

Largent was the first to speak. "You can't intimidate me," Sanford recalls Largent saying. "I've crossed a picket line in the NFL. I had 280-pound linebackers who wanted to kill me, and could have."

"The people in the room identified with the 11," Sanford recalls, "and completely flipped their opinion. It was as inspiring as any moment during the [nation's] founding in Philadelphia. It was like a movie set."

Citizen Magazine - Ring of Power

As the title suggests, Breach of Trust contains its share of indignation. Coburn spends many pages denouncing the tactics he routinely saw used by politicians who promised to rein in big government—breaking "budget resolutions," raiding the Social Security trust fund, disguising permanent spending hikes as one-time "emergency measures." And he voices special dismay over members of his own party whom he found to be as profligate as the Democrats they’d decried as big spenders.

[The Republican] Leadership’s favorite argument in defense of excessive spending was "Clinton made us do it," and the dissidents in the alleged "perfectionist caucus" [Newt Gingrich’s derogatory term for Coburn and other budget-cutters] made the situation worse because they refused to accept the realities of compromise in representative government. While Clinton certainly made it difficult for us to reduce the size of government, he was hardly forcing us to fund some of his favorite programs at higher levels than he had requested. Between 1998 and 2000, the Cato Institute reported that our discretionary budgets exceeded Clinton’s requests by more than $30 billion.

But while Coburn’s appalled at all this, he’s not altogether surprised. He’s a Christian with a well-developed worldview that flows from his faith, so he sees the biggest problem in D.C. as something very basic: original sin.

Politicians have been tempted by the allure of power since the dawn of time. It was Adam’s desire to be like God, to have an extra measure of power, which led him to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Some of the greatest works of literature, such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, have focused on this theme. … the hero embarks on a quest to destroy a ring of power that corrupts its user and becomes harder to destroy the closer the hero gets to the source of the ring’s power. The struggle in Tolkien’s story parallels the very human tendency for most members of Congress to become more addicted to power the longer they stay in Washington and the closer they get to centers of power within leadership and committees.

Notice that word "addicted." Coburn doesn’t mean it as hyperbole. As a doctor, he sees a very real, very strong parallel between the political class and a less respectable segment of society.

When I came to Washington, I was troubled to observe so many similarities between the behaviors of drug-addicted patients and my political colleagues. In Washington, power is like morphine. It dulls the senses, impairs judgment, and leads politicians to make choices that damage their own character and the machinery of our democracy.

That damage shows up in numerous ways, not always political: Coburn cites the high divorce rate in Congress, even among some members who champion family values. (He cites the case of one he’d especially admired who left his wife for a female staffer.) To avoid such pitfalls, Coburn and a few other Christian congressmen lived together and held each other accountable.

Coburn doesn’t invoke these words as the counsel of despair. Rather, he’s using them as a wake-up call both to the country’s leaders and to its people. He’s convinced that the only way to get back on track is to return to the Constitution, with a far smaller federal government—he suggests one about half the size it is now—and with most of the business of life in the hands of individual states, communities, private groups (including churches) and, of course, families.

No civilization in history that has indulged in a massive expansion of its central government has long survived. Unless members of Congress and the American people restore their allegiance to the constitutional principle of limited government, America will follow the path of other great civilizations that decayed because of their own excesses.

The message isn’t fun and doesn’t make for high TV ratings: As Coburn says, "CNN will never air alongside a ‘Showdown with Saddam’ segment a ‘Showdown with Unsustainable Government’ segment." But we’d do well to heed it, if we want what Benjamin Franklin said we had: "A republic … if you can keep it."•

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Table 1. The Latest NTU Grades of Outgoing & Incoming Senators
State	Outgoing Senator	Latest NTU Rates Congress Grade	(Year)	Incoming Senator	Latest NTU Rates Congress Grade	(Year)
Oklahoma	Nickles	A	2003	Coburn	A	2000
South Carolina	Hollings	F	2003	DeMint	A	2003
Georgia	Miller	C+	2003	Isakson	B	2003
Louisiana	Breaux	D	2003	Vitter	B-	2003
North Carolina	Edwards	F	2003	Burr	B-	2003
South Dakota	Daschle	F	2003	Thune	B-	2002
Colorado	Campbell	B-	2003	Salazar	N.A.
Florida	Graham	F	2003	Martinez	N.A.
Illinois	Fitzgerald	B	2003	Obama	N.A.