George W. Voinovich, who is a real budget hawk when Democrats occupy the White House or money is being spent to help real people, voted with the Republicans today on a cloture motion to end debate on Democratic amendment to the stimulus bill. The cloture motion failed by two votes, 58 to 41. Ohio's other United States Senator, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D, voted to cut off debate on the amendment. Both Clinton and Obama returned to the Capitol to vote for the cloture motion.
Here's what gets us about Voinovich. It's not that he voted against more money for the stimulus bill. We can see why he might oppose it, if he was truly sincere about increasing the Federal debt. We just don't think that he is sincere. Where he sees fiscal responsibility, we see insincerity since he voted for Bush's tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those tax cuts are a major reason why we have record setting deficits today.
If he had truly been a deficit hawk, as some of his media admirers in the Cleveland Plain Dealer like to call him, then he wouldn't have signed off on the huge tax cuts that Bush gave the wealthy unless the Republican controlled Congress had been willing to cut Federal spending to pay for the tax cuts. Of course, they weren't ready to do that and neither was the Bush Administration. Instead they ran up huge deficits and sold T-Bills to the Chinese that our children and grandchildren will end up paying.
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