Senator Ostracized for Seeking Fiscal Responsibility

How utterly bizarre is our political system? This bizarre: It's now considered an act of outright heresy for a member of Congress to propose something as radical as the notion that lawmakers should not approve legislation that isn't paid for.

Imagine asking Congress to play by the same rules that tens of millions of American families have to play by every month when they sit down at the kitchen table and try to figure out their expenses. We'd all love to indulge our tastes for fancy restaurants, new cars and private schools. But guess what? It's not that simple. In most parts of America, you don't make decisions about what's going out until you know what's coming in.

Crazy isn't it? It turns out that, in Washington, this kind of talk can quickly get you ostracized by members of both parties. Suddenly, before you know it, according to some of the media, you're the reason the system is broken. As if everything was going swimmingly until you spouted off about how government doesn't have any money and lawmakers should stop spending like it were otherwise.

That's the reception that Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., received this week when he filibustered a $10 billion bill that extended benefits for unemployed workers and funded road projects. Bunning was concerned because, as he told colleagues, "we don't have the money" to pay for H.R.

4691, which provided a 30-day extension on the benefits. But Bunning seemed to be the only lawmaker who was concerned. Eventually, under pressure from both parties, the he relented and allowed the vote to proceed. The bill that we can't afford sailed through on a 78-19 vote. Millions of Americans will get the funds they were expecting — from somewhere. We'll probably wind up borrowing it. Again.

So much for PAYGO, the pay-as-you-go budget legislation that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed just a few weeks ago to cure Washington of its overspending habit. In short, the PAYGO proposal was supposed to prevent exactly the sort of thing that happened this week. Instead, it was little more than a speed bump that members of Congress ran over with the velocity of a runaway train.

What did we learn from this week's spectacle? Simply this: Congress' addiction to runaway spending is a bipartisan affliction. Most lawmakers in both parties see absolutely no contradiction between publicly professing their support for a pay-as-you-go approach, and then ignoring it when the TV cameras are off. The national debt is the very last thing on lawmakers' minds as they try to remain popular by spending their way to re-election with your money. And, when it comes to paying our bills and balancing our books, we're in deeper trouble than most of us realize.

Now for the really bad news. This will continue. Until the American people decide they've had enough and take away the credit card.

REPRINTED FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE.

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