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House GOP Preaches Fiscal Restraint at Blog Row Event

By Mark I Posted in Congress | Spotlight Blogs — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I, along with RedState’s own Bluey and Pat Cleary attended the House GOP Blog Row event on Capitol Hill yesterday. Twenty-eight members, give or take a few, came through between votes to make statements and take questions from the assembled bloggers. Mary Katherine Ham, Ivy Sellers, The Influence Peddler, and Steven Spruiell rounded out the panel.

The theme for the event was the Budget Bill debate. Member after member came through and excoriated the Democrats for proposing the “largest tax increase in history” and finding no savings in their budget proposal. Details on the Republican alternative, championed by Budget Committee ranking member Paul Ryan (WI-10), were sketchy, but suffice to say that the Republicans are focusing on entitlement reform, ending the raid on the Social Security “trust fund,” and controlling spending.

Read on…

The Democrats’ tax increase comes from allowing the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire, as they are set to do in 2010. Or, as Minority Whip Roy Blunt put it:

The Democrats are calling for the elimination of every tax reform in last 6 years, including the 10 % bracket, the marriage penalty, the child tax credit, all of it.

Members were strongly focused on this point. Expect to see the number $392.5 billion bandied about in the coming days. That’s the total amount of the Democrats’ tax increase by inaction, and every member had it at his or her fingertips. In case that’s too large an amount to get your mind around (it is for me), Rep. Ryan had some handy breakdowns:

•Every working American would see an average $1795.00 tax increase
•83 million women get an average $2068.00 increase
•48 million married couples get an average $2899.00 increase
•42 million families with children would see an average $1082.00 increase
•17 million elderly taxpayers get an average $2270.00 tax increase

Democrats argue that these are not new taxes, just taxes that are already scheduled to come on line. Ryan pledged that the Republicans would prevent this from happening. It has to be said, however, that had the Republican Congress had the courage to enact the tax cuts permanently back in 2004, the Democrats would not be in the position they are in now. They would be in the position of proposing to resurrect dead taxes. Still, Rep. Ryan, Blunt and Conference Chairman Adam Putnam pointed out that the Democrat budget plan delineates a sharp line between the parties. With passage of this budget, Democrats will have spent $50 billion more than the total of the funding requests made of this Congress, and it’s only March.

The terribly impressive Rep. Marsha Blackburn (TN-7) scored the best lines of the day when she quipped:

The Democrats are moving toward making spending permanent and tax reduction temporary. A budget should reflect the priorities of the nation. The Democrats’ budget reflects the priorities of the bureaucracy.

Also high on the minds of the House GOP is the reason they find themselves in the minority. Here again, the message discipline was evident. Members couched the election results in terms of a Republican loss as opposed to a Democrat win. Most lamented the fact that many Democrats ran as Republicans in the election and are only now showing their true colors. However, introspectively, most members also admitted that Republicans had done a poor job of being Republicans and that the party had to get back to its core principles of limited government, decreased regulation, and low taxes if it was to regain the majority.

Rep. Brian Bilbray (CA-50) described Republicans in his southern California district as “furious” at the Republican Party for failing to control spending and illegal immigration. Blunt said that Republican ideas did not lose in the last election and that Republicans must do a better job of being for those ideas and communicating their message. Freshman Rep. Tim Walberg (MI-7), one of only 13 freshman Republican members, cited fiscal conservatism as the common thread among the winning campaigns of the freshmen. He said that this was not heard from Republicans for several years and that the party must stand for conservative principles if it is to be truly Republican. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (VA-6) held out hope that the Democrats are actually helping the Republicans get back to their core principles by proposing this budget. Rep. Kevin Brady (TX-8) agreed, saying that, “Republicans were fired from Congress because we forgot how to balance a budget.” He said that the Republicans were headed back in the right direction. Rep. John Campbell (CA-48), of the Green Eyeshade blog, labeled the Republican alternative, “the most fiscally responsible budget put forth by Republicans in the last decade.” Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-5), my Congressman, saw the alternative as a blueprint for when the Republicans regain control of the House.

One inside bookkeeping issue mentioned by some members was the Democrats’ reliance on reserve funds in their budget proposal. Reserve funds were described by Rep. John Carter (TX-31) as a kind of accounting slight of hand. Democrats intend to put money “raised” through the expiration of the Bush tax cuts into these funds, however, they make no provision for this in their actual budget. In other words, every dollar “raised” is spent by the budget. In order for there to be any actual money in the reserve funds, Democrats would have to cut spending, or raise taxes beyond the amount “raised” by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Guess which one they will do. Rep. Carter put it this way:

Reserves are intentions. Intentions cannot be deposited in the bank.

