Last week Mr. Tiahrt sent out a letter to his supporters that said, “I have never voted for a tax increase. Never, not a single time. And you have my word that I will continue to oppose tax increases and support tax cuts in the U.S. Senate.” He continued to criticize his opponent (Rep. Jerry Moran) for continuously voting to increase taxes and for failing to vote for the Bush tax cuts.
On a policy note, this letter makes me wonder what Mr. Tiahrt’s plans are for paying for the massive size of our federal government. One of the most troubling issues that America faces today is the growing national debt, and a budget that is nowhere close to being balanced. If Mr. Tiahrt isn’t willing to raise taxes, what specific government programs does he want to end? Is he willing to end his massive and irresponsible pork projects in an effort to balance the budget?
While the policy implications of Mr. Tiahrt’s letter are certainly questionable, the real problem with this letter is that much of what he writes is completely false. As the Dodge City Globe pointed out, Mr. Tiahrt has actually voted in favor of tax increases as recently as last month (on a measure that Mr. Moran actually voted against). Furthermore, Mr. Tiahrt’s claim that Moran voted against the Bush tax cuts is clearly false. Mr. Moran actually voted FOR the Bush tax cuts.
It’s still relatively early in this campaign, but it has become obvious that there is no lie that Mr. Tiahrt won’t tell in order to get ahead. If Mr. Tiahrt is willing to obviously LIE to his supporters about his and Mr. Moran’s records, what else is he willing to do? If we can’t trust Mr. Tiahrt to be truthful with the people that are already supporting him, how can we trust him to be a truthful representative for all of Kansas?
The truth is that we can’t trust him.
Publius
Monday, April 19, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Who Says Pigs Can’t Fly?
Earlier this week Citizens Against Government Waste (a conservative think tank whose objective is to create a more fiscally responsible government) released its Pig Book “Oinkers” of 2010 awards that, “Recognize Dogged Perseverance in the Mad Pursuit of Pork.” The organization presents these awards to the Congressmen that most represent the grand tradition of extraordinarily wasteful Washington spending.
Coming as no surprise to this blogger is Mr. Tiahrt’s appearance on the list (along with Senators Roberts and Brownback) under the “Plane Waste Award”. The three representatives are criticized by CAGW for $3,500,000 in federal funds that were used to build the National Institute for Aviation Research. This spending was particularly criticized because its clients are all major aerospace companies that could (and SHOULD) pay for this program on their own.
Yet again we are witnessing Mr. Tiahrt’s actions not match up to his words. Time and time again he makes claims about being a true conservative, but time and time again we hear about congressional watchdog groups giving him poor ratings for his excessive and wasteful spending in Washington. How can we believe this rhetoric?
What makes matters worse is that the announcement of the “Oinker” award came one day before Mr. Tiahrt was actually endorsed by the Tea Party Express. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the entire point of the Tea Party movement to encourage smaller government with less waste? How does Mr. Tiahrt and his pork barrel politics represent the values of the Tea Party movement?
All together, the endorsement and the oinker give me a very troubling view of the Tea Party Express’s means for vetting candidates it should endorse, as well as the problem with rhetoric in our country. Tea Party Express seems to be endorsing Mr. Tiahrt NOT for his conservative principles (which truly don’t exist) but for some sort of nebulously rhetorical reason that I can’t quite understand.
In any event, if Kansans (especially members of the Kansas Tea Party movement) want a true conservative to represent this state in the Senate, it seems impossible at this point to believe that Mr. Tiahrt is the man for the job.
Oinking All the Way,
Publius
Coming as no surprise to this blogger is Mr. Tiahrt’s appearance on the list (along with Senators Roberts and Brownback) under the “Plane Waste Award”. The three representatives are criticized by CAGW for $3,500,000 in federal funds that were used to build the National Institute for Aviation Research. This spending was particularly criticized because its clients are all major aerospace companies that could (and SHOULD) pay for this program on their own.
Yet again we are witnessing Mr. Tiahrt’s actions not match up to his words. Time and time again he makes claims about being a true conservative, but time and time again we hear about congressional watchdog groups giving him poor ratings for his excessive and wasteful spending in Washington. How can we believe this rhetoric?
