It’s time to expose the lie that the Blue Dog Democrats—a coalition of 52 supposedly fiscally conservative House Democrats—are concerned about federal spending and the budget.
So far this year, the House has seen four major spending bills. Here’s how the Blue Dogs voted:
- The $787 billion stimulus package. Ten of the 52 Blue Dogs, about 20 percent, voted with every Republican against the unprecedented spending bill.
- President Obama’s 2010 federal budget. In April Congress took a vote on the president’s $3.5 trillion budget for 2010—by far the biggest spending package in history. Again, not one House Republican voted for the bill, but only 14 Blue Dogs (27 percent) joined them in opposition.
- The Cap and Trade energy tax. In June the House took an enormous step by pushing through the president’s cap and trade energy tax. The legislation will stifle economic growth by imposing huge new costs on every business and each American household. Eight House Republicans voted for the bill. Twenty-nine Blue Dogs (about 56 percent) voted against the legislation.
- The Health Care Bill. For all their protestations over the last few months about how concerned they were about the cost of the House bill, and how they needed it under $900 billion over 10 years, as if that’s “affordable,” nearly 30 of Blue Dogs pressed the “yes” button.
It’s outrageous that Blue Dogs go around waving the banner of fiscal conservatism and vote in large numbers for almost every massive spending increase proposed by the Obama administration.
Republicans long claimed to be fiscal conservatives, but because of their spending spree in the first six years of the Bush administration, it’s widely perceived they “tarnished the brand.” Now many of them are trying to regain the voters’ trust that Republicans will hold the line on expanding government spending and programs.
Well, the Blue Dogs haven’t just tarnished their brand, they’ve destroyed it. You don’t get to repeatedly vote for trillions of dollars in new spending and claim to be fiscally conservative. And if the media won’t do their job in exposing the hypocrisy, we will.
Today’s TaxByte was written by IPI resident scholar, Dr. Merrill Matthews.