Everything that is wrong with the congressional wing of the Republican Party was on full display this week as a majority of House GOP members joined with Democrats in first passing a corrupt, bloated, politics-as-usual farm bill, then overriding President Bush’s veto of the $300 billion monstrosity. But many of these same Republicans often talk about the need for “greater fiscal discipline” or “restraining runaway federal spending.” Indeed, barely 24 hours after the farm bill debacle, Michigan’s Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, introduced the Fiscal Integrity Through Transparency Act of 2008.
The FIT bill is needed, McCotter explained, because “Americans want to know how the government spends their money. Excessive spending has rightfully raised doubts about the fiscal integrity of the federal budget and, most importantly, concern by taxpayers for their family budgets. More transparency, oversight and accountability is required in federal budgeting.” It takes a special kind of gall to make such a statement the day after voting repeatedly for a porkfested farm bill described by one of the lobbying groups pushing it as “lucrative beyond expectations.”
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Even that description understates the reality. Food prices, to cite just one example, will continue going up because the bill McCotter supported continues billions of dollars in subsidies to farmers living in places like Manhattan and Los Angeles for growing crops that are already drawing record high prices on the open market. And if those food prices go down, the farm bill compensates these “farmers” for their lost income. This at a time when farm income overall is at record levels. Similarly, the bill expands subsidies to a select group of sugar growers. That farm subsidy is why American consumers pay more for every food product made with domestic sugar.
But McCotter was far from alone, as he was joined on the House Republican Policy Committee’s FIT task force by 10 GOP colleagues who also voted for the farm bill, including Reps. Kevin Brady of Texas, Rob Bishop of Utah, Jo Bonner of Alabama, Charles Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, Henry Brown Jr. of South Carolina, Jack Kingston of Georgia, Michael McCaul of Texas, Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado, Denny Rehberg of Montana and John Sullivan of Oklahoma. No wonder millions of voters stopped believing Republicans in Congress who talk the talk but don’t vote the walk. When a majority of members of a congressional GOP task force on spending integrity vote for a corrupt bargain like the farm bill, they deserve to be the first inductees into the Republican Hall of Shame. The appropriate display title would be “Why We Lost Our Majority.”
