The Obama Spendorama
March 14th, 2008 by RossputinOn Wednesday afternoon, Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) introduced an amendment to the Senate Budget Bill. The amendment, which he called “The Obama Spendorama” went down to defeat, with Allard himself voting against it, but it brought an important point to the forefront of the budget debate.
You can read my entire discussion of the amendment at HumanEvents.com. (My agreement with Human Events gives them exclusivity, so I’m not free to post the text of the article here.)
March 14th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
This is why you guys are losing elections and your party is bereft of ideas. This is nothing more than a political stunt being paid for on the taxpayer’s dime. The Republican party is ripping off taxpayers to hit Obama, and are basically admitting it. His home state is getting shafted, and America is getting shafted. And you’re cheerleading it?
This should be renounced as the waste of the Senate’s time and the taxpayer’s money it is, particularly by Freedomworks. It’s pathetic.
And before you come back and say that “both parties do this,” I’ll fully admit that they do. I’ve never seen the Dems do anything this blatant before, or this designed to screw with the other party’s primary, but they’ve done it. And they, too, should be called out for the wasting of the taxpayer’s money.
No one should be cheered for doing so.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Sickle,
While I’m no fan of gutter politics, this is hardly a speck in the world of congressional bad behavior.
I agree it might not have been the best use of the Senate’s time, but it certainly didn’t cost a lot of taxpayer money and it got some talk around a very important message, namely the true extent of Obama’s spending plans and the impossibility of his being able to fund it only by “soaking the rich”.
I’m not sure I see how the GOP is ripping off taxpayers “to hit Obama”, but you can’t seriously claim that it’s anything but politics as usual for both sides. I mean, how many dozens or hundreds of hours have the Democrats spent berating President Bush on the Senate or House floor during debate which had nothing to do with him?
Two other notes:
1) My article is not about the Republicans bashing a Democrat. It’s about someone who happens to be Republican pointing out the huge spending and taxation plans of someone who happens to be a Democrat. Pointing out someone’s bad ideas is not a reflection of having no ideas of one’s own. They’re separate, and clearly the GOP has lots of ideas…but they all lose with the Dems in the majority. The DeMint earmark moratorium is a great case in point.
2) The Democrats have for years messed with GOP primaries in states with open primaries. This year, the politics of crossing over in “open primaries” is more open and more intense because of how close the Democratic race is. I think it’s a tough question as to whether trying to influence the other party’s primary is ethical, but at the end of the day I believe it is…because it’s absolutely within the rules set up in those states that have primaries. Your complaint reminds me of a linebacker being upset that the other team ran a play-action pass…”Hey, that’s not fair, they made me think it was a run.” But it’s within the rules. If the Dems or the states don’t like it, then they should change the rules. It’s not as if the possibility of this sort of stuff is new. Look at McCain in Michigan in 2000. Anyway, this is a little off-topic because the primary point of my article was getting the information out there that Obama’s spending plans will be an economic disaster for the country.
If it takes a little bit of shenanigans to get the message out, I’m fine with that. I don’t see any reason for me or FreedomWorks to renounce something that, even if distasteful to some, is perfectly legal, not particularly uncommon in the broad sense, and helpful in terms of exposing Obama’s plans.
March 14th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Oh, it’s no big deal…everyone’s doin’ it…give me a break. This whole thing was a drive-by political hitjob, period. Gee whiz…is Senator Allard *that* afraid that Obama might carry his home state in the general election?? And it’s just a coincidence that a posting over at Human Events (a faaaaar Right-wing organization if there ever was one) is bashing a Dem…come on!
“I think it’s a tough question as to whether trying to influence the other party’s primary is ethical, but at the end of the day I believe it is…”
We’ll be sure to keep that in mind the next time around then. Would you *really* want a bunch of Left-wing Dems picking your Presidencial candidate??
March 14th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Mister Guy,
Do you think that that sort of activity by Dems and Independents is not the primary reason that McCain is the GOP nominee?
In any case, as I said, I would bash anyone with a spending proposal like Obama’s, no matter what his or her political party. I’ve been very hard on the GOP on my own web site in the past couple of years for out of control spending.
My issue is spending and taxation, not Republicans versus Democrats. When the Republicans fail in the things I care about, I’m at least as hard on them as on the Democrats because the Republicans make a pretense of caring about controlling spending.
It is certainly true that Human Events is a conservative organization (though only far-left types would call it “faaaaar Right-wing”. But that doesn’t mean it’s a Republican organization. Human Events, like me, is tough on Republicans when they fail to protect and defend the Constitution and our nation.
