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Jon Kyl and Rob Portman, in tights! Ron Paul barely a pal at all...
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste has released its annual rating of taxpayer friendliness in both houses of Congress, and the results are daunting. CCAGW measures lawmakers' votes on a list of budget-busting bills (24 variables for the Senate, 34 for the House), and assigns a percentage ranking based on their votes.
Sen. Jon Kyl's 100-percent ranking makes him the only Taxpayer Superhero in the world's greatest deliberative body and massage parlor. The House has almost enough superheroes to make up a Justice League, with Reps. Rob Portman (R-OH), Edward Royce (R-CA), and John Campbell (R-CA) all getting 100s.
Last place in the Senate is a seven-way tie at 4 percent, while Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) cleans up the House all alone, with a total of zero percent. Reason hero of freedom Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) scores an unimpressive 69 percent, putting him in the "Friendly" category.
More details from CCAGW:
The entire House had an average of 45 percent, a 6 point increase over 2004. House Republicans averaged 73 percent; House Democrats averaged 13 percent. The entire Senate had an average of 46 percent also a 6 point increase over 2004. Senate Republicans averaged 68 percent; Senate Democrats averaged 18 percent...
The total number of Heroes and Super Heroes in the House dropped from 59 in 2004 to 52 in 2005. The number of Heroes and Super Heroes in the Senate remained the same at 10.
|7.21.06 @ 6:29PM|#
huh. at least in the house, their scorecard shows the BEST democrat ranked worse than the WORST republican. i'm a little surprised. as someone who occasionally self-identifies as a liberal republican/conservative democrat, i would have thought there was at least SOME fuzziness in the middle. no way am i going to spend time deconstructing their accounting methods, but it seems almost too sharp a dividing line to be true. (the club for growth house scorecard, which is linked to on that site, at least has a little overlap in the middle, as does the senate scorecard).
|7.21.06 @ 6:43PM|#
Well, I think their ranking is flawed; For example, they gig Paul for voting *against* CAFTA, but he voted against it because he opposes the extra regulations and taxes it contains.
|7.21.06 @ 6:43PM|#
It always pays to read the fine print on these things. Many of the "key votes" listed by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste are not about government spending but rather a standard right-wing laundry list: "protecting" the Bush tax cuts; eliminating the estate tax; tort "reform" (i.e., protecting corporate lawyers and incompetent doctors), etc., etc., etc. For a pro-capitalist, globalizing, free-speech loving Democrat like me, this list gives me the belch.
|7.21.06 @ 7:09PM|#
CAFTA passage? Minimum wage? The bankruptcy bill? What do any of
those have to do with government waste?
I gotta tell you, blogging this uncritically makes you look a lot
more like a Republican spin doctor than a principled advocate for
libertarianism.
Thomas Paine's Goiter|7.21.06 @ 7:23PM|#
I gotta tell you, blogging this uncritically makes you look
a lot more like a Republican spin doctor than a principled advocate
for libertarianism.
Big surprise coming from a lazy, POS government leech like
yourself, joe. Back to doing nothing now, run along joe.
|7.21.06 @ 7:34PM|#
IIRC, because of Ron Paul's strong federalism stance he also often votes against "smaller government" legislation that has the effect of imposing unfunded mandates on the states.
|7.21.06 @ 7:47PM|#
joe,
You are probably used to liberal blogs where they tell you what you
are supposed to think. Tim was just presenting the data. Reporting
the fact that Dr. Paul scored so low was kind of a criticism, but
it probably escaped you.
|7.21.06 @ 8:28PM|#
Ruthless,
I've been working as a contractor. Work weeks, weekends, it all
sort of blends together. But Friday is nice.
|7.21.06 @ 8:42PM|#
Pigeon, why give someone the space?
Why disseminate a group's misleading information, and not label it
as such?
All of a sudden, H & R is a library, "just presenting the
data?" Since when? This is a commentary magazine that advocates for
smaller government.
If a Democratic group issued an "economic freedom scorecard" that
systematically favored votes for unions, poverty assistance, and
environmental regulation, do you think any conservative website or
magazine would or should just report their rankings and link to the
report?
It comes across as advocating for that group's stance, and lending
them your soapbox, even if that's not the intent. Which I don't
imagine was Cavanaugh's, which is why I wrote "comes across
as."
|7.21.06 @ 8:44PM|#
To update a bit:
Rob Portman, in whose office in Kenwood, Sinincincinnati, I would
often take a lunch break because he had the news channel: He is now
the US Trade Representative in charge of beating up on China in
order to hike prices at WalMart.
joe,
When you are older, your body will cry out for banker's hours.
|7.21.06 @ 8:52PM|#
Forgive an old anarchist for not keeping closer track of his
political representation.
