Editorial of the day

I just read a really good one over at the Wall Street Journal's website from yesterday. It is called "The Minority Maker: The clever GOP strategy for defeat in November."

The article points to House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis as one of the primary Republican roadblocks to spending restraint:

"For weeks, the Republican Study Committee, a group of fiscally conservative Members, had been negotiating a spending outline with the House leadership. But when they finally struck a deal last week, Mr. Lewis refused to go along and threatened to defeat the budget on the House floor if Speaker Denny Hastert brought it up. With Democrats opposing the budget as a matter of party unity, GOP leaders gave up and left town for Easter recess without a vote on their budget blueprint for 2007."

On the line-item veto:

"When President Bush recently asked Congress to pass a modified line-item veto, among the first to complain was Mr. Lewis. The spending baron told the Rules Committee last month that the line-item veto "could be a very serious error" that threatens the separation of powers. "We are the legislative branch of government."

Translation: Mr. Lewis is opposed to any budget reform that would give the President more leverage to limit his ability to spend tax dollars like there's no tomorrow. On the item veto, this puts him to the fiscal left of John Kerry, Al Gore, and, well, it's hard to get any further left than that."

The Republicans should disown Lewis. What good is having a majority in Congress when people like Lewis are in charge?

The story ends with this classic observation:

"At the current pace, a Democratic majority in Congress would be preferable, if only for reasons of truth in advertising."