Part of defending the Constitution is limiting government to its Constitutionally-authorized functions, and therefore to keep the cost and intrusiveness of government to a minimum.
Obama therefore represents everything I think is wrong and dangerous about today’s politicians. I bash him because he’s dangerous and he’s wrong, not because he’s a Democrat.
As for the political nuts and bolts of who’s voting in whose primary, I’m happy to have that debate on my site or on Human Events. Feel free to visit my site at rossputin.com and add your own comment.
Here on FreedomWorks, let’s keep the focus on economics, taxes, spending, etc., which is precisely what my article (and Allard’s amendment) were about.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Let’s face it Rossputin, you’re celebrating the wasting of taxpayer money. Period.
That’s the problem with people like you. It’s all okay if it calls attention to what you want. You don’t have a code. It shouldn’t matter how much of our money was wasted. It was wasted just the same. And that should matter to you. And what’s worse, you’re a liar. Sure, you’ll bash Obama’s spending proposal, but look the other way while billions of taxpayer dollars disappear in Iraq–the war you assured us would “fund itself” with oil revenue. (Boy, the irony on that is pretty thick nowadays, eh?) And say with a straight face that you’d bash anyone with an Obama-like spending proposal. Look how serious you are.
I, personally, want grown-ups to start ending up in government, not a bunch of children. You’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Let’s be clear on why you guys have ended up with that old fool McCain as your nominee. The field of GOP Presidencial candidates this year was filled with extremely weak candidates (Hunter, Tancredo, Keyes, and Paul), candidates that got super-extremely bad campaign advice (Thompson and Giuliani, who tried to skip virtually all the early contests), candidates that were viewed as mostly religious wackos (Romney and Huckabee), and then there was McCain (who should have been put out of his political misery early in the season by someone, anyone that could mount a seriously challenge to him in NH). So, you guys ended up with John “flip-flopper on the Bush tax cuts & multiple decades more to go in Iraq” McCain…good luck with that. Don’t blame the Dems for that one, and try not to alienate those Independent voters too much…you’ll need them to, you know, win later this year…
Yea, and Human Events is just another one of those middle-of-road, call-them-as-they-see-them organizations…just like Freedomworks…sure, riiiight. Why is that you guys needs to try and *always* hide behind the “non-partisan” moniker??
March 15th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Sickle:
I’m not sure what you mean by “people like you”.
Please tell me how much money was “wasted” by taking 10 minutes of time in the US Senate…and how that compares to the money that that 10 minutes of negative publicity for Obama’s spending plans might save us.
One of the biggest problems with “people like you” is that you always seem to come back to the Iraq war. When did I every say anything about Iraq “funding itself”?
And have you actually read any of my writing before saying that I wasn’t serious about bashing Republicans for overspending?
I sent a letter to John Boehner, which said, in part:
“Karl Rove was wrong to ignore the fiscal conservative base of the party and focus only on the religious right. Personally, I have stopped giving money to the NRCC or the NRSC as long as people like Don Young, Jerry Lewis, and even Tom Cole still have substantial influence within the Party. Any Republican who argues that spending was not a major reason that the GOP got trounced in the last election is either an idiot or corrupt or both, and I urge you to make a public showing of stripping them of influence, particularly in the case of Don Young.
I was actually not disappointed to see the GOP do so badly in the last election because absolute power had clearly gone to your heads. I know the Democrats are and always will be horrible, but the GOP was acting no better.”
You can read the whole thing at: http://www.rossputin.com/blog/index.php/a/2007/08/17/a_note_to_john_boehner
I wrote a letter to the Charlotte, SC Observer, which said:
“To the Editor:
The behavior of the South Carolina General Assembly in the 2007 session is a microcosm of the Republican-controlled federal Congress’ behavior in 2005 and 2006. Saying that they spent like drunk sailors, or even like Democrats, is an insult to drunk sailors and Democrats. And when it comes to spending, that’s no easy feat.
Overspending is not justifiable simply because the state is flush with tax revenue coming from the current economic boom. All good things, especially economic expansions, must come to an end, and it is incumbent upon incumbents to protect citizens from the damage that a bloated government does to taxpayers when tax revenues diminish. Between funding a “rainy day fund” and keeping government lean and mean, a responsible legislature should not behave as if times will always be as good as they are now.
The Republicans in Congress certainly deserved the 2006 election results. It’s too bad the South Carolina GOP legislators apparently learned nothing from that disaster. Paraphrasing Robert Novak, if Republicans don’t cut taxes and spending, there’s simply no reason to have them. Now it seems the country has yet another Republican legislature that might as well be Democratic.”