Portman's star has been rising too fast for me.
He's now in charge of hiking deficits in the Dubya budget as the
Director, OMB.
|7.21.06 @ 9:26PM|#
joe,
That's what us little people are for, to do fact-checking for the
writers. I'd help out, but I've got my hands full with correcting
Ron Bailey.
|7.21.06 @ 9:28PM|#
I'd help out, but I've got my hands full with correcting Ron
Bailey.
Somebody is trying to earn sainthood...
|7.21.06 @ 9:36PM|#
Heh, that's me, the Patron Saint of Blog Commenters.
But now I'm being flippant, and as you all know I hate flippancy.
And Flipper too, but let's not get into the whole free association
thing here.
|7.21.06 @ 9:47PM|#
joe,
It all depends on which is flip and which is flop. I think the flop
matters more, since it comes after.
But flop-flipping, that's just totally gross.
|7.22.06 @ 6:24AM|#
House Republicans averaged 73 percent; House Democrats
averaged 13 percent.
But remember, kids -- if the Democrats retake Congress, that will
magically cause the government to spent LESS money, using nothing
more than our fond memories of the split government of the 1990s
and a healthy dose of "post hoc".
Because when the government is run by a President from the party
that wants to spend buckets of money and a Congress controlled by
the party that wants to spend even bigger buckets of money, they
will, for some reason, compromise on spending less money than
either group wants! Amazing, isn't it?
|7.22.06 @ 6:25AM|#
Yay, I see Sununu got a 95%. He's always been one of the very few senators I thought was worth a damn. His successful election campaign of yesteryear included dealing with Social Security, that is, actually doing something.
|7.22.06 @ 8:40AM|#
To go totally meta and threadjack:
See you guys in a week. My wife and I are off to the beach. No
doubt something totally funny will happen while I'm gone and
everybody will be joking about it, and I'll come back and be like
"Why is everybody talking about lawn mowers in the same tone that
we used for corn syrup jokes?"
My promise to resume posting is contingent on the war not
escalating to the point where somebody blows up the central
location where all of the tubes meet. That would suck, and we'd all
have to spend our days doing actual work. At least until Ted
Stevens installed new tubes.
The Wine Commonsewer|7.22.06 @ 9:51AM|#
Ron Paul barely a friend.....
Yes, it's disappointing.
Nice to see my old buddy, former anarcho-capitalist, and Reason's
friend Ed Royce dialing in at 100%. I am impressed. Except that I'm
pretty sure that I heard him on Tim's favorite LA Radio station the
other day yammering about how fast we need to build a wall across
the southern border. Could be mistaken on that I was picking the
kids up at the bus stop and not paying that much attention.
Big Sigh.
|7.22.06 @ 10:22AM|#
Remember when the US was debating a 2% increase in discretionary
spending vs a 4% increase?
As opposed to a 30% increase in the past few years?
Please, let a blowjob be the most serious thing we can worry about?
I miss that. World war 3 is for the birds.
|7.22.06 @ 10:25AM|#
If there was a phalanx of girls and guys who would give blowjobs long before any spending increases happened... Wouldn't the world be a nicer place?
|7.22.06 @ 11:12AM|#
"If there was a phalanx of girls and guys who would give
blowjobs long before any spending increases happened... Wouldn't
the world be a nicer place?
Unless of course they bombed countries for no other reason that to
take the publics attention away from their sexual harrassment
cases. And unless the people supposedly there to stand up to women
excused them raping other women. And unless their actions directly
caused the events of WW3.
Otherwise, just plain blowjobs? Go ahead.
|7.22.06 @ 11:14AM|#
Sorry. I'd rather have unrepentant BJ's than reckless spending. Not like most people have integrity beyond the end of their dick anyways.
|7.22.06 @ 11:14AM|#
Sorry. I'd rather have unrepentant BJ's than reckless spending. Not like most people have integrity beyond the end of their dick anyways.
|7.22.06 @ 11:17AM|#
So good you can't only read it once.
Either that or highly questionable spam tactics.
