VITTER ECONOMICS: TALK A LOT ABOUT RUNAWAY SPENDING IN WASHINGTON, BUT THEN TRY TO BLOCK FISCAL DISCIPLINE MEASURE THAT WOULD REIGN IN FEDERAL SPENDING
On the same day that he got taken to task by the Baton Rouge Advocate, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee today called out Senator David Vitter for supporting the failed economic policies of the past as Louisiana families continue struggling with the economic crisis. Late last week, Vitter joined with his Republican Senate colleagues in rejecting a measure to bring fiscal discipline to Washington by voting against PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go), a commonsense fiscal restraint measure, which simply states that the federal government – just like Louisiana families – can spend only as much money as it has. In fact, Vitter doesn’t seem to care much about fiscal discipline at all, seeing that he voted for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans.
“This vote just goes to show that David Vitter has spent far too much time in Washington. Louisianans are facing tough economic times because of eight years of failed policies in Washington, yet all Vitter wants to do is bring these policies back to life,” said Deirdre Murphy, DSCC National Press Secretary. “By voting against bringing fiscal discipline back to Washington, David Vitter proved he’d rather support the problems of the past than the solutions that will move us forward.”
Vitter’s record on the economy is not one to be proud of. Vitter rubberstamped the disastrous policies put into place by former President George W. Bush that protected Wall Street, cut taxes for wealthiest Americans, and exploded the federal deficit. And now he continues to stand in the way of commonsense efforts to jumpstart job creation. The people of Louisiana can thank Vitter for thousands of lost jobs, tax credits for corporations that move their jobs overseas, and a huge trade imbalance.
Vitter Opposed Adopting Pay-Go Rules, Requiring Offsets to New Spending. Last Thursday, Vitter voted against adopting statutory pay-go rules. 60 Democratic senators voted to adopt the pay-go measure (short for "pay-as-you-go"), which would require that new spending measures be offset in the budget by other funds. President Barack Obama urged senators to move forward with the new rule in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night. "When the vote comes tomorrow, the Senate should restore the pay-as-you-go law that was a big reason for why we had record surpluses in the 1990s," he said. [The Hill, 1/28/10; Vote 12, 1/28/10]
Baton Rouge Advocate Editorial: Our Views: Speed bump on spending
February 3, 2010
http://www.2theadvocate.com/opinion/83413057.html
First the bad news, $14.294 trillion worth.
That’s the federal debt ceiling, the amount of debt the U.S. government is authorized to incur. The debts that every man, woman and child in the United States will one day have to pay off.
Now the good news: Maybe it’s not much right now, but Democrats in the U.S. Senate approved one significant step toward curbing the debt in the future.
It’s called “pay as you go” budgeting, or pay-go for short. If the government wants to spend more on one program, it has to find off-setting cuts in another, or raise the revenue to pay for it.
Not the same thing as cutting up the credit card in the government’s wallet. But when one at least has to look in the wallet for cash, there’s an automatic level of restraint that is built into the process.
We have long supported pay-go rules, and believe those rules were in part responsible for the budget surpluses that developed in the Clinton years.
The rule went by the wayside after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent war spending. Maybe that was a reasonable enough decision in the short-term, but over the years the bloated budget deficits under President George W. Bush helped to give the country a debt load that is the envy of free-spending European socialists.
Sadly, some Republicans have long opposed pay-go, even as they trumpet their devotion to balanced budgets; no Republican senator backed pay-go this year, including Louisiana’s U.S. Sen. David Vitter. That vote makes the perfect the enemy of the good.
The argument is that pay-go doesn’t forbid tax increases. True, but it’s difficult to pass taxes, too.
Pay-go doesn’t cut spending, but it is a helpful speed bump.
For that reason, it is not always popular with Democratic liberals, but conservative Democrats in the House — the “Blue Dogs,” including U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville — insisted that it be part of the deal for raising the debt ceiling.
Melancon is challenging Vitter this fall, and we suspect we’ll hear more about this on the campaign trail. In the category of who’s really more conservative, a vote against pay-go rules puts the incumbent on the wrong side of the debate about the federal debt.
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