Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire yesterday used his last major floor speech as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to blast his own party's leadership in Congress, accusing Republican leaders of engaging in the type of fiscal recklessness that he said led voters to oust the GOP from power.
Gregg, who will give up the Budget Committee gavel when his party relinquishes control of Congress in January, issued his unusually harsh critique in reference to a sweeping tax-cut bill that Republicans were rushing through in the final hours of the congressional session.
"The American people took the reins of government away from the Republican Party relative to the Republican Congress in this last election," Gregg said in a speech on the Senate floor. "They did so, I think, in large part because they were tired of our hypocrisy as a party on the issue of fiscal responsibility. And it would appear that their concerns are justified. It is true, I guess."
Gregg went on to say that Democrats will also probably be irresponsible stewards of the nation's finances, "but at least they won't be hypocritical about it."
"You just have to ask yourself how we, as a party, got to this point, where we have a leadership which is going to ram down the throats of our party the biggest budget-buster in the history of the Congress under Republican leadership. Well, anyway, the American people figured it out, and I'm sorry we haven't figured it out yet." Read on...
How refreshing to hear a Republican elected official push away the Kool-aid. He also disparaged the Medicare bill that will limit choices for seniors, a planned extension on mine clean up, and encouraged the Bush Administration to follow the ISG's recommendations and stop funding the war in Iraq with emergency funding.
