Pop quiz: Name a candidate who has run for federal office in the last half century who did not promise voters either a tax cut or more government funding for services. (To make it harder: Name a winning candidate.)
I can’t think of one, because everyone I have ever covered or read about promises either one or the other. Typically, Democrats promise more health care, more jobs programs, etc. Republicans promise lower tax rates, etc. Almost everyone promises to fight for little pork projects for your neighborhood. Either way, the pitch is the same: Vote for me, and I will give you something worth money.
If both sides of the political spectrum are constantly promising to give you more money, it is not hard to figure out how we got to where we are–with unsustainable deficits as far as the eye can see. You don’t get elected by telling people the truth. You get elected by giving away the store.
Which brings us to the vote on Tuesday in the Senate on a binding bipartisan commission that would have likely found a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to balance the budget. It lost, in a bipartisan vote, with 53 yeas and 46 nays. (It needed 60 votes.) Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, who represents the far left of the Senate caucus, voted nay, as did Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the chamber. Votes like that don’t happen every day.
But seven other votes are the most telling–Republicans Robert Bennett (Utah), John McCain (Arizona), Sam Brownback (Kansas), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Texas), John Ensign (Nevada) and Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma). All of them had either once co-sponsored the commission they voted against or in the case of Bennett, still co-sponsored it. Most of them also faced reelection, or new elections this fall.
I contacted both McCain’s and Brownback’s offices, and both said the senators changed their mind out of concern that the commission would call for raising taxes. “That was a completely different time,” explained McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan when I asked about McCain’s previous support for the commission. “The original discussions indicated that raising taxes through the commission was not possible, but after some time, it became apparent that some serious folks and some serious groups thought it was distinctly possible,” said Brownback spokesman Brian Hart. I have not yet heard back from Bennett’s office, but I would note that the day before he voted against the commission to recommend deficit reductions, he posted a statement on his website that read, in part, “The time to tackle the nation’s debt is now.” Indeed.
Democrats have launched onto the apparent flip flops, noting that if these Republicans had held their ground, we might have a bipartisan commission on fiscal responsibility with some teeth. (The commission would have required an up or down vote on a single plan.) But Democrats don’t get a pass on this either, since 21 Democrats voted with McCain and company, no doubt because they didn’t want spending to go down.
It’s all quite comical. The problem with the deficit is really quite simple to solve, but your elected leaders are too busy trying to get elected by giving you stuff to bother.
To see how your senator voted, see the roll call vote here.