Rep. Eric Cantor (VA-7) said the Democrats are in a bind of their own construction. At the beginning of the Congress, Democrats instituted paygo rules. These rules require that all new spending or tax cuts be offset by savings or revenue increases elsewhere in the budget. But the Democrats aren’t about cutting spending, so they have to resort to the reserve fund gimmick to mask the fact that their spending habits run afoul of the paygo rules they insisted upon.

There were several other issues addressed off the topic of the budget. The Iraq supplemental was foremost among these. Minority Leader John Boehner related the supplemental back to the budget debate, calling the unnecessary spending attached to it fiscally irresponsible. Conference Chairman Putnam was a bit more graphic:

The Democrats have attached $20 billion to backs of the troops, as if they were oxen to drag it across the president’s desk.

Boehner said the president should veto the supplemental in its current form, and make this, “the fight of all fights.” When asked if he would make the same recommendation should the Democrats remove the troop restrictions from the bill but not the additional spending, Boehner simply said, “yes.” Minority Whip Blunt characterized the vote on the supplemental as a win for the Republicans because the Democrats took a bad position on national security. Rep. Chris Stearns (FL-6) pointed out that even with the surge troops counted in there have been more troops in Iraq on three separate occasions: immediately preceding the transitional authority, the constitutional referendum, and parliamentary elections. He talked up HR 1062, as a bill presented by the Republican Leadership that expresses support for the surge. Stearns said the evidence is in and the surge is working.

Several members spoke on Iran and its blatant kidnapping of 15 British sailors in the Persian Gulf. Rep. Mark Kirk (IL-10) said the House may take up a resolution calling for the release of the sailors. He also called for stricter sanctions on Iran as a means of forcing it to comply. Kirk said he wants a gasoline quarantine on the country. This would quickly cause the Iranian economy to collapse and would be relatively easy to implement, since Iran imports 50% of its gasoline from one Dutch company. Rep. Cantor said the crisis underscores the length to which Iran will go to embarrass the West. He said that he was afraid to imagine what the regime would do if it ever acquired nuclear weapons.

On the role of blogs, all of the members were extremely complimentary and grateful for the work bloggers do in getting the message out. One had the sense that the members felt that they were speaking directly to the base when addressing the panel. Blunt mentioned that the conference has a you tube site, which it monitors closely. Putnam stressed the need for the conference to take advantage of every means of communication to get its message out. The members seemed to relish the chance to speak to a group of like minded individuals and were very relaxed. Perhaps this contributed to a level of candor that does not lend itself to a press conference with a hostile press corps. Following are some of the more unusual moments from the event.

Eyebrow Raisers

Presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo relayed one of the odder pieces of news to come from the blog row. He was informed minutes before his statement that he was being sued for $5 million by an illegal immigrant from Iraq named Gavan Alkadi (pronounced al kay dee). Now we know why al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq, he was in jail in Colorado!

Rep. Bilbray was given the chance to comment on the tenure of US Attorney Carol Lam, the prosecutor that brought down Duke Cunningham and recently dismissed as one of the Gonzales Eight. Bilbray said that on Cunningham Lam was “excellent.” But he also said she was “terrible on illegal immigration and drug smuggling” chalking the lack of action on these two fronts up to a lack of resources in her office.

Former Speaker Hastert (IL-14)--perhaps enjoying the freedom to speak one’s mind that comes with being a former Speaker of the House--railed against Sen. Harry Reid on the question of energy. Speaker Hastert said that the Senator, “has a choke hold on the deposition of nuclear waste…” that he was using to prevent expansion of nuclear energy, “in a despotic manner.” Ouch.

Rep. Zach Wamp (TN-3) said the “Blue Dog” Democrats can’t be for pulling out of Iraq and call themselves conservative at the same time. “They must choose between Barbara Lee (D-CA-9) and the security of the country.” Also, Wamp came out against earmarks but also against the, “Executive Branch deciding how to spend all the money.” I guess he wants to be against his earmarks but have them funded, too.

Wamp was joined by freshman Rep. David Davis (TN-1) in praising former Sen. Fred Thompson. Both said they thought Thompson would run and win the primary. Wamp said Sen. Thompson would, “answer his country’s call.” Davis said Thompson would, “make a great president.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey (GA-11) said that the Democrats are looking to increase spending on the SCHIP (State Child Health Insurance Program) by $50 billion dollars over 5 years by allowing states to cover people up to 500% of the poverty level and include childless adults in the program designed for children. For the children, of course.

Freshman Jim Jordan (OH-4) is worried about the future economic challenge to the United States from growing economies like China and India. He says that the US cannot win the global economic competition with “dumb policies like the tax increases in the Democratic budget.” He warned that if at some point in the future some other country becomes the “economic superpower” this would be a threat to American security.