Some Republicans Need To Start Acting Like Republicans

The U.S. Senate is hands down one of the most frustrating institutions of American Government. The filibuster, which in theory is supposed to preserve minority rights, is in practice simply a tool for obstructionism, thwarting majority rule as opposed to preserving minority rights. As opposed to the House of Representatives, which runs in a fairly efficient manner, the Senate always seems to be bogged down with endless amounts of debate, amendments, filibusters, threatened filibusters, and so forth.

Now the Senate has delved further into madness, this time by leaving the realm of fiscal sanity. This is disappointing in itself, but even more so with the fact that it is Republicans who control the Senate. Throughout the entire '04 campaign the president took flack from both Republicans and Democrats alike for his exorbitant spending. This criticism was valid, even though it rang a bit hollow at times coming from Democrats who criticize spending and deficits but rise in angry indignation when there are specific proposals to cut spending. The president promised during the campaign to rein in Federal spending, and he followed through on that promise with his '06 budget.

For their part, the House has retained most of the president's cuts and reductions in their budget, the Senate however found reduced government spending simply too much to swallow. If the Senate's budget were to end up as the final Federal budget than government spending as a portion of GDP would be 20.2%, dangerously close to the 22.3% peak back in '91. This will hurt the economy, for too much government spending will cause inflation, among other negative repercussions.

It has always been my belief that government and the economy are constantly battling in an old Western-style duel, and there's not enough room for the both of them. As government grows larger the less room there is for the economy to grow. Government spending takes money out of the economy, and our economy, though growing rapidly right now, is still very fragile. The exorbitant spending the Republican Senate has passed is as Investor's Business Daily put it, a "dead weight" on the economy. As the House and Senate go to conference to iron out differences before passing the final budget, my hope is that the true Republicans in the House will stand their ground and force their Republican counterparts in the Senate to actually act like Republicans.