Fork In The Hammer

Last week the center-right blogosphere hammered House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay over his ludicrous comment that, "Government has been pared. . . down pretty good and that nobody has been able to identify any spending cuts to make in exchange for Katrina-related spending."

A week later he's sending out mixed signals - which, though technically an improvement, sure doesn't seem like one.

On the bright side, DeLay said this:

Katrina tax hikes are not about Katrina; they're about tax hikes, and they are not an option. Raising taxes would kill jobs, choke off investment, and stifle economic growth. That's not exactly a recipe for the kind of economic renewal that region so desperately needs. Instead, I hope some of the money can be the product of spending sacrifices elsewhere in the federal budget.

There are programs all over the federal budget that are bloated or wasteful or inefficiently using the funds we provide them, and I'm very interested in identifying them.

We can fund this relief effort without raising taxes or wasteful spending - and it's up to us to do just that.

At least he's acknowledging that there is wasteful spending to be cut. The problem is that he doesn't seem nearly as eager to identify them as he professes:

Conservative House Republicans plan to recommend today more than $500 billion in savings over 10 years to compensate for the costs of Hurricane Katrina as awmakers continue to struggle to develop a consensus on the fiscal approach to the disaster.

At the top of a partial list of the potential cuts being circulated Tuesday were previously suggested ideas like delaying the start of the new Medicare prescription drug coverage for one year to save $31 billion and eliminating $25 billion in home-state projects from the newly enacted transportation measure.

The list also proposed eliminating the Moon-Mars initiative that NASA announced Monday, for $44 billion in savings; ending support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $4 billion; cutting taxpayer payments for the national political conventions and the presidential election campaign fund, $600 million; and charging federal employees for parking, $1.54 billion.

Before the list was made public, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, declared that delaying the Medicare plan was a nonstarter. DeLay also expressed skepticism that most lawmakers would want to revisit the transportation bill, saying he would be reluctant to sacrifice the projects that he won for his district in the Houston area. [emphasis added]

DeLay is becoming emblematic of the GOP's newfound lust for overspending. If he wants to be taken seriously as the small-government conservative he used to be, he needs to back up those cliched words with fresh deeds.

Because the base is watching. Just check out these op-ed headlines from just the past couple of days:

The GOP's New New Deal

We're All In The Same Bloat - subtitle: "Republicans have abandoned small government. Why shouldn't voters abandon them?"

The End Of Small Government

This morning I wrote that, "immigration is the one issue that has the potential to make [President Bush's political irrelevance] a reality." Rank Republican profligacy has the potential to do in both Dubya and the GOP congressional regime as well.

2006 is nearer than Pachyderms like the Hammer appear to think. And the road to success therein is proportionately unlikely to be paved with an overabundance of waste, fraud, and "home state projects" that GOPers would prefer not to see.

[Double HT: GOP Bloggers]