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.

Comments

[barneca]

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).

[tarran]

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.

[Alan Vanneman]

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.

[joe]

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]

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.

[SR]

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.

[Callipygian Pigeon]

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.

[Ruthless]

Ron Paul is close enough "for government work."
p.s. joe, I love you.
TGIF, eh?

[joe]

Ruthless,

I've been working as a contractor. Work weeks, weekends, it all sort of blends together. But Friday is nice.

[Robert]

It's about time to realize Ron Paul isn't the only benchmark.

[joe]

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."

[Ruthless]

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.

[Ruthless]

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.

[crimethink]

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.

[thoreau]

I'd help out, but I've got my hands full with correcting Ron Bailey.

Somebody is trying to earn sainthood...

[crimethink]

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.

[joe]

What about flip-flopping? Pro or con?

[crimethink]

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.

[joe]

crimethink, have you ever actually known any flop-flippers?

G'night.

[andrew]

i like this blog very much , i need touch more.

[andrew]

i like this blog very much , i need touch more.

[DB]

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?

[Joe Majsterski]

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.

[thoreau]

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]

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.

[bago]

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.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Thowrow, have some fun..............

[bago]

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?

[kwais]

"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.

[bago]

Sorry. I'd rather have unrepentant BJ's than reckless spending. Not like most people have integrity beyond the end of their dick anyways.

[bago]

Sorry. I'd rather have unrepentant BJ's than reckless spending. Not like most people have integrity beyond the end of their dick anyways.

[bago]

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.

[bago]

Like I won't spoof anything you think of. As if POST is so hard.

[bago]

Like I won't spoof anything you think of. As if POST is so hard.

[David]

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.

[David]

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.

[Mark Borok]

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]

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]

"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.

[crimethink]

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]

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]

"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.

[Isaac Bartram]

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?

[barneca]

isaac,

you're reading the club for growth list. the cagw list is a link or two above that one.

-cab

[joshua corning]

my two senetors got 7 and 17% (Murry, cantwell)

which is supriseing becosue lately i ahve hated cantwell more then murry.

My state sucks.

[joshua corning]

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.

[joshua corning]

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.

[Isaac Bartram]

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.