By: Jonathan Lindberg

Like him or not, he may just have a point. Last month, in his farewell address on the House Floor, former Congressman Tom DeLay dispensed with the flowery rhetoric and weepy nostalgia that generally accompanies such a speech. Instead, he came-out-swinging – praising, yes praising, partisanship.

“For all its faults, it is partisanship based on core principles that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders.”

In other words, Washington is pregnant with partisanship, and that folks, is a very good thing.

Of course over the past twenty-two years, DeLay has done his fair share to encourage this atmosphere of partisanship, most notably the constant and almost comical redistricting of Congressional districts, tipping the scale to Republican candidates. This of course, lends to the nickname, The Exterminator.

But is partisanship really a good thing? I mean, does Washington need more discord and less unity, more black-eyes and less hand-shakes? It would seem at least one unlikely voice would agree with DeLay.

Kevin Phillips, author of the religious-right-bashing American Theocracy would hardly consider himself an ally of DeLay. In 2004, Phillips authored the book, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush. Hardly bedtime reading for Karl Rove. Still American Dynasty offers at least one thread worth considering. Over the past twenty years (1988-2008), American politics has been dominated by two ruling families. And in 2008, the stage is set for Hillary Clinton (with Jeb Bush lurking the in background). All said, the possibility of twenty-eight years from two ruling families remains. What then, Phillips concludes, separates American politics from the European monarchy?

The answer is clear: partisanship. Yes, disunity. Balancing powers, rigorous debate, opposition and dispute that constantly forces our parties back-to-the-drawing-table, back-to-the-basics, readjusting and reevaluating till somehow they meet in the middle. Compromise. This is what makes America great, not our unity, but our division. Two parties constantly giving-and-taking-and-then-giving-some-more, till the best from both sides is brought together and made into one. This is partisanship. And this is good.

So let us all agree to disagree. Whether you are Tom DeLay or Kevin Phillips, that dear reader, is something we should all be able to agree upon.

By: Ed Bryant

In mid-June, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced that he was introducing budget reform legislation centered on the adoption of a two-year budget cycle as a way to regain control over federal spending in Washington. Frist is right that Congress needs to spend more time evaluating the effectiveness of existing programs and less time spending taxpayer dollars in the dark, but as valuable as procedural controls on Congress are, the only thing truly needed to balance the federal budget is the political will to do so.

Washington’s appalling lack of fiscal responsibility was one of the reasons why I ran for Congress in 1994. As part of the revolutionary Republican ‘Class of 1994,’ we succeeded in balancing the federal budget for the first time in a generation by cutting federal spending, reforming welfare, and providing tax relief for Tennessee’s families and employers.

But now we’ve lost our way.

The horrible events of September 11 not only saddled our military with new obligations, but it was a blow to our economy as well. Consequently, we let spending overtake revenues, but it’s time we balance the budget again.

By last year’s October 1 deadline, Congress had passed only two of the 12 appropriations bills which fund our government. That’s when I decided to make budget reform a central part of my plan for Securing Tennessee’s Future as an effective means to controlling federal spending and restoring reason to how our taxpayer dollars are spent.

The value of a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to pass only balanced budgets and the line item veto are obvious, and my support for them has never wavered. But it’s also time to switch to a two year budget, an idea I supported when I was serving in Congress.

The first effect of adopting a two-year budget cycle, as Senator Frist and I advocate, is to immediately cut the opportunities for pork barrel spending in half. Each year we taxpayers hear horror stories of what nonsensical, low-priority pet projects get attached to spending bills in the last minute rush to pass them. Until we elect enough real conservatives to the Senate to defeat such projects as the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ in Alaska, we can take away half the vehicles for these earmarks overnight by walking away from annual appropriations bills.

Second, Congress – and private citizens and watchdog organizations – would have much more time to conduct oversight into how and how effectively our taxpayer dollars are spent. Do government programs work? Where is there fraud? Where is there abuse? What can we do better, and who isn’t doing their job?

For example, the problem with illegal immigration doesn’t start on the border, it starts in Washington. Congress should look first at why laws already on the books are not being enforced by the decision-makers at the Border Patrol and the INS and its successor agencies. Many of the excellent, common-sense ideas on what we should do about illegal immigration that I hear from Tennesseans every day are already on the books!

If Congress spent less time arguing among itself the ‘best’ way to spend ‘its’ money, it would have more time to look at the real problems and find real solutions to problems like illegal immigration, high gas prices, and the rising cost of health care.

