A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Hey Big Spender!

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Via David Lightman at the McClatchy Washington Bureau Bush is the biggest spender since LBJ, and arguably a bigger spender than LBJ.

George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, he’s arguably an even bigger spender than LBJ.

“He’s a big government guy,” said Stephen Slivinski, the director of budget studies at Cato Institute, a libertarian research group.

The numbers are clear, credible and conclusive, added David Keating, the executive director of the Club for Growth, a budget-watchdog group.

“He’s a big spender,” Keating said. “No question about it.”

Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors.

Discretionary spending — i.e. spending Congress and the President can control, not entitlements like Social Security and Medicare — shot up 5.3% per year for Bush’s first 6 years. Prior to Bush, Johnson had the highest increases at 4.6% per year. It was 3% under Ford, 2.4% under Carter, and 1.9% under Reagan. Clinton is not listed, meaning that discretionary spending went up less under his administration than under Reagan’s.

Now, near the end of the seventh year of his presidency, Bush is positioning himself as a tough fiscal conservative.

He says Congress is proposing to spend $22 billion more in fiscal 2008 than the $933 billion he requested for discretionary programs — and that the $22 billion extra would swell over five years to $205 billion.

Eventually, Bush said, “they’re going to have to raise taxes to pay for it.”

And so, the president told an Arkansas audience earlier this month, people should brace for “what they call a fiscal showdown in Washington.

. . .

Bush is getting tough on fiscal policy — after running up a record as the most profligate spender in at least 40 years.

Welcome to the Working Week

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One of the reasons a number of House Republicans are calling it quits: the five day work week.

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), 61, one of those who announced he’s packing it in, said that the Democrats’ new five-day workweek made traveling back home that much more difficult.

“I do think the schedule and the flying is a huge pain for people, particularly those who are from the Midwest or even further West,” he said, adding that it’s “probably the worst part of the job.”

“I think that has played into these retirement announcements,” said the seven-term congressman from Peoria.

Maybe we could hire some illegal politicans to do the work American politicians just won’t do.

Federal Children’s Health Bill in Danger

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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill providing health insurance to more than 10 million American kids. The bill passed by a vote of 265 to 159, meaning about 20% of House Republicans voted in favor of the measure along with all of the House Democrats. President Bush says he’s going to veto the measure and the House vote was not veto proof, making a handful of House Republicans critical votes on this issue. (290 votes are necessary, meaning an additional 25 Representatives would have to change their minds to override Bush’s veto). The roll call vote is here. Voting “no” on the children’s health care measure from Indiana were Reps. Buyer, Burton, Pence, and Souder.

Let me get this straight. $12 billion per year for children’s health care is too darn expensive. But $2 or $3 billion per week for the endless and useless war in Iraq is fiscally responsible? Rubber stamping the Bush administration’s agenda apparently results in some unusual priorities.

WTF?

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Good Brownie points out this truly odd statement by Bill Richardson reported by the Des Moines Register:

God’s will is for Iowa to have the first-in-the-nation caucus, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson told a crowd here Monday.

“Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary,” Richardson, New Mexico’s governor, said at the Northwest Iowa Labor Council Picnic. “And I want you to know who was the first candidate to sign a pledge not to campaign anywhere if they got ahead of Iowa. It was Bill Richardson.”

Is this in the Apocrypha? Maybe one of the lesser known books of the Bible? Or, does the Lord speak directly to Governor Richardson?

I didn’t see it – maybe Bill was just engaged in some good natured hyperbole that does not come across clearly in print reporting. But, on its face, this certainly looks like a gaffe of epic proportions.

Glenn Murphy

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Glenn Murphy Jr. was the Clark County Indiana Republican chairman as well as the head of the national Young Republicans. He stepped down, according to him because of a business opportunity, but more likely because he is accused of having molested another man while he slept. I haven’t commented on this story, not because I’m above it somehow — seems like when a guy who advocates family values and hewing to straight and narrow sexual mores as a political stance is (credibly if not conclusively) accused of committing sex acts on sleeping men on two different occasions (pdf – somewhat graphic), it’s news. My lack of commentary has more to do with the fact that other local blogs have it well in hand — most notably Taking Down Words which broke the story. ABC7Chicago.com: Clark County GOP chairman quits amid investigation. Advance Indiana has also been doing a good job on this story.

What prompted me to write anything about it was to grouse about the AP story on the subject that mentions reporting of The Evening News of Jeffersonville and The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky but, when it’s time to credit Taking Down Words, can only bring itself to mention that the police report related to the investigation was “also posted on a political Internet blog.”

No respect.

Update Murphy plead guilty in June 2008; served time in the DOC and was released in October 2008; and was registered as a sex offender as of March 2010.

Stop the presses: Souder is a hypocrite

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Sylvia Smith has a column in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette entitled Bring back Souder the watchdog. Everyone will be surprised to learn that back in 1997, Mark Souder waxed poetic about the solemn duty of the Congress to conduct oversight over the executive branch. In 2007, he’s not so keen on the idea. Maybe breaking his term-limit pledge has addled his brains, but, more likely Souder has adopted the maxim “It’s OK If You’re A Republican.” Ms. Smith does a nice “then and now” demonstrating the extent of his hypocrisy.

