Thursday, May 2, 2013
How Serious Are Republicans?
Shortly after President Obama finally released his proposed budget a couple weeks ago, Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, the chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, launched a stinging attack on the president not over the president’s call for more taxes and spending or because the president’s budget never balances and adds trillions to the national debt, but because the president actually proposed modestly slower growth in Social Security benefits. A “shocking attack on seniors,” Representative Walden called it, accusing the president of “trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors.”
It is true that the president’s proposal for “chained CPI” is not immune from criticism. It is likely to save far less than advertised — certainly not enough to deal with our massive and growing debt — and it would mean a huge tax middle-class tax hike over time, as workers were pushed into higher tax brackets more quickly. But that’s not what Walden said.
“They seem to have a lot of reasons they’re not going to cut spending.”
This could be viewed as just another example of Representative Walden’s penchant for being a big-spending Republican. (He has a lifetime score of just 62 percent from the anti-spending Club for Growth.) Or perhaps it was just reflexive and mindless partisanship. Anything President Obama proposes, Republicans must oppose (and vice versa, of course).
But in many ways, Walden’s remarks illustrate a problem with the current Republican party as a whole. Too many Republicans don’t really want to cut spending — or, at least, not spending that benefits their own constituencies.
Full article: http://www.cato.org/ … ious-are-republicans
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