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November 10, 2008

Will Congressional Dems ditch paygo?

Rick Moran
Perhaps someone should remind the Democrats that they just ran against Republicans whose policies caused the deficit to skyrocket. Otherwise, they are about to be outed as the most cynical hypocrites in the history of politics, not even waiting until the new Congress convenes before revealing themselves to be the profligate spenders Republicans accuse them of being:

From the Wall Street Journal :

As Congress gears up to pass another spending "stimulus" bill, there's one political silver lining: Democrats are being forced to abandon the pretense of fiscal conservatism known as "pay as you go" budgeting.

Late last week the leader of the House Blue Dog Coalition, Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper, announced that with Barack Obama about to enter the White House, "I'm not sure the old rules are relevant anymore." Why not? Because, Mr. Cooper said, "It would be unfair to the new President to put him in a budget straitjacket."

Democrats ran on "paygo" in 2006, promising to offset any new spending increases or tax cuts with comparable tax increases or spending cuts. Once in charge on Capitol Hill they quickly made exceptions, waiving paygo no fewer than 12 times to accommodate some $398 billion in new deficit spending -- not that the press corps bothered to notice. That didn't stop Majority Leader Steny Hoyer from announcing in May that "We're absolutely committed to paygo. Speaker [Nancy Pelosi] is committed to paygo. I'm very committed to paygo. Our caucus is committed to paygo."

Paygo is a budgetary term that means just what it implies; no new spending or tax cuts unless you can find the cash by cutting something else.

And as the Journal points out:

It was invented to stop the GOP Congress and then a Republican President, but it is inconvenient when Democrats run the show. With the recession available as an excuse for just about anything, get ready for the first $1 trillion federal budget deficit. And don't expect any howling from the Blue Dogs.

Hey! It's only money. And look at it this way; at least we won't have to listen to the Democrats whining about how Republican deficit spending was "mortgaging our children's future." The Democrats appear quite willing and able to do that all by themselves, thank you.

Posted at 10:59 AM | Email | | | Share Share
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