I mean seriously. I work on MS anti-spam. The techniques you use
are.... crude.
|7.22.06 @ 11:48AM|#
John Campbell's perfect score is a bit unreliable. He hasn't even served one term yet. Maybe he'll live up to this score someday, though.
|7.22.06 @ 11:48AM|#
John Campbell's perfect score is a bit unreliable. He hasn't even served one term yet. Maybe he'll live up to this score someday, though.
|7.22.06 @ 1:04PM|#
Wait... so if Republicans are so much better at cutting
spending, how come most federal tax money flows to the red
states?
http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/hweisberg/conference/Lacy-OSUConf.PDF
Ship Erect|7.22.06 @ 1:47PM|#
What does drilling in ANWR have to do with helping taxpayers? The instant I saw ANWR drilling was used as a metric (actually a vote on some specific Ed Markey amendment), I knew that this had little to do with measuring who is for or against government waste and more to do with measuring who is for Republican legislation.
R.J. Lehmann|7.22.06 @ 2:38PM|#
"To update a bit:
Rob Portman, in whose office in Kenwood, Sinincincinnati, I would
often take a lunch break because he had the news channel: He is now
the US Trade Representative in charge of beating up on China in
order to hike prices at WalMart."
To update further, he's not THAT anymore, either. He's been
director of the OMB since April.
|7.22.06 @ 2:51PM|#
Mark Borok,
It could be that they're better at cutting spending to the blue
states.
But in reality, I think it's neither. The Ds want to increase
spending by 20%, while the Rs want to increase by 10%, so they
compromise and increase it by 30%.
Gene Berkman|7.22.06 @ 3:13PM|#
CAGW regarded a vote in favor of the Budget - a vote in favor of
spending trillions of dollars - as a victory for taxpayers.
Ron Paul voted against budget reconciliation measures several
times, and they gave him a lower score. Ed Royce and the other
taxpayer heroes voted in favor of spending trillions of dollars,
and received points from CAGW.
Robert|7.22.06 @ 7:26PM|#
"CAGW regarded a vote in favor of the Budget - a vote in favor
of spending trillions of dollars - as a victory for taxpayers. Ron
Paul voted against budget reconciliation measures several times,
and they gave him a lower score."
Probably because CAGW & Ron Paul disagreed as to which action
would result in reducing gov't waste. It's not as if we know that a
defeat of that budget would've resulted in LOWER spending.
I've looked at material from CAGW over a few years, and it doesn't
look to me as if they're anything but sincere. Is it possible that
the collective mind of CAGW was correct in this case, and that Ron
Paul was voting on symbol rather than substance?
Sorry to seem like I've been bashing Ron Paul today, but although
I'm sure he has good intentions, I tend to think he's not as
effective as he could be if he were less image-conscious.
|7.23.06 @ 2:59PM|#
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) scores an unimpressive 69
percent,...
I see him with a score of 82 putting him
51st place. Or am I reading it wrong?
|7.23.06 @ 7:51PM|#
isaac,
you're reading the club for growth list. the cagw list is a link or
two above that one.
-cab
|7.24.06 @ 12:12AM|#
my two senetors got 7 and 17% (Murry, cantwell)
which is supriseing becosue lately i ahve hated cantwell more then
murry.
My state sucks.
|7.24.06 @ 12:24AM|#
CAFTA passage? Minimum wage? The bankruptcy bill? What do
any of those have to do with government waste?
I gotta tell you, blogging this uncritically makes you look a
lot more like a Republican spin doctor than a principled advocate
for libertarianism.
since when have libertarian been for min wage or against
CAFTA....
joe you have been here longer then me...i am suprised you have not
caught on about this stuff.
As to the bankruptcy bill i am still on the wall about
it...fundementally i belive people should pay thier bills....i
really don't think that idea is against libertarian theory.
therow,
have a nice trip.
|7.24.06 @ 12:28AM|#
If a Democratic group issued an "economic freedom scorecard"
that systematically favored votes for unions, poverty assistance,
and environmental regulation, do you think any conservative website
or magazine would or should just report their rankings and link to
the report?
great the left already stolen the liberal name from us now joe is
trying to steal "economic freedom" from us as well.
|7.24.06 @ 6:22AM|#
isaac,
you're reading the club for growth list. the cagw list is a
link or two above that one.
Ah, yes. All is clear now. Many thanks.
Ron Paul has run afoul of other groups in the past. The NRA was
annoyed when he opposed the gun lawsuit bill.
He seems to be guided more by his interpretation of the
Constitution than a desire to make anyone happy. One can disagree
with him, but it's refreshing to see that there's still someone
willing to take a stand on principle.
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