Democrats have run around the country talking about how Republicans have run up big deficits. Democratic congressional candidates have taken advantage of Republican failure to live within their means to try and establish Democrats as “fiscal conservatives.”

This rhetoric has been successful in many places and is continuing to be used. In my own home state of Idaho, Congressional Candidate Walt Minnick declares, “As a Congressman I will demand that the federal government balance its budget.” Great, Walt, but what does the candidate you endorsed for President say? Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the Presidency when asked about Senator John McCain’s (AZ) pledge to balance the budget in four years, Obama not only stated it wouldn’t happen, but that there were so many needed “investments” (i.e. Democratic speak for new spending) that he couldn’t promise the deficit would even be lower four years from now than it is today.

Barack Obama may have audacity, but he’s not audacious enough to claim he’ll balance the budget. He’s proposed $343.6 billion in new spending according to the latest calculation of the costs of his campaign promises by the National Taxpayer’s Union. Given the massive spending he proposes, he can’t even reduce the deficit with his proposal to raise taxes and bring back Carteresque “windfall profits” taxes on oil companies. 

Democrats, in their criticisms of Republican deficits have attacked the Bush tax cuts, even though under Bush, revenues have actually increased. They’ve done nothing about spending and made few, if any efforts at reforming the out of control earmarks process. The solution offered by Barack Obama is more of the same: Raise taxes and rather than balancing the budget, raise spending even higher. That’s odd. The Democrats’ version of fiscal conservatism sure looks a lot like “tax and spend.”

Why can’t Democrats be honest about what they want? Because, while conservative ideas are not popular with the Republican leadership, they are popular with Americans, so Democrats have to borrow the language.

By the way, Minnick is challenging Congressman Bill Sali (R-ID) who got a 100% rating from the Conservative Union, an A from the National Taxpayers Union, and was one of the most fiscally conservative members in Congress according to Club for Growth ratings. Given the choice between a proven Conservative who has actually stood up against over-spending (even when it could politically hurt him) and one who talks about the dangers of deficits while the leader of his party declares his undying loyalty to tax and spend policies, the choice for voters in Idaho’s 1^st District couldn’t be clearer. 

Clarification of Last Column

In my last column on Obama’s paternalistic community service plan, my hometown paper, the Idaho Statesman took me to task on two points.

First, they argued that the total number of hours that Senator Obama proposes students work adds up to about 5 week rather than 17. Indeed, the total forced volunteer hours adds up to 700 hours or 29.16 days. Where did I get this misleading information?

From Senator Obama, who, in his Denver Speech stated, “This means that by the time you graduate college, you’ll have done 17 weeks of service.” The 17 week figure came from Senator Obama. While I’d like to claim that I found some new way in which Senator Obama deceived voters, I don’t think that’s the case. Senator Obama simply calculated weeks worked by dividing 40 hours rather than by 168 waking hours, thus giving us the result of 17.5 weeks worked.

It was further pointed out that I failed to reference the fact that for college students, Obama would pay out $4000 per year in tax credits for their service.  Fair enough. So, in college instead of having unpaid labor, Obama is paying $40 an hour for volunteer service. There are some states where attorneys don’t earn that much. And also will this make them willing volunteers when no one is forcing them to do it and no one is bribing them to do it? My original point remains.

Perhaps, this clarification goes well with a column on the fiscal irresponsibility and how Obama will send our nation further into debt. Please also note for the 300 hours of community service in middle and high school, students are paid nothing, which from reading the Statesman is an unclear point.