What makes matters worse is that the announcement of the “Oinker” award came one day before Mr. Tiahrt was actually endorsed by the Tea Party Express. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the entire point of the Tea Party movement to encourage smaller government with less waste? How does Mr. Tiahrt and his pork barrel politics represent the values of the Tea Party movement?
All together, the endorsement and the oinker give me a very troubling view of the Tea Party Express’s means for vetting candidates it should endorse, as well as the problem with rhetoric in our country. Tea Party Express seems to be endorsing Mr. Tiahrt NOT for his conservative principles (which truly don’t exist) but for some sort of nebulously rhetorical reason that I can’t quite understand.
In any event, if Kansans (especially members of the Kansas Tea Party movement) want a true conservative to represent this state in the Senate, it seems impossible at this point to believe that Mr. Tiahrt is the man for the job.
Oinking All the Way,
Publius
Thursday, April 1, 2010
A Flimsy Excuse
Yesterday it was discussed in various publications (here, here, here, here, and here) how Mr. Tiahrt’s offices increased their spending by 11% in 2009. These are, by the way, his taxpayer-funded congressional offices (not to be confused with his campaign offices, although does Tiahrt really know the difference?). These increases, it was reported, included a 22% raise in payroll that brought Tiahrt’s government office payroll above $1 million.
Coupled with last week’s report that Mr. Tiahrt spent $107,000 of taxpayer money last year on franking mail, and we get a troubling picture of a Congressman that sure talks a lot about reducing federal spending, but makes sure to do his part to spend as much taxpayer money as possible. If Mr. Tiahrt was actually serious about lowering the amount of money spent by the federal government, it would be nice to see him start with the only part of the budget that he individually has direct control over.
It might be a small part of the budget, but it’s the little things that make a big impression on voters.
The problem for Mr. Tiahrt, when it comes to these little things, is that he feels an incessant need to make excuses for shortcomings such as these; excuses that bring about further questions regarding how his operations are run and if he is actually the true conservative that he has spent so much time touting himself as.
The Obama Excuse
Responding to the questions surrounding Tiahrt’s increase in office spending, Tiahrt spokesman Sam Sackett claimed that the increase in expenditures was a result of the election of President Obama and the increase in phone calls to the offices that came with it. According to Sackett, Tiahrt’s office averaged 50-60 calls a day during the Bush administration, and has averaged more than 200 calls a day since Obama’s election. “We had to employ a number of people to answer phone calls,” Sackett said, in his attempt to deflect the criticism.
The problem with this excuse is that it fails to acknowledge how congressional offices actually operate because the phones in most congressional offices are answered by UNPAID INTERNS. When I worked as an intern in a congressional district office several summers ago, my primary job was to answer phones and record constituent opinions. Nobody in that office that was actually on the payroll answered the phones unless all of the unpaid interns were already speaking with constituents.
If Tiahrt’s office was really getting so many more calls because of Obama’s election, they would have just hired more unpaid interns to pick up the phone (and believe me, you can ALWAYS find high school and college students to work internships). Obama complaints are never actually going to translate into casework (the stuff that the paid employees at district offices do) or more legislative research (the stuff that the paid employees in DC do); unpaid interns can very easily be trained to answer the phones and log the complaints about Obama into their Congressional database.
The Obama Excuse also makes little sense because Mr. Moran is not making a similar excuse. If Tiahrt needed to hire more people to deal with an increase in complaints regarding President Obama, wouldn’t Mr. Moran also need to hire more people to deal with these same complaints from his constituents? Moran ostensibly represents an even MORE Conservative district, and should get even more complaints (or is there another reason why the frontrunner to replace Mr. Tiahrt right now is actually a Democrat).
It’s impossible to fully believe The Obama Excuse because Mr. Moran’s payroll actually decreased in 2009. I think it’s fair to assume that both offices would get a reasonably similar increase in phone calls and complaints, and for this reason it makes no sense that Mr. Tiahrt would need to increase payroll, while Mr. Moran decreases it.
Clearly, something out of the ordinary is happening here.
