Ray LaHood, the Illinoisan who now serves as President Obama’s transportation secretary, was a Republican representative in his former life. He was a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, where he was an advocate of pork projects. In 2008, LaHood unwittingly explained everything that was wrong with the old House GOP majority. He told a newspaper in his hometown of Peoria that the reason he “went to the Appropriations Committee, the reason other people go on the Appropriations Committee, is they know that it puts them in a position to know where the money is at, to know the people who are doling the money out and to be in the room when the money is being doled out.” That’s the way Republicans ran the House when they held congressional majorities under President George W. Bush — before the voters threw them out in 2006. Outside of a few unruly conservatives, the House rank and file was perfectly willing to watch government expenditures rise, year after year. Under their stewardship, federal outlays increased from $1.9 trillion to $2.7 trillion.
We’re now in the Obama era and spending $3.7 trillion this year. The election of 2010 showed us how such huge budgets can serve as shock therapy for the American people.
