The air in the D.C. Metro area is clear again. Congress has left town for the month of August, but not before before approving $ 300 billion in new spending and “tax breaks” including “graffiti eradication in the Bronx, $277 million in road projects for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and a $200,000 deer-avoidance system in New York.”
There was a time when the Republican Party actually pretended to believe in fiscal restraint and small government. Those days ended as soon as the GOP assumed control of Congress after the 1994 elections and since then they’ve been spending like Ted Kennedy at a happy hour.
Consider this:
If you look at fiscal conservatism these days, it’s in a sorry state,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of only eight House members to vote against the $286.5 billion transportation bill that was passed the day before the recess. “Republicans don’t even pretend anymore
Or this:
“You have to be courageous to not spend money,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), “and we don’t have many people who have that courage.”
Indeed not.
