January 22, 2004
Conservative Republicans push for spending slowdown.
The NY Times
reports that some conservative Republicans are pushing to rein in federal spending a bit. Even though fiscal restraint is supposedly a hallmark of Republican thought, Bush's spending has become so out of hand that this is newsworthy.
A day after President Bush vowed to submit an austere budget and halve the deficit in five years, conservatives in his own party said on Wednesday that they were not satisfied and stepped up their campaign to force the White House and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill to do more to hold down the growth of government spending.
Forty Republican House members gathered to hash out how to press Mr. Bush and the Congressional leadership to deal with spending increases that they say are running out of control and a deficit that is reaching alarming proportions.
Their discomfort has been echoed in recent weeks by conservative researchers and commentators who support Mr. Bush on most issues. Among them are the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, a political action committee, and The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
... "The Republican party has long been the party of small government," an aide to a senior Republican senator said, "but the era of small government has ended for the Republican Party."
Referring to Mr. Bush's call on Tuesday night for athletes to stop using performance-enhancing drugs, the aide said, "Unfortunately, the president's ban on steroids doesn't apply to the appropriators."
Ooh, sarcasm from conservatives. Well, more power to them. Anything that reins in this breakaway train is good. Unfortunately the major reason Bush is spending so much is that it's the only way he can keep in power, and because he needs to finance his out-of-control war machine. Does this mean that they're calling for cuts in the defense budget, which is by far the largest part of the federal budget?
It also appears that this is becoming a major election issue. But there's a curious poll quoted in the article.
But an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll this month found that Democrats had nearly caught up with Republicans on the question of which party does a better job of controlling government spending. The poll found that 33 percent of respondents said Republicans did a better job, with Democrats at 31 percent.
33 and 31 add up to 64. In other words, most people don't think either party does a very good job. So what do the other 36 percent think? That a third party would be the best choice?