The Blame Game
The most troubling thing to me about The Obama Excuse is that it disingenuously sends the blame about the increase in payroll towards the President. It looks to me as if Mr. Tiahrt’s people are trying to blame Obama for the fact that their office had to spend more money. You can think whatever you do about Obama, but their attempts to spin the issue this way reek of attempts to make it a partisan issue.
I feel like Tiahrt’s people are trying to harness voter discontent for the Obama administration to somehow spin it into making people think that Mr. Tiahrt was forced by the President to spend more money on his payroll. While I don’t believe their Obama Excuse, I also see it as a flimsy ploy to gain support from people that are upset with Obama.
Do they really need to stoop this low?
The Tiahrt Five
Another reason why The Obama Excuse is so baseless is the fact that more than half of the increase in spending went to five people that are not only also paid by Mr. Tiahrt’s Senate campaign, but include four recently named members of the campaign leadership team. Even if the increase in spending was about the Obama calls, Mr. Tiahrt wouldn’t really be having his leadership team be fielding these calls, would he?
The fact that so much of the spending increase went to people that also work on his campaign makes me wonder if the increase in spending is tacitly connected to Mr. Tiahrt’s campaign activities. While his spokesperson makes clear that most congressmen have dual-staff employees being paid by both the federal government and the campaign, it is striking to me that Tiahrt’s people would even come close to flirting this line considering their recent scare with the Congressional Ethics committee.
As I’ve written on numerous occasions, there is a fine line between the activities of a campaign and those of the federal government, and this large increase in spending on staff payroll gives me the impression that Tiahrt’s office and campaign might have been crossing that line.
How To Operate a Payroll
At a recent town hall meeting Mr. Tiahrt spoke about how his experience as a former businessman has taught him how to meet a monthly payroll. While I’ll let you decide if his experience at Boeing actually helped to teach him about meeting a payroll like a small businessperson, I think his recent payrolls clearly show that he does not know how to manage one.
Everybody knows that the economy has been rough, and we all have heard as much about how the federal government has been spending too much money. Mr. Tiahrt has been telling us these things for the better part of the past year, but he has apparently not been listening. Most families know what it takes to cut back on their household spending in times like these, but Mr. Tiahrt is proving to us that he does not know how to cut back.
Once again Mr. Tiahrt has proved to me that he is not a true fiscally conservative deficit hawk. While Mr. Tiahrt consistently claims that he cares about lowering the deficit, he consistently acts in ways that are contrary to his supposed beliefs. If we can’t trust Mr. Tiahrt to lower his own staff’s expenditures, and we can’t trust him to be honest about why he is spending more money (as I don’t believe The Obama Excuse), how can we possibly trust him to honestly work to lower the budget deficit?
Without Excuses,
Publius
Coupled with last week’s report that Mr. Tiahrt spent $107,000 of taxpayer money last year on franking mail, and we get a troubling picture of a Congressman that sure talks a lot about reducing federal spending, but makes sure to do his part to spend as much taxpayer money as possible. If Mr. Tiahrt was actually serious about lowering the amount of money spent by the federal government, it would be nice to see him start with the only part of the budget that he individually has direct control over.
It might be a small part of the budget, but it’s the little things that make a big impression on voters.
The problem for Mr. Tiahrt, when it comes to these little things, is that he feels an incessant need to make excuses for shortcomings such as these; excuses that bring about further questions regarding how his operations are run and if he is actually the true conservative that he has spent so much time touting himself as.
The Obama Excuse
Responding to the questions surrounding Tiahrt’s increase in office spending, Tiahrt spokesman Sam Sackett claimed that the increase in expenditures was a result of the election of President Obama and the increase in phone calls to the offices that came with it. According to Sackett, Tiahrt’s office averaged 50-60 calls a day during the Bush administration, and has averaged more than 200 calls a day since Obama’s election. “We had to employ a number of people to answer phone calls,” Sackett said, in his attempt to deflect the criticism.
The problem with this excuse is that it fails to acknowledge how congressional offices actually operate because the phones in most congressional offices are answered by UNPAID INTERNS. When I worked as an intern in a congressional district office several summers ago, my primary job was to answer phones and record constituent opinions. Nobody in that office that was actually on the payroll answered the phones unless all of the unpaid interns were already speaking with constituents.
