Judging John Spratt by his own words
Kudos to the Fairfield County Tea Party folks for doing their homework and finding these nuggets of budgetary wisdom from endangered Congressman John Spratt, who bashed Republicans in September 2006, alleging they were doing the same kind of things that he and a Democratic Congress are doing now.
We will refrain from commentary on this and simply allow our readers to see Spratt's words and make up their own minds about how well what he said then lines up with what he has done in his present role as House Budget Committee Chair.
First, here's what he has to say about the failure to pass a budget, suggesting failure to pass a budget is a call for the dismissal of Congress:
If you can't budget, you can't govern. In a parliamentary system, it's more than an adage. In a parliamentary system traditionally if the majority party cannot pass a budget, does not pass a budget, it's an occasion for dissolution of the parliament.
That's how central it is to the operation of any government to have a budget. That's how central it is to the definition of any effective governing body, political party, in determining whether or not they've done the job they were elected to do, to have a budget to prove it.
We have no budget this year. We have here a report card. We start with adopting a budget. We give them an F. The House passed a budget. The Senate passed a budget. But they were unable to reconcile the differences between them and both of their budgets diverged from the president's budget. (Page 1)
... and the second quote about the effects of deficit spending:
These big deficits don't seem consequential because we don't particularly feel the effects of them. That is to say, even though the federal government is borrowing huge sums every year to finance its debt, as Senator Conrad was just pointing out, we barely feel the effects because foreigners are buying it: unusual liquidity in the world markets, huge balance-of-payment deficits being recycled.
The consequence is foreigners are amassing more and more of our debt and, therefore, control over our fiscal and financial future at the same time they are alleviating us from the real effects of having these enormous deficits, at least for the time being.
As Senator Conrad said, and you'll hear it said all over the Hill with respect to this budget: The situation we're in, it's not sustainable. It simply cannot go on forever. (Page 2)
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