IN-08: Mud flies in the bloody Eighth

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The National Republican Congressional Committee has been airing ads attacking Brad Ellsworth, trying to paint him as a zombie who will serve his liberal San Francisco liberal masters if elected to Congress. As a counterattack, the Ellsworth campaign has come up with an interesting approach to turning one of Hostettler’s traditional “positives” into a “negative.”

Hostettler traditionally foregoes PAC money and raises very little money of his own with which to campaign. Normally, this is seen as a good thing. Not beholden to special interests, close to his constituents, etc. etc. Trouble is that, as a consequence of his minimal campaign funds, he owes a lot of his electoral activity to money spent by the National Republican Congressional Committee which uses money that is decidedly more tainted than the money raised by Hostettler personally. Ellsworth is raising ads that suggest Hostettler shouldn’t get a free ride simply because the money spent on behalf of his campaign is first laundered through the NRCC. Instead, the Ellsworth campaign is attempting to tag Hostettler with all of the sins of the NRCC, links to convicted Republican felon superlobbyist Jack Abramoff and the spreading scandal involving Congressmen such as convicted Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA), indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), and convicted Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH). (See the Grand Old Docket for a rundown of criminal activity involving prominent politicians.)

IN-02: Republican pollster has Chocola up by 5% over Donnelly

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James Wensits, writing for the South Bend Tribune, has a story reporting that a Republican polling outfit by the name of Mercury Public Affairs claims that Chocola has a 5% lead over Donnelly, specifically, their numbers have Chocola up 45.5% versus 40.5% with 13.9% undecided. The sample included 39.7% Republicans, 37% Democrats, and 18.2% independent. (Which, out of a sample of 300 people, means 119 Republicans, 111 Democrats, and 70 independents.)

This contrasts with the poll numbers in another story written by Mr. Wensits featuring the WSBT/South Bend Tribune poll (conducted by Research 2000 of Rockville Maryland) sampling 400 likely voters, showing Donnelly ahead 50% to 42% with 8% undecided and a 5% margin of error.

Both pollsters “stand by their numbers.” I didn’t see the break down of voter affiliation in the South Bend Tribune poll. In any case, if conventional wisdom holds up, Chocola is in some trouble even with his poll numbers. He’s below 50% approval and there are 13% undecideds. The conventional wisdom is that undecideds typically break significantly toward the challenger.

AG sues Electronic Freedom Fund for anti-Hill robocalls

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An article from Mary Beth Schneider indicates that Attorney General Steve Carter  has sued a California-based group called the “Electronic Freedom Fund” for automated phone calls attacking IN-09 Democratic Congressional candidate Baron Hill.

The group has apparently agreed to stop making the calls, but Carter has said that the State will continue to seek an injunction against the “Electronic Freedom Fund” in a Brown County Court. Carter says that the group said that their vendor said that the calls were “legal so long as they were placed from out of state.” Where they got that, I don’t know. The relevant statute is IC 24-5-14 which states:

A caller may not use or connect to a telephone line an automatic dialing-announcing device unless:
(1) the subscriber has knowingly or voluntarily requested, consented to, permitted, or authorized receipt of the message; or
(2) the message is immediately preceded by a live operator who obtains the subscriber’s consent before the message is delivered.

Violating the law constitutes a deceptive act under IC 24-5-0.5 which means that the attorney general can bring an action. An individual subjected to the violation may also bring suit personally and cash in a little bit. But, if the Attorney General decides to be hard core about this, he could really bring some cash into the State’s coffers under IC 24-5-0.5-8:

Sec. 8. A person who commits an incurable deceptive act is subject to a civil penalty of a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500) for each violation. The attorney general, acting in the name of the state, has the exclusive right to petition for recovery of such a fine, and this fine may be recovered only in an action brought under section 4(c) of this chapter.

In the definitions section, we find that “‘Incurable deceptive act’ means a deceptive act done by a supplier as part of a scheme, artifice, or device with intent to defraud or mislead.”

I’d say there is a pretty strong argument to be made that the calls were intended to mislead voters about Baron Hill’s voting record. For example, I’d be surprised if a court would agree that the “Electronic Freedom Fund” was accurately characterizing Hill’s voting record when they state that “Baron Hill voted to allow the sale of a broad range of violent and sexually explicit material to minors.”

I haven’t heard how many automated calls were made, but it wouldn’t take long before $500 per call started adding up to some real money, even for an organization bankrolled by Bob Perry, the Houston millionaire responsible for the “Swiftboat Veterans For Truth” lies about John Kerry’s military record that caused Kerry so much trouble when he was running against George Bush.

Yet another Internet political quiz

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Courtesy of Fort Wayne Libertarian Mike Sylvester is the 2D Political Quiz. It rates me as “Moderate Libertarian.” My suspicion is that the quiz is designed such that most folks come out as libertarian — not surprising since the principles undergirding libertarianism (essentially the right to be let alone unless your actions hurt someone else) are fundamental American values. But, I think it probably glosses over stickier questions of communal rights and responsibilities such as how much the individual should be required to sacrifice to protect the country or what actions the community can take to mitigate the effects of an individual’s bad choices on others.