Those are two examples out of many. So before you start saying I’m not serious about bashing anyone who overspends, why don’t you do some homework?
Mr. Guy:
I basically agree with you on McCain. I was for Rudy, as I am a fiscal and foreign policy conservative, but not a social conservative. In other words, I’m basically libertarian.
Your other comments are, in typical fashion, intentionally misreading my prior note.
I never said Human Events was non-partisan. I said it wasn’t “faaaaaaar right-wing”. Furthermore, FreedomWorks is nothing like Human Events, the latter of which is clearly partisan whereas FreedomWorks is truly non-partisan.
It is no doubt true that there are organizations out there which are primarily about supporting the Republican Party, FreedomWorks isn’t one of them, and I personally am not one of them.
I care about good government, not the party. Indeed, I was registered Libertarian for quite some time until I realized that the Libertarian Party can’t win anything important so it’s best for me to try to influence the GOP toward more responsible policies from within.
While it may be true that FreedomWorks may end up effectively supporting Republicans more often than Democrats in an indirect way, i.e. supporting policies which are brought forward by Republicans, it is not because those people are Republicans. If the Democrats put forward fiscally and economically responsible plans, FreedomWorks and I would support them whole-heartedly. As someone who knows the people who run FreedomWorks, I can say without any hesitation that these people are NOT Republican partisans. They are people who believe in limited government and the limited taxation and regulation that should come with a government which does what the constitution authorizes it to do.
Again, particularly since I’m NOT a social conservative, I’d be very open to a Democrat who brought forward policies of low taxes, low spending, and limited government. I couldn’t care less which party is the party of good government. But while neither party has been that in recent years, the Democrats have clearly been for big government, experiments in socialism, high taxes, and fiscal irresponsibility ever since the disaster that was FDR. I see no sign that the Democrats would be able to get away from their ownership by unions and far-left organizations in order to be able to offer fiscally responsible policy suggestions. But if they do, I’ll support them.
I’ve been consistent for years with this sort of message, as in this blog posting in which I was happy to point out that Libertarians probably cost the GOP control of the Senate in 2006:
http://www.rossputin.com/blog/index.php/a/2007/05/21/voting_libertarian_is_not_a_waste
The problem with people like Sickle and Mister Guy is that they don’t actually engage in intellectual debate. They misconstrue comments intentionally, set up straw men intentionally, and use all sorts of basic debating tricks which probably work among the intellectually-weak people who share their views. Even for me, someone who enjoys the rhetorical sparring, even with people who aren’t very good at it, it does get tiresome to read comments from people whose response to the question of big spending and tax cuts is “Iraq” and people who think that anyone to the right of George Soros is “faaaaaaar right-wing.” The good news is that the American people are probably wiser than they are, and they won’t fall for arguments which have no foundation in reality or logic.
March 16th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Well, the problem is that Iraq funding far, far outstretches anything related to earmarks or Obama’s supposed future spending. If you want to cut down on waste, let’s cut out the useless, unnecessary, illegal war first.
Spending was NOT one of the major reasons why you guys lost in 2006. It was the War, Bush, and his senseless policies that have caused more harm than one can almost imagine to this country (warrantless wiretapping, damage to the environment, endlesss lies upon lies, etc.).
“FreedomWorks is nothing like Human Events, the latter of which is clearly partisan whereas FreedomWorks is truly non-partisan.”
You need to start actually *reading* this website my friend. We’ve already taken the shine off this website’s supposed “non-partisan” monkier a while ago. They’ll continue to claim that apparently so they can keep raising money the way that they do now…this is a GOP-hack website, period. Being partisan is not just about backing one party over another as well. This site is also partisan partially in that they see the free-market as the asnwer to everything. I wonder if you guys were supportive of the Clintons back when they were being fiscally responsible and actually balancing the budget? BTW, they got no Republican votes to do that.
I love how you guys always have to try and bash FDR, as if the programs of the New Deal weren’t wildly popular & sucessful both then & now…it’s laughable to watch over and over again. And yeah, unions are bad…I wish we could back to the “good, ole days” when they were no such things as a 40-hour workweek, paid vacations, paid sick leave, pensions, safe working environments, etc., etc., etc..
You sir are a weak partisan hack, period. Own up to it for once…supply-side economics and the conservative “coalition” are dead…
March 17th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Mister Guy,
Your silly claims show you to be far from an objective observer. Clearly you are involved with some organization with a liberal bias who has made a goal of “taking the shine off this website”.
I was very supportive of Clinton’s finally signing on to welfare reform, even though he did it reluctantly. But I wasn’t blogging at the time.
