The GOP Has Boxed Itself In With Spending Hypocrisy
It’s so much easier to be in the opposition than to be in the majority in some ways. You don’t actually have to do anything but you can relentlessly criticize, second-guess and hyperventilate without much consequence. Spending and the budget has been one place where the GOP opposition has been relentlessly attacking. Well now the GOP has a burden to help govern and the rifts between the establishment and the far right are already starting to show. The GOP no longer can pat its base on the head and ignore them until election time, their base demands results. A big argument has opened between far right Senators DeMint and Coburn with Iowa’s Chuck Grassley over ethanol subsidies.
As I reported here yesterday, DeMint and Coburn, two leading conservatives, are calling on fellow Republicans to support letting the subidies expire as a way to prove the GOP is serious about reining in government spending. Just as the battle over earmarks did, ethanol subsidies could put GOP Senators who have supported them in the past — such as Grassley and Orrin Hatch — in an awkward spot, driving a wedge between them and conservatives who want a harder line on spending.
Now Grassley has responded to our story, firing off an angry Tweet at DeMint and Coburn, asking them rhetorically if they’re also willing to back the expiration of tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry:
WashPost reports 2 of my colleagues want sunset ethanol tax credit R they ready sunset tax subsidies oilANDgas enjoys?
Coburn, however, appears ready to accept Grassley’s challenge. His spokesman, John Hart, emails a response:
“Every aspect of the federal budget should be reviewed. Nothing should be off the table. Congress has to focus on the national interest, not the parochial politics of the past.”
So could Republicans actually end subsidies for corn ethanol, oil and gas? I guess I would be surprised if it really happened but DeMint beat McConnell on earmarks so don’t count him out.
This rift really does expose some of the trouble Republicans are going to have with their new coalition. Republicans were supported by business groups. Are they really going to bite the hand that feeds them by cutting off their government welfare program? The GOP also benefits from support from rural voters who also benefit from corn ethanol subsidies. Does the GOP want to anger them too? I love the irony that it could be Republicans that end the corporate welfare system that they championed.
Who’d have thought that the GOP would make environmental groups so happy?
Tags: Budget Hypocrisy, Republicans, Teabaggers
It would be so great if they cut off Big Oil and the farmers. Never happen though.
So where is the hypocrisy? People in leadership having a serious argument over spending prorities. The Democrats had Congressional power 4 years and only increased spending. Republicans don’t have power and are pushing for cuts now. Is that not a good thing?
What is far right about constitutional government?
Where’s the hypocrisy? How about the much-bloviated earmark ban, which lasted all of 3 days.
“Republicans don’t have power and are pushing for cuts now. Is that not a good thing?”
Shows how little you know about the process of governing. It’s much easier to push for cuts when you’re not in power, because there’s much less danger it will happen. Republicans had more power than Democrats for quite a few years and also did nothing. Try to figure out why. Try real hard.
“What is far right about constitutional government?”
What does a balanced budget have to do with constitutional government?
BTW, these are rhetorical questions. Please don’t answer.
South Carolina has received about a billion dollars in federal farm subsidies in the past 10 years.
This isn’t money going to the small farms, 87% of this money is going to the largest 10% of farms in SC.
I’d like to see that asshat DeMint end his state’s dependence on federal farm subsidies for the rich.
I guess the Delusional One forgot that his party took a budget surplus and turned it into the biggest budget deficit in under 2 years. Yeah, I can see the hypocrisy, much like the hypocrisy over at your blog.
“The Democrats had Congressional power 4 years and only increased spending.”
See GOP, 2001-06. The story never changes.
Well, I still have a job thanks to the Democrats spending..
Most people lost over 45% of their 401K, thanks to Republicans spending, not to mention had to pay double for their energy costs, pay triple for their pharmaceutical costs, and pay quadruple for their insurance and medical costs….
I’ll take Democratic spending.. Thank you.
More serious here… The point that must be made, it that America has evolved beyond small government. We can’t go back. We’ve grown too big; now government is the necessary third party, required to balance the power between “We, the People,’ and the top echelon of international corporations.
America cannot afford to give up earmarks. America cannot afford to give $10 billion of agriculture subsidies in DeMint’s state. America cannot afford to give up ethanol subsidies in Grassely’s state of Iowa. America cannot afford to underfund it’s schools, America cannot afford to stop repairing roads. America cannot afford to give up the lead in clean energy, to China. These can’t expire. It’s like ripping out an artificial heart because it was man made.
The solution is obvious.
America simply cannot afford to keep the Bush tax breaks… America runs better on more money, and that money should come from those who have too much of it in their pockets, not those who have too little…
Here’s the irony.
Conservatives harken back to the well-run America of the 1950’s, “back before Government got to big” they say… If so, they too, should embrace the 94.5% tax upon the highest incomes that brought those boom times to America.
At least kick it back up to 35%…
Bottom line, is “less” government is a thing of the past. It can’t work. It is impossible when put into practice. How do we know this? We tried it twice for 8 years and both times it demolished our economy into a Great Depression. (Fortunately this time we had Depression scholars at the helm of our Treasury, and we may, simply because of government spending, experience a recession as opposed to a Depression.)
We raised taxes in 1993 and the world has never seen a better spurt of real growth…..
It is past time to get angry at the Bush Tax Cuts and start yelling…. They caused this mess, they bankrupted this nation. They have cost Americans jobs, and earned none….
Anon wrote:
So would I . . . and every other state’s as well.
The establishment Republicans were surprised by the anti-establishment Republicans, by the Tea Partiers. Well, it was the anti-establishment Republicans and Tea Partiers who provided the GOP with its victories, so the GOP can either go along with what its constituents want, or they can get voted out in 2012.
I’ll happily go along with ending corporate welfare, and individual welfare as well.