LAT: GOP Spenders Think Voters Dismiss Deficits

[DeepModem Mom]

GOP Spenders Think Voters Dismiss Deficits
Fiscal conservatives may be upset with increased spending, but Congress just can't say no.
By Joel Havemann and Richard Simon, Times Staff Writers
March 18, 2006


WASHINGTON — For two days they marched past the huge marble fountain and upstairs to the terra-cotta and creamy-gold splendor of the grand ballroom at the historic Peabody Hotel in Memphis. There, flanked by the flags of more than two dozen states, four U.S. senators who hope to carry the Republican banner in the 2008 presidential election pledged allegiance to one of the GOP's most revered principles: fiscal responsibility — never spend taxpayers' money you don't have.

Less than a week later, the Senate's Republican majority overwhelmingly approved billions of dollars in deficit spending. Despite outcry from conservative groups that helped build the GOP majorities in both houses of Congress, the Republican spenders were undeterred, for one reason:

They're convinced that voters now care less about big deficits than they do about the things that increased federal spending will buy.

"Senators are betting that pandering to the public with billions in election-year promises will pay off more than they lose by cutting the fiscal conservatives in their own party off at the knees," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

That political calculation was behind congressional Republicans' support for the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement in 2003. And it drove Thursday's votes to raise the debt ceiling and approve more deficit spending....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spend18mar18,0,1375456.story?coll=la-home-nation