When House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) announced yesterday that there was no fat left to cut in the federal budget I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And so I took a stroll down memory lane instead.

I thought back to an occasion early in 1987, when I had just been hired to write speeches for James C. Miller III, President Reagan’s budget director. To acquaint me as quickly as possible with his speaking style, Jim asked me to accompany him to a luncheon where he was scheduled to debate Democrat Congressman William Gray, then chairman of the House Budget Committee.

During the debate, Gray made the astonishing pronouncement that all the fat had been pared from the federal budget, and that there was nothing left to cut but “bone and marrow.”

Jim Miller’s public response was, as usual, tempered and courteous, even though Gray’s statement was indefensible. But when we got back to his office, he was seething: “Bone and marrow!” he exclaimed. “Bone and marrow! Why that ……”

Not one to waste an opportunity to ingratiate myself with my new boss, I jumped into the gap and said, “I think you’ve got a great speech there, Jim.”

“Uh?” he replied. “How so?”

“Well,” I continued, “just get the number-crunchers to come up with a list of the dozen or so most outrageous pork-barrel projects approved by the Democrat majority in Congress, reel them off one by one and then tell the audience, 'This is what Bill Gray calls ‘bone and marrow.’”

Jim, who at that time had to be one of the most sorely-tried officials in Washington, immediately brightened up. “I love it!” he chortled. “Do it!”

I did. As it turned out, much of my work for Jim at the budget office involved training a brilliant spotlight on the gross waste and misuse of taxpayer dollars. Jim had a heavy speaking schedule, and keeping up with him was exhausting. But I was very proud to work for him because he and I both believed passionately in the goal of giving the American taxpayers lean, efficient and frugal government.

At the time, I thought that goal was a holy grail for all good Republicans. I never dreamed that less than twenty years later I would behold the Orwellian spectacle of a “conservative” Republican congressional leader repeating – almost verbatim – the assertion of a liberal Democrat that there is no more fat to cut from the federal budget.

No fat left in the federal budget, Mr. DeLay? What about the $286 billion highway bill that a Republican Congress passed less than three months ago? A bill that included 6,371 special projects inserted by the members for the benefit of their home states and districts. What about such fiscal follies as $300 million bridges to islands with 50 inhabitants in Alaska? Or $350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio? Or $250,000 for sidewalk repairs in Boca Raton, Florida? Or what about the $24.5 billion that the federal government spent in 2003 – and now has no idea what the money was spent for?

Were the Democrats guilty of such profligacy, and were I back at my old job in the budget office, I would have myself a ball denouncing this blatant pork barreling and appalling lack of legislative oversight. Now I can only shake my head in dismay.

The Republican Party has lost whatever claim it had to be the party of fiscal responsibility. If the Republicans don’t come to their senses soon, they will find that in the taxpayers’ minds the symbol of their party has been transformed from the sagacious elephant to a rapacious hog.