If Tiahrt’s office was really getting so many more calls because of Obama’s election, they would have just hired more unpaid interns to pick up the phone (and believe me, you can ALWAYS find high school and college students to work internships). Obama complaints are never actually going to translate into casework (the stuff that the paid employees at district offices do) or more legislative research (the stuff that the paid employees in DC do); unpaid interns can very easily be trained to answer the phones and log the complaints about Obama into their Congressional database.
The Obama Excuse also makes little sense because Mr. Moran is not making a similar excuse. If Tiahrt needed to hire more people to deal with an increase in complaints regarding President Obama, wouldn’t Mr. Moran also need to hire more people to deal with these same complaints from his constituents? Moran ostensibly represents an even MORE Conservative district, and should get even more complaints (or is there another reason why the frontrunner to replace Mr. Tiahrt right now is actually a Democrat).
It’s impossible to fully believe The Obama Excuse because Mr. Moran’s payroll actually decreased in 2009. I think it’s fair to assume that both offices would get a reasonably similar increase in phone calls and complaints, and for this reason it makes no sense that Mr. Tiahrt would need to increase payroll, while Mr. Moran decreases it.
Clearly, something out of the ordinary is happening here.
The Blame Game
The most troubling thing to me about The Obama Excuse is that it disingenuously sends the blame about the increase in payroll towards the President. It looks to me as if Mr. Tiahrt’s people are trying to blame Obama for the fact that their office had to spend more money. You can think whatever you do about Obama, but their attempts to spin the issue this way reek of attempts to make it a partisan issue.
I feel like Tiahrt’s people are trying to harness voter discontent for the Obama administration to somehow spin it into making people think that Mr. Tiahrt was forced by the President to spend more money on his payroll. While I don’t believe their Obama Excuse, I also see it as a flimsy ploy to gain support from people that are upset with Obama.
Do they really need to stoop this low?
The Tiahrt Five
Another reason why The Obama Excuse is so baseless is the fact that more than half of the increase in spending went to five people that are not only also paid by Mr. Tiahrt’s Senate campaign, but include four recently named members of the campaign leadership team. Even if the increase in spending was about the Obama calls, Mr. Tiahrt wouldn’t really be having his leadership team be fielding these calls, would he?
The fact that so much of the spending increase went to people that also work on his campaign makes me wonder if the increase in spending is tacitly connected to Mr. Tiahrt’s campaign activities. While his spokesperson makes clear that most congressmen have dual-staff employees being paid by both the federal government and the campaign, it is striking to me that Tiahrt’s people would even come close to flirting this line considering their recent scare with the Congressional Ethics committee.
As I’ve written on numerous occasions, there is a fine line between the activities of a campaign and those of the federal government, and this large increase in spending on staff payroll gives me the impression that Tiahrt’s office and campaign might have been crossing that line.
How To Operate a Payroll
At a recent town hall meeting Mr. Tiahrt spoke about how his experience as a former businessman has taught him how to meet a monthly payroll. While I’ll let you decide if his experience at Boeing actually helped to teach him about meeting a payroll like a small businessperson, I think his recent payrolls clearly show that he does not know how to manage one.
Everybody knows that the economy has been rough, and we all have heard as much about how the federal government has been spending too much money. Mr. Tiahrt has been telling us these things for the better part of the past year, but he has apparently not been listening. Most families know what it takes to cut back on their household spending in times like these, but Mr. Tiahrt is proving to us that he does not know how to cut back.
Once again Mr. Tiahrt has proved to me that he is not a true fiscally conservative deficit hawk. While Mr. Tiahrt consistently claims that he cares about lowering the deficit, he consistently acts in ways that are contrary to his supposed beliefs. If we can’t trust Mr. Tiahrt to lower his own staff’s expenditures, and we can’t trust him to be honest about why he is spending more money (as I don’t believe The Obama Excuse), how can we possibly trust him to honestly work to lower the budget deficit?
Without Excuses,
Publius
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