It's About Time

The Republicans are finally getting the message that the taxpayers are furious at the exhorbitant sums of money being thrown about on the hill. In Bloomberg today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wants to slow consideration of the economic stimulus package Democrats are drafting, warning that the measure sought by President-elect Barack Obama invites wasteful spending.

" “A trillion-dollar spending bill would be the largest spending bill in the history of our country at a time when our national debt is already the largest in history,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement. “As a result, it will require tough scrutiny and oversight. Taxpayers, already stretched to the limit, deserve nothing less.”
McConnell called for giving lawmakers and the public at least one week to review the legislation once it has been written. He also said he wanted Senate committee hearings on the measure, rather than immediate floor consideration.

“We must make distinctions between what is ‘stimulus’ -- defined by Speaker Pelosi earlier this year as ‘timely, targeted and temporary’ -- and what is merely more government spending on favored projects we don’t need with money we don’t have,” McConnell said.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said today he has reservations about the size of the plan. He also called for hearings on it and at least a week of publicly available text for taxpayers to review. In the House the minority party doesn’t have as much power as in the Senate to stall legislation. "

Let's hope that the small band of fiscally conservative legislators can force some prudent thought about how our money will be allocated onto the rest of the slap-happy spenders.