The Blue Dogs talk conservative while voting liberal.
The new health care agreement is merely the latest in a long
string of Blue Dog sell-outs.
My Cato Institute colleague David Boaz wonders if the Blue
Dogs will ever bite. He observes:
They call in the journalists, and they moan and complain about
their concerns over the deficit and rising federal spending.
And when the rubber meets the road, what happens?
They vote for whatever big spending bill is at issue.
The Blue Dogs need to understand that they won't be able to get
away with conservative rhetoric in next year's election if
they vote to nationalize the health care system. The
generic ballot preference for Congress has turned
Republican. A Blue Dog sell-out will make them particularly
vulnerable in any GOP resurgence.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
