Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Paul A. Rahe ·
February 15, 2012 at 7:39pm
Anyone inclined to be misled by the Romney advertisement posted by Troy Senik below should read the article Was Santorum a Senate Spendthrift? posted by Jeffrey Anderson and Andy Wickersham on the website of The Weekly Standard. It turns out that the National Taxpayers Union -- no friend to big spenders -- consistently gave Rick Santorum higher grades than almost any other Republican Senator.
Santorum has his weaknesses. But in this particular he is unassailable. What will the Romney people do next? Accuse him of having committed nepotism with his own sister?
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
On The Issues has some very odd scores. For instance, after you quoted it as giving him a 100% rating on CATO's free trade index, I went and looked it up on CATO and found that, shockingly, the guy who opposed NAFTA and liked subsidies was on the subsidy-friendly end of the Republican party (although better than most Democrats).
Dec '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
James Of England
Stuart Creque
See what I mean? "Unassailable" is a very flexible concept. · 1 minute ago
Just to be clear, are you suggesting that I'm being dishonest, or are you suggesting that Santorum's stereotype (the reason that Ben Domenech, no Romney fan and probably not repeating material given him by the Romney campaign, was opposed to Santorum back around Iowa) maybe isn't 100% false? · 2 minutes ago
I am suggesting that you are engaging in spin.
I am suggesting that Romney is dishonest.
Apr '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Stuart Creque
James Of England
Stuart Creque
See what I mean? "Unassailable" is a very flexible concept. · 1 minute ago
Just to be clear, are you suggesting that I'm being dishonest, or are you suggesting that Santorum's stereotype (the reason that Ben Domenech, no Romney fan and probably not repeating material given him by the Romney campaign, was opposed to Santorum back around Iowa) maybe isn't 100% false? · 2 minutes ago
I am suggesting that you are engaging in spin.
I am suggesting that Romney is dishonest. · 0 minutes ago
When Ron Paul came out with the same criticisms, would you say that, too was spin without factual content? Ben Domenech?
May '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
genferei
Matthew Bartle: On a tangential note, I can never remember what "spendthrift" means. Is the person being described as a spender, or thrifty?
Why does the first half of the word trump the second? We don't call people tallshort. · 0 minutes ago
The first part is the verb, the second the object of the verb, what is being spent - one's thrift or savings. Like 'scattergood' or 'spend-all'. · 48 minutes ago
You learn something new every day. Thanks, g.
Sep '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
No, I wasn't joking. I really couldn't tell. When the photo was posted before I wondered.
Stuart Creque
You're joking, right?
She's hugging a child. You are seeing the back of the child's head: it appears to be a girl with a ponytail (what you're seeing as a cat's tail). · 30 minutes ago
Dec '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
James Of England
Stuart Creque
James Of England
Stuart Creque
See what I mean? "Unassailable" is a very flexible concept. · 1 minute ago
Just to be clear, are you suggesting that I'm being dishonest, or are you suggesting that Santorum's stereotype (the reason that Ben Domenech, no Romney fan and probably not repeating material given him by the Romney campaign, was opposed to Santorum back around Iowa) maybe isn't 100% false? · 2 minutes ago
I am suggesting that you are engaging in spin.
I am suggesting that Romney is dishonest. · 0 minutes ago
When Ron Paul came out with the same criticisms, would you say that, too was spin without factual content? Ben Domenech? · 2 minutes ago
Ron Paul is an out-and-out liar. I don't trust a word that comes out of his mouth, including "and" and "the."
As for Ben Domenech, I haven't noted that he has a pattern of spinning any and every argument regarding Romney and his opponents to favor Romney and discredit his opponents. Has Ben addressed the NTU ratings set out in the Weekly Standard piece?
Dec '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Leslie Watkins: No, I wasn't joking. I really couldn't tell. When the photo was posted before I wondered.
Stuart Creque
You're joking, right?
She's hugging a child. You are seeing the back of the child's head: it appears to be a girl with a ponytail (what you're seeing as a cat's tail). · 30 minutes ago
0 minutes ago
Well, on first glance, I wondered why the little boy to the right was wearing a yarmulke -- then I realized it was someone's hand in the frame.
Apr '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
James Of England
On The Issues has some very odd scores. For instance, after you quoted it as giving him a 100% rating on CATO's free trade index, I went and looked it up on CATO and found that, shockingly, the guy who opposed NAFTA and liked subsidies was on the subsidy-friendly end of the Republican party (although better than most Democrats). · 7 minutes ago
Specifically on the issue being discussed, On The Issues has a bunch of statements from the campaign, along with 4 party line votes. I don't believe this puts him to the right of a man who actually cut spending, making it the central focus of every campaign he's ever run.
Jun '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
I wonder how solid those NTU ratings are. I followed James of England's link and pulled the bill tallies for Santorum's last year as well as for his PA colleague Arlen Specter.
Does anyone believe that Specter was a bigger budget hawk than Santorum? Not only that, the data looks [CoC violation].
May '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
James Of England
On The Issues has some very odd scores. For instance, after you quoted it as giving him a 100% rating on CATO's free trade index, I went and looked it up on CATO ...
