Democrats See Chance to Fault Deficits and Pork
By Elizabeth Williamson and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post
An industrial lubricants program, bus replacement -- and the Grout Museum. A $12 million earmark in an emergency defense bill for "industrial mobilization" on the Iowa border.
Democrats have pork spending on the menu for their grilling of Jim Nussle, President Bush's pick as White House budget director. Nussle's confirmation hearings will focus on the former congressman's pursuit of earmarks for Iowa, as well as ballooning deficits during his tenure as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
The plan, Democratic strategists say, is to use the hearings to detail the collapse of fiscal discipline during the Bush administration and to grab the offensive from Republicans who are trying to turn the debate over Democratic spending bills into a morality play on thrift.
"We're not going to let these guys act like the protectors of fiscal prudence here when they've left a sea of red ink," said Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.). He said that the as-yet-unscheduled hearings create an opportunity to give "the president's fiscal management, and what's happened to the budget, a showcase."
Nussle, an eight-term congressman who left the House last year to make an unsuccessful run for governor, was named Budget Committee Chairman in 2001, at the dawn of the Bush administration. During three of his six years at the helm, Congress did not pass a budget blueprint. Meanwhile, big spending increases and huge tax cuts sent the budget spinning from a $128 billion surplus in fiscal 2001 to a $248 billion deficit in 2006, with the red ink hitting an all-time high of $413 billion in 2004.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
An industrial lubricants program, bus replacement -- and the Grout Museum. A $12 million earmark in an emergency defense bill for "industrial mobilization" on the Iowa border.
Democrats have pork spending on the menu for their grilling of Jim Nussle, President Bush's pick as White House budget director. Nussle's confirmation hearings will focus on the former congressman's pursuit of earmarks for Iowa, as well as ballooning deficits during his tenure as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
The plan, Democratic strategists say, is to use the hearings to detail the collapse of fiscal discipline during the Bush administration and to grab the offensive from Republicans who are trying to turn the debate over Democratic spending bills into a morality play on thrift.
"We're not going to let these guys act like the protectors of fiscal prudence here when they've left a sea of red ink," said Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.). He said that the as-yet-unscheduled hearings create an opportunity to give "the president's fiscal management, and what's happened to the budget, a showcase."
Nussle, an eight-term congressman who left the House last year to make an unsuccessful run for governor, was named Budget Committee Chairman in 2001, at the dawn of the Bush administration. During three of his six years at the helm, Congress did not pass a budget blueprint. Meanwhile, big spending increases and huge tax cuts sent the budget spinning from a $128 billion surplus in fiscal 2001 to a $248 billion deficit in 2006, with the red ink hitting an all-time high of $413 billion in 2004.
(Continued here.)
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