Reply #2: DEROY MURDOCK: GOP leaders don't even try to cut spending [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

DEROY MURDOCK: GOP leaders don't even try to cut spending

Scripps Howard News Service
Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 01:07 PM (PDT)

NEW YORK (SH) - In "Crash," Hollywood's finest movie so far this year, a prosperous black filmmaker tells a black gangbanger: "You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself."
As a Republican, I say to the even more rapacious GOP Congressional leadership: "You embarrass me. You embarrass yourselves."

Not long ago, the Republican Congress at least pretended to be serious about keeping federal spending plausibly sane. While they hurled massive expenditures in every direction, at least their rhetoric honored the grassroots-Republican expectation that they would respect taxpayers' money.

But, save for a band of fiscally responsible backbenchers (about whom more soon), profligate Congressional Republicans have surrendered on this front.
(snip)

"My answer to those who want to offset the spending is sure, bring the offsets," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told reporters Sept. 13. "But nobody has been able to come up with any yet." Asked if Washington operated at top efficiency, DeLay made free-market jaws drop when he said: "Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority, we've pared it down pretty good."
(snip/...)

http://www.thenewstribune.com/24hour/opinions/story/2744863p-11328652c.html