Secret Spending Bill "Stopped Cold"

Secret Spending Bill "Stopped Cold"

You needed to look no further than the Senate and House last week to see what a difference Club for Growth members are making in national policies. Take a look at what Club for Growth PAC-supported candidates, now Senators or Representatives, were up to:

On Thursday, Bob Novak wrote:

"[t]he Senate was up to its old tricks Monday evening. It prepared to pass, without debate and under a procedure requiring unanimous consent, a federal infusion of $9 billion into state Medicaid programs under the pretext of Katrina relief. The bill, drafted in secret under bipartisan auspices, was stopped cold when Republican Sen. John Ensign voiced his objection."

Ensign was part of a small cohort of conservative Republican Senators, including Club PAC-supported Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint and John Sununu who stood up against the bill, stopping it dead in its tracks. As Novak concluded, "The culture of Washington is against them, but stopping one $9 billion outlay is a start."

Switching from the Senate to the House, Club PAC-supported Jeff Flake had an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, titled "The Year of Spending Dangerously." Rep. Flake demonstrated real leadership by posing the sort of questions the Republican leadership needs to address if it wants to continue to enjoy conservative support -- and, therefore, the votes needed to be the governing party. Here's what Rep. Flake said:

"When we refuse, in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, to consider postponing a universal prescription drug benefit that we could ill-afford prior to the devastation, and reject out of hand a national consensus that we reopen the infamous Highway Bill and finance the rebuilding of the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana by cancelling the Bridge To Nowhere in Alaska, we can hardly blame the voters for questioning our fiscal bona fides...Whether we want to admit it or not, the Republican Congress' failure to discipline itself is sending us all down a flower-strewn path to financial insolvency. That the Democrats would get us there faster should be of little consolation to anyone."

Source: Club for growth PA email

Vice Chairman of Voter Education

http://www.ycop.org

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YCOP/

http://www.InformedPA.com