Will Republicans Go Soft on Spending?

Feeling pressure to wrap up work on 11 of the 12 unfinished appropriations bills that fund the federal government, congressional Democrats will push this week to pass a mammoth omnibus spending package just in time for Christmas.

Omnibus bills traditionally are called “Christmas trees,” because lawmakers decorate them with all kinds of expensive “presents” for the folks back home. This year’s omnibus is shaping up the same way, with many lawmakers hoping it will let them bring home a sleigh full of pork with an offering of budget gimmicks and plenty of policy changes to boot. American taxpayers would be wise to tell this Santa to stay away.

But those who prefer fiscal restraint to pork might not even know the omnibus is a raw deal from the way the press is spinning the story. Headlines such as “Dems Cave on Spending” and “Democrats Yield on Spending Impasse” gave the impression last week that President Bush scored a significant victory because Democrats would exceed his total by only $3.7 billion.

Well they certainly folded like a cheap suit when they had real power, what’s to give any hope they will hold any spending line now?
Very little fiscal responsibility in either party, little difference at all in the two parties.
Very few would even care to have dinner with any current politicians. Most I’d simply throw out of my house.
Scurvey dogs that steal and spend my money.

A recent letter that I submitted to the Wall Street Journal:

3 December 2007
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
Dear Editor:
Over this last year, I have read a handful of opinions in these pages on the topic of tax cuts and how tax cuts increase tax revenue. Rudy Giuliani’s opinion, The Meaning of Fiscal Conservatism (3 December) was the last straw for my level of tolerance on this topic. Enough already!
This isn’t just a criticism of Mr. Giuliani; this is criticism of all fiscal conservatives who have not moved beyond the way the current argument is framed, especially on these op/ed pages. As fiscal conservatives, we will never see reductions in spending if we play nice and try getting the tax rate to some optimal level that attempts to maximize revenue to the U.S. Treasury. We must champion for tax rates that seek to put us on the correct side of the Laffer Curve – the lower tax rate, lower revenue yielding side.
Could it be possible that the fiscal ‘progressives’ have been playing us for fools during the last two decades and that even they know that tax cuts bring in more money in which to spend? Think about that: ‘progressive’ lawmakers ask for government expanding concessions in order to swallow the supposed bitter pill of any proposed tax cut. In the end, the tax cuts are responsible for the additional revenue to pay for such expansions. Progressives are clever. We have not been.

The WSJ has not found this fit to publish but I am hoping that it was at least considered and has caught someone's attention -- someone who, later, may wish to write something similar in an upcoming op/ed.

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