One part of the story of the Republican electoral implosion in 2006 was dissatisfaction with the party’s fiscal record.  Conservative voters were angered at big spending increases across-the-board during the era of Republican rule.  And citizens of all ideological stripes were disgusted with the explosion in the number of earmarks which had turned Congress into – as Jack Abramoff termed it – a “favor factory.�

The 2006 Rating of Congress just published by the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) gives some idea about how bad things had gotten.  Rather than using 15 or 20 key votes, NTU’s Rating includes every vote that Representatives and Senators cast on tax and fiscal issues, so it provides a comprehensive picture of how individual Members are voting and how the institution of Congress is doing as a whole.

The average pro-taxpayer score in the House of Representatives dropped to 39 percent in 2006.  That figure, coupled with 2005’s mean score (40 percent), leaves the 109th Congress’s House average as the worst since the 102nd Congress (1991-1992).  In the Senate, the news wasn’t much better.  While the average score was a little higher (48 percent), still, that meant that 2006 was the ninth straight year when the average Senator’s score was below 50 percent.  The numbers for both chambers provide striking confirmation to those who argued that the majority Republicans had lost their way on tax and spending matters.

Leaders of both parties say they got the message of voter anger last November and have pledged steps to bring back fiscal restraint.  Democrats have passed earmark reform legislation.  President Bush’s FY 2008 budget included measures to curb the growth of entitlement spending.  And Republican Congressional leaders tell their base voters that they are determined to return to their fiscally conservative roots.  All this represents a good start, but the test will be whether each party can sustain the commitment to fiscal restraint over the coming months.

So who was the worst abuser of taxpayers in 2006 you ask?  Representative Dale Kildee of Michigan, who scored a pathetic 7 percent.  Translation: 93 percent of the time when Representative Kildee was deciding on whether to grow government or the tax burden, he voted to expand Washington’s reach into our lives.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 8:15 am and is filed under Economy/Budget, Politics .