Congressman Toomey (R-Deficit Spending) has long been a champion of growing our federal debt. Along with President Bush, Congressman Toomey was able to defeat the Democrats “fiscally responsible” policies and replace them with “borrow and spend” policies. Under his watch, the national debt grew by $1.7 trillion as government spending grew by almost $600 billion. If we’re going to give huge tax cuts to billionaires, someone has to pay for them, and that someone isn’t us.
When Pat got to Congress, the government was producing a yearly surplus of over $125 billion; when he left, they were losing more than $400 billion a year. That’s a half-trillion-dollar turnaround that would not have been possible without Congressman Toomey’s votes:
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•Allowed PAYGO rules to expire after they contributed to 3 budget surpluses by requiring Congress to offset the cost of any new spending programs, then voted against re-establishing them, allowing our deficit to skyrocket [HR 4663, 6/25/04, #317; SConRes 95, 5/5/04, #145]
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•Voted for President Bush’s budgets that raised government spending more than $50 billion every year
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•Voted for President Bush’s tax cuts for the richest of the rich — more than 50 percent of which went to the top one percent — and added $1.7 trillion to the deficit [HR 1836, 5/26/01, #149]
Now Congressman Toomey is fighting to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the top 2 percent, at a cost of $700 billion to the deficit. Now, this might concern some voters, but it is best to remember the words of Pat’s predecessor as President of the Club for Growth, Stephen Moore: “nobody lost an election because of budget deficits … People might say in the polls, ‘Oh, yes, I’m very concerned about budget deficits.’ But does it change people’s voting patterns? No.”
