Gilchrest and Harris Argue About Budget Trivia,
Forsake Big Matters

August 28, 2007
Dr. Joe Arminio

            In the previous report released by this office, I warned the voter that neither Congressman Gilchrest nor State Senator Harris is a deficit hawk. Gilchrest shares in the blame for the nearly doubling of the federal debt—the adding of $4 Trillion--over the period 1995 to 2006, or, expressed another way, he voted in lockstep with the neoconservative-controlled Congress to raise the debt by about $28,000 per adult in the country. Harris does not help the situation, for he has not exposed the Gilchrest record in question. Let us now look more closely at Gilchrest’s budget record in 2007 and the reaction of Harris. 

            In 2007, Gilchrest mercifully opposed yet another increase in the public debt limit, and went against the Pelosi Democrats who voted for the increase. What is one vote against raising the debt, compared to a dozen years of nearly doubling it to a critical, dangerous level, however? Also Gilchrest proudly announced on his legislative website in late July that he cast two votes this year that would have saved us $790 million, but he did not mention this savings would have amounted to about $5.50 per adult in the country. These are hardly sufficient amends.

            Meanwhile, Harris cannot bring himself to admit that Gilchrest voted against raising the public debt limit this year. But Harris trots out his own version of trivia, to wit, he cited, on August 10, a Club For Growth study which found Gilchrest guilty of voting on a variety of occasions for pork, and the total amount of pork amounts to approximately $100 million. What Harris fails to mention is this pork spending amounts to all of 66 cents per adult in the country. Mostly for reasons such as this, Harris claims that Gilchrest has now gotten out of control, and he implies that it was not until this year that Gilchrest abandoned fiscal responsibility for wasteful spending. In reality, Gilchrest (and his neoconservative allies) abandoned fiscal responsibility a long time ago!  

            What kind of leader is Harris? He acts as if the world began in 2007 and confines his examination of the Gilchrest budget record to 2007. He also exaggerates the damage that Gilchrest’s votes in 2007 inflicted on the economy. Why all this? The best explanation is Harris himself is a neoconservative, or tilts toward them. Someone who favors the neoconservatives would not want to expose the massive damage they, along with Gilchrest, have inflicted on the economy, especially from 1995 to 2006. And Harris is exaggerating the significance of Gilchrest’s 2007 budget votes because, being in or leaning toward the neoconservative camp, Harris has nothing else to work with—nothing else to distinguish himself from Gilchrest--except votes cast in 2007.

            What kind of leader is Gilchrest? He has not come forward and said what needs to be said. “I let the country down in previous years. I let the country down so badly that the economy is in dire trouble. We had better make swift, broad and deep amends.” Instead Gilchrest dabbles at being the deficit hawk in this primary season. He refuses to push desperately needed comprehensive and deep reform, that is, measures to ratchet down government and private sector debt creation relentlessly, and to boost industrial production and farming vigorously. He fails to promote long-term laws that would hold government and private sector borrowing within tight limits—like laws we used to have--and also fails to reverse the effects of devastating votes he cast against industry and farms, including those that weakened the brilliant American patent system and brought about anti-American trade measures, such as GATT, the WTO, NAFTA and CAFTA.

What a pair Gilchrest and Harris make. The former helped bring the economy to the cliff, the latter cannot bring himself to expose the former’s fatal deeds. Each argues over trivia, how, in effect, a few nickels and dimes per adult in the country was saved or squandered in the last several months. They both neglect a far more serious matter: this economy is in mortal peril and needs sophisticated, comprehensive resuscitation right now. But then again what is surprising about all this? Neither Gilchrest nor Harris are vintage Republicans; neither are in the tradition of the Party of Lincoln whose policies, such as a balanced budget, tariffs where appropriate, a revolutionary pro-inventor patent system and the gold standard or something like it, went a long, long way toward making America great.* Let us revive these and other American Way policies that were prodigiously successful, as fast as we can. Let us support American Way leaders, such as myself, wherever they are found.

* My new book entitled The Decline And Fall Of The American Way identifies ten fundamental policies that made America great, and includes a plan for America’s recovery.