More Double-Speak: Baron Votes Against the Blueprint, But Still Builds from the Plans

Baron always talks a good game.

The subject doesn’t matter; he can spin a yarn like few politicians in southern Indiana and soon have anyone thinking that he agrees with them, when he actually doesn’t and frequently has no intention of doing anything to carry through with what he just said.

The Congressional budget process is a perfect example of this.

Now, Baron talks a good game about the budget.

He likes to point to his budget votes as shining symbols of his centrist nature.

Even a cursory examination of the facts, however, shows this to be nothing but horse hockey.

(Read more after the leap)

Budget resolutions are like blueprints:

The budget resolution serves as a blueprint for the actual appropriation process, and provides Congress with some control over the appropriations process. No new spending authority, however, is provided until Appropriation bills are enacted.

Congress passes one, but it doesn’t actually do anything.

It’s the appropriations bills that actually matter.

Baron, for example, likes to trumpet that he votes against the budget:

Congressman Baron Hill did not support the budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2009 voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon. Although in support of several aspects of the comprehensive bill, Hill objected to its large increase in discretionary spending and use of the Social Security Trust Fund.

“I commend my Democratic colleagues for their hard work in drafting this budget resolution,” Hill said. “However, I have always championed fiscal conservancy, and this bill did not adhere strictly enough to that. The sizeable increase in discretionary spending in this bill is just too much for me to vote for it.”

Hill also voiced concerns to his colleagues about the budget’s use of entitlement programs, specifically the Social Security Trust Fund. The budget leans heavily on the Social Security Trust Fund in its attempt to balance the budget.

“I promised to be an independent voice for Southern Indiana, and I am doing just that,” Hill said. “I think we need to reign in our spending and get away from relying on entitlement programs to support the budget.”

Yet Baron says this and then turns around and votes for every single appropriations bill.

This is like voting against a blueprint, but then turning around and building the house that the blueprints are plans for.

It’s exactly what he did last year.

He voted against the budget resolution.

And then he voted for every single appropriations bill (and there are more that could be cited, on top of those).

Every single one.

How do you square that, exactly?

You vote against a blueprint, supposedly because you say that it is fiscally unsound.

And then you vote to follow the blueprints to approve the very spending that you earlier denounced.

When the chips are down, Baron will always vote for the big spending, despite making one or two symbolic–and utterly meaningless–votes against that same spending.

Just like how he’ll vote to ban earmarks, then turn around and get earmarks (multiple earmarks!) for the lobbying clients of his former employer.

That’s the sort of double-speak, the sort of spin one way, then vote another, upon which Baron Hill has based his entire career in Congress.

This post is also available at Hoosierpundit.