As far as FDR, he’s easy to bash. His programs were briefly popular, but far from successful. Read some history. FDR deepened and prolonged the depression with his policies and his attacks on free markets.
When you can start getting published and paid for your writing, then maybe you can consider calling me “weak”. Until then, I’m confident that you’re just an angry little liberal.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Face it, Ross. You don’t have any real principles. If you did, you’d decry the action instead of minimizing it.
You haven’t addressed my post about the principle of this. You’ve chosen instead to ignore it. There’s a principle at work here, Ross, and I’m deeply troubled that you don’t care about it as long as the “shennanigans” call attention to what you want them to. And why did I turn my attention to war spending? Because you’ve continually ignored it, both here and in your other writings (yes, I’m familiar with them—you’re not particularly prolific, after all). You cherry-pick what you want to fight about and then are unable to debate us when called out. Your history of letter writing to congressmen is irrelevant.
Tell me: why is okay to waste taxpayer money in this instance and not in others? Is it because it’s not much money? How much money would make it a “waste” in your eyes? How much time?
Because you cannot or will not answer these questions, Mister Guy is right on calling you a conservative hack. Unless you’re able to explain why it’s okay for you to compromise your principles, I’m not going to think anything different. Now stop spamming walls of text and directing us to your website and debate.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Sickle,
Your argument is simply wrong. When a Senator takes time on the Senate floor, even if he knows he’s going to lose, that doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time. Sometimes, just getting the message out, getting the position in the record, is the goal. That was the case here.
As far as wasting money, if you want to say that 10 minutes of Senate time was a waste of money, then OK, but that’s what the Senate does almost all day every day and this is not nearly as remarkable as you’d like to think. Were the other 25 or 50 or however many Republican-offered amendments to the budget which failed also wastes of time? Is the minority simply to sit there and shut up if they won’t win a vote?
I understand that this particular amendment was not even intended to get a serious vote, but that also isn’t unique. It’s just hard for me to get very excited about something that only takes some minutes and doesn’t actually put new spending or taxes into law.
On a personal note, I’m not sure how you can say I’m not particularly prolific when I have something (or more than one thing) written nearly every day. But if you write more than that, I applaud you. I have a real job and it’s all I can do to get out one piece a day.
It’s fine with me if you won’t think anything different; the feeling is entirely mutual. I don’t feel a need to convince everyone of everything.
You actually sound like a conservative/libertarian type. It’s interesting that you’re so upset about the irrelevancy of the Allard amendment’s use of Senate time that you think someone who’s obviously a partisan hack of the worst sort, to use your words. For someone to admit that he or people he knows have a specific goal of denigrating a web site is the type of thing which makes the far left so repugnant.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
by the way, what do you want me to say about war spending?
the war is too expensive? there have been huge amounts of waste and fraud?
it’s all true! are you happy?
now what?
does that suddenly mean that efforts to control government spending in other areas are unjustified, or that tax hikes are suddenly a good idea?
March 17th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
“Clearly you are involved with some organization with a liberal bias who has made a goal of ‘taking the shine off this website’.”
LOL…why do you guys always run out of ideas so quickly and have to resort to shooting the messenger? It’s sad. I didn’t ask you about Welfare reform…I asked you about his efforts to actually balance the budget…learn to read. The fact that someone might actually be paying for you to write is also a sad commentary on the free market…lol…
Yea, and we’d be *much* better off without entities like the FDIC, TVA, the SEC, the Social Security system, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, the repeal of Prohibition, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, etc., etc….keep spinning…no one is listening.
“I understand that this particular amendment was not even intended to get a serious vote,”
Let me help you with that…that means that it was a political hit job and nothing else, period. You keep trying to treat it like it’s some real issue, and it’s isn’t.
You are either *really* for fiscal responsibility or you’re not. Do you really think that we’re going to be able to pay off the MASSIVE amount of debt that this country has accumulated (mostly under GOP control BTW) without raising taxes at some point?? Give me a break…
March 18th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
What are you talking about, Ross? You think he just took to the Senate floor? Somebody had to actually write the amendment he added, right? Are you telling me that this was such a stunt that there wasn’t even a piece of legislation? That he was just trying to drum up a vote for something that didn’t even exist? (And failed, by the way, 97-0).
And it barely got any attention at all beyond a few right-wing pubs (like yours) who decided that shennanigans and stunts are the way to discuss serious issues. Look how that worked out for you here. Yeah, I’m conservative and libertarian, and your article didn’t work on me. It just made me think that there aren’t like-minded people who are really out there, just folks who “want to win”…
* sigh*
March 18th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
You guys can have the last word on this. Thanks for the discussion.
More another time, I’m sure.