If there were an award for lame political excuses, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) would be a top contender for it.
Mr. Hayworth is quoted in today’s Wall Street Journal as saying that he doesn’t think the Republicans have lost their philosophical moorings. “But,” he conceded, “always in an imperfect world, there will be missteps.”
That’s an excuse that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow might have offered after kicking over a lantern and starting the Chicago Fire. Accidents will happen and, after all, it was just a little misstep.
But the Republicans in Congress knew perfectly well what they were doing when they voted for reckless federal spending and the biggest expansion in federal entitlements since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. They knew what they were doing when they violated the principle of federalism over the Terri Schiavo case and the constitutional amendment against gay marriage. They knew what they were doing when they chose protectionism over free trade. They knew what they were doing when they gave the executive branch carte blanche to detain and torture suspected terrorists.
Above all, they knew what they were doing when they outdid the Democrats on pork barrel spending by billions of dollars.
Take transportation alone. The Journal article cites a study on the proliferation of “earmarks” (i.e., pork barrel projects) in highway bills. For 30 years after a transportation trust fund was created in 1956, highway bills would specify 14 of these special projects at most – and would let the states decide how to spend the money. Then, in 1987, the Democrats larded the transportation package with 155 earmarks. The next package, passed in 1991, had 538 earmarks – over furious protests by the Republicans.
But the Republicans’ first highway bill, in 1998, more than tripled that number. Last year’s highway bill had 6,371 special projects – worth a total of $23 billion.
And Mr. Hayworth doesn’t think that the Republicans have lost their philosophical moorings!
As British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli remarked on another occasion, “Out of his depth! He’s three miles from the shore.”
I suspect that Tuesday’s elections will recall Mr. Hayworth to reality – along with the other rogue elephants in the GOP.
