Posted on 01/26/2010 12:05:08 PM PST by rabscuttle385
Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are jumping on the spending freeze bandwagon, calling on Congress to flatline discretionary spending—and they issued a challenge to the president the day after the White House proposed its own three-year budget freeze.
"If the president is serious—and I believe he is—he should also say tomorrow night he will veto the first appropriations bill that comes to his desk that has an earmark on it," McCain said.
The Fiscal Freeze Act of 2010, which Bayh and McCain hope to introduce to the Senate later this week, includes provisions to install a spending freeze and earmark moratorium until the deficit is eliminated, enforce the Congressional budget resolution as binding law and even create a constitutionally viable line-item veto to "give the President power to strike out wasteful earmarks and other extraneous spending items."
Both McCain and Bayh are up for re-election this year.
The senators’ announcement comes after a failed 53-46 roll call vote on creating a statutory deficit commission amendment and in advance of Wednesday's State of the Union address, when Obama plans to announce his spending freeze on non security spending.
When asked about his take on Obama's about-face on spending caps — and the president's accusation when he was a candidate that McCain was out-of-touch for suggesting just such a spending freeze — McCain commended the President's recent actions while gently chiding his rhetoric on the trail.
"I think the president understands now how serious this problem is, that it requires hatchets and scalpels. It requires a hatchet to get the budget under control and it requires a scalpel to eliminate wasteful and unnecessary spending," McCain said. "So I appreciate the fact that the president has changed his position since the campaign."
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I agree. The Independents, who now control some regional and the national election, are finally awake and are watching this administration closely. (See Mass.) They will be critical of partisian shenanigans by this administration.
I agree. The Independents, who now control some regional and the national election, are finally awake and are watching this administration closely. (See Mass.) They will be critical of partisian shenanigans by this administration.
Interesting isn’t it that the Dummies are all for it now.
Guess who is going to get the shaft.
Political enemies.
This is just another attempt to weild power in a retribution for not towing the line.
Someone in Congress with the actual numbers needs to put some data together to show how inconsequential this all is.
Yup. The repubs passed it into law once and it was struck down by SCOTUS.
Cosmetic. Mirrors. Inconsequential in comparison to the mega-billions already spent and committed.
And McCain being led around by the nose by Democrats and the media, in the interests of empty "bipartisanship" -- this time to lend legitimacy to Obama's trivial nonsense -- yet again.
“He’ll only use it to punish conservatives!!!”
conservatives who want to spend tons of money?
"Hasn’t the line-item veto been ruled unconstitutional?"
McCain hasn't let a little thing like that bother him in the past.
To do what they want to do will require a constitutional amendment. But that's just too damn hard...
McCain has ceased to be useful as a Senator, as well as a Republican.
Um, John, Obama already said that once and then didn't do it. What makes you think he'll do it if he makes the claim a second time?
Actually, earmarks constitute a miniscule percentage of the total budget. It's a few billion, yeah, but it's billions within trillions.
Earmarks are a pimple on the butt of fraud and waste in the budgets of every department of the federal government. The fraud and waste in Medicare and most welfare programs would, alone, dwarf earmarks.
Not saying we shouldn't suppress this kind of back-scratching -- but there is a lot more money to be saved elsewhere.
What's worse, McCain knows it.
McCain and Bayh are both con artists and hypocrites and they are both running for reelection this year. I’m trying to figure out which one is more liberal.
Two liberal Senators, up for re-election, trying anything to fool a few voters.
Isn’t there some way to have McCain arrested? Even if we have to trump up the charges?
“McCain and Bayh are both con artists and hypocrites and they are both running for reelection this year. I’m trying to figure out which one is more liberal.”
Is Bayh for amnesty?
“The fraud and waste in Medicare and most welfare programs would, alone, dwarf earmarks.”
That’s totally true. Annual earmarks are about $30 Billion, annual Medicare fraud about $60 Billion. And that’s just Medicare:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/23/60minutes/main5414390.shtml
Earmarks are just Juan’s cheap applause line, and many of those earmarks are for very beneficial projects.
“Is Bayh for amnesty?”
I don’t know the answer to that. I can tell you that most of us Hoosiers are dead set against amnesty.
It wasn't the line-item veto that was ruled unconstitutional, it was the way the line-item veto that was passed was written that was determined invalid -- Congress wrote it so that after a president signed legislation into law, he would then line out specific items, violating the separation of powers. The tool has to be written so that a president will line out items BEFORE he then signs the legislation into law.
Way to go, Juan. Try to make this FRAUD look plausible!
Yes. Bayh voted for Hagel-Martinez in 2006 and would have voted for McCain-Kennedy.
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