But as much as budget reform can and will enhance the efficiency how our taxes are spent, we cannot substitute procedure for political will.

As a fiscal conservative in Congress in 1995, the need to balance the budget was important enough to shut down the federal government until President Clinton accepted that this was what Americans had elected us to do. At that historic moment, we proved that Congress can act responsibly when enough of its members possess the political will to control federal spending and work together. I’ve demonstrated that courage to stand up for the taxpayers, to cut federal spending, to keep my word, and to fight the liberals who want the perpetual expansion of the federal government. And I’m prepared to do it again in the U.S. Senate with your help.

In January, Harold Ford, Jr., my Democrat opponent for Tennessee’s open Senate seat wrote on the pages of the Main Street Journal that there were three ways to balance the budget: cutting spending, raising taxes, or both.

I disagree. Raising taxes is not a legitimate way to balance the budget because it punishes the taxpayers for the actions of politicians unable or unwilling to make difficult decisions.

Nor is it necessary, as we proved in that critical period between 1995 and 2000 when we balanced the federal budget for the first time in a generation while simultaneously providing tax relief for Tennessee’s families and employers.

President Bill Clinton tried Ford’s other approach – raising taxes – in his first two years in office. In 1994, Clinton gave America the largest tax increase in history masqueraded as a “deficit reduction package.” In return, America voted out Clinton’s accomplices in Congress and elected conservative Republican majorities to both the House and the Senate in the mid-term elections.

I was part of that ‘Revolutionary Class of 1994.’ We stood united by our belief that Americans deserved a fiscally responsible government which let them keep more of the money they earned and send less of it to Washington in taxes. Why? There are lots of good reasons, but two stood out in our minds. First, the American people not only deserved to keep more of their paychecks, but that they are better and more efficient at spending, saving, and investing than the federal government could ever be. Second, money kept in the private sector promotes economic growth which generates jobs and prosperity. The end result is that the economic growth generated by tax cuts actually increases revenue.

History has proven this true. President John Kennedy understood this. President Ronald Reagan articulated this. And we all benefited.

Likewise, when President George H.W. Bush’s abandoned his “no new taxes” pledge and when Vice President Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote for Clinton’s tax hike, our economy suffered.

What Kennedy and Reagan possessed but Bush and Clinton lacked, was the political will to stand up for the taxpayers. And I fear that the current Congress also lacks the political will to make the difficult decisions to control federal spending.

This is why I reject tax increases as a legitimate means to try to balance the federal budget.

I do not want to pretend that this is a partisan issue when, in fact, it is clearly not. There are still too many Republicans who accept Congressman Ford’s premise that raising taxes is a legitimate option. It’s even become a central point in Tennessee’s Republican primary: whether a Republican with a history of raising taxes in Tennessee to combat deficits and initiate new spending can be trusted in Washington. It’s alarming.

Tennesseans should look closely at their choices. We are at a pivot. We can stand for our principles and elect leaders who have made it a priority to control spending, dispense with earmarks, and take seriously their sworn duty to serve as good stewards of our tax dollars. Or if we fail to do so now, sadly, it may be another generation before we see a balanced budget again.

This is not the legacy I want to leave to my grandchildren. Right now, Congress has lost its way. But the path back is clearly lit and well marked.

It can begin with concrete procedural reforms to restore order to the budget. Adopting a two year budget cycle, establishing a line item veto which holds up to constitutional scrutiny, and adding a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution will have real benefits. Congress itself can do more starting today by requiring that the president’s annual budget request be in balance, moving against earmarks, and opening the appropriations process to greater public review.

But even the strongest procedural reform will falter unless there is a majority in place willing to exercise the political will to hold the line.

Right now, we exalt the individual champion against waste. U.S. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has done more to drag pork barrel politics into the sunshine than almost anyone else ‘on the inside.’ By leading a fight on the Senate floor over funding for Alaska’s ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ he’s exposed not just ridiculousness of the project, but the failings of a system which hides thousands of other dubious pet projects. He should not be alone.

There should not have to be an amendment to the Constitution requiring the government to not spend more than it takes in. This common sense rule guides every family and every business.

Procedural reforms are, in the big picture, easy. Eliminating pork projects, again, is a fairly simple undertaking compared to the real trial ahead: reforming entitlement spending.

That is why we cannot substitute budget reform alone for real leadership. They do not conflict, but one goes a lot farther than the other.

If we are serious about our economy and the society that our children and grandchildren will inherit from us, we owe it to them to act now to enshrine fiscal responsibility as part of our national political identity. It’s not too late.