I admit, after I looked that up, that the score is a bit old. It's from 2002, and CATO has since show displeasure with Santorum, presumably on earmarking and social issues. Still, 2002 was only 4 years before Santorum left office in 2006. He voted with the party probably most of the time during those four years, which were pretty abysmal across the board for the Republicans. I doubt you'd find Romney being much better if he had been in Santorum's place.
And, the NTU scores and OnTheIssues ratings are still useful data points. Unlike these ads, they are based on a much larger and more complete picture of the candidates and their records. Clearly Santorum, and any other politician, is not going to get an ideal rating according to everyone, but these ratings definitely contradict the idea that he's a big government spendthrift. The relative scores are revealing, too. Romney needs to remember: Pot, kettle, black.
Edited on February 15, 2012 at 9:10pmApr '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Stuart Creque
James Of England
Stuart Creque
I am suggesting that you are engaging in spin.
I am suggesting that Romney is dishonest. ·
When Ron Paul came out with the same criticisms, would you say that, too was spin without factual content? Ben Domenech? ·
Ron Paul is an out-and-out liar. I don't trust a word that comes out of his mouth, including "and" and "the."
As for Ben Domenech, I haven't noted that he has a pattern of spinning any and every argument regarding Romney and his opponents to favor Romney and discredit his opponents. Has Ben addressed the NTU ratings set out in the Weekly Standard piece? ·
Ben loathes Romney, and has been a key and unrelenting critic of Romney's since 2006 at the latest (I don't know of any prior relationship). The only criticisms of a Romney opponent I've seen him launch that was not also a criticism of Romney were his attacks on Santorum in early January. I suspect, given Ben's passions on Romney, that he won't write much more on this subject now that Santorum is the clear ABR. He did not discuss the NTU ratings.
Apr '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Chris Deleon
I admit, after I looked that up, that the score is a bit old. It's from 2002, and CATO has since show displeasure with Santorum, presumably on earmarking and social issues. Still, 2002 was only 4 years before Santorum left office in 2006. He voted with the party probably most of the time during those four years, which were pretty abysmal across the board for the Republicans. I doubt you'd find Romney being much better if he had been in Santorum's place.
On Free Trade, specifically? CATO's ratings on that are entirely objective. They tally up votes for and against every trade bill (including sanctions on Cuba, irksomely). Romney's supported every FTA, ever, and calls for a bunch more to be negotiated in his plan. When he ran against McCain, it was the one subject that I felt bad about; McCain was the third best in the Senate on the subject I have two law degrees focusing on; Romney would probably not have been as good on that.
Continued.
Apr '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
The 107th Congress, Santorum's "good two years" contained only one hard vote for him, a symbolic attack on farm subsidies. Other than that, it was party line + some democrats votes on the farm bill, Trade Promotion Authority for Bush, a reduction in subsidies for farmers who don't live in Pennsylvania, and normal trading relations with Vietnam.
Later, Santorum didn't do too badly. Bush was a great President on trade, and willing to go to great lengths to bribe and arm twist senators into supporting his many FTAs and other trade freeing measures. Santorum still does poorly on subsidies, because that's kind of who he is; government should be helpful, but he's not the worst even there. The reason that people view him as hostile to trade (Ben, in particular, said he'd write a post about this and didn't) is because he was one of the few explicitly protectionist Republican votes on NAFTA and continued to be unhelpful for most of the 90s.
As President, I expect that Santorum would be poor on subsidies, mostly good on tariff reduction. I don't think he'd be as good as Romney, who focuses on it.
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
genferei
Matthew Bartle: On a tangential note, I can never remember what "spendthrift" means. Is the person being described as a spender, or thrifty?
Why does the first half of the word trump the second? We don't call people tallshort. · 0 minutes ago
The first part is the verb, the second the object of the verb, what is being spent - one's thrift or savings. Like 'scattergood' or 'spend-all'. · 1 hour ago
Thank you. I was about to write, "Damned if I know." And, yes, I should have known.
May '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
I guess Santorum's intervening votes since then don't mean anything, do they?
By the way, I'm actually for protectionist tariffs in certain circumstances. How about you?
Edited on February 15, 2012 at 9:35pmNov '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Philip Klein's take on Santorum seems fair to me (both back in January and more recently). (No pro-Mitt agenda here -- Klein is one of the harshest critics of Romneycare around, and has written positive things about Santorum too)
Santorum has been presenting himself as the conservative alternative to Romney, and he has enough weaknesses that he should expect Romney's team to challenge that assertion. He can defend himself, but conservatives should want him to have to do so.
May '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Certainly. I don't think any of us have any illusions that he's a knight on a white horse.
However, it's just laughable the grounds on which his opponents have chosen to attack him, especially this latest ad from the Romney camp. Where's the substance? Where's the beef?
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
For the record, I have never wanted to commit nepotism with my sister, I would like to do so with my wife, but I have never been able to offer her a job.
Edited on February 15, 2012 at 9:50pmMar '11
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Stuart Creque
You're joking, right?
She's hugging a child. You are seeing the back of the child's head: it appears to be a girl with a ponytail (what you're seeing as a cat's tail). · 1 hour ago
Clearly it's an owl, ready to spring from her arm to tear out Mitt Romney's eyes.
Dec '10
Re: Rick Santorum, Big Spender?
Paul A. Rahe: For the record, I have never wanted to commit nepotism with my sister, I would like to do so with my wife, but I have never been able to offer her a job. · 3 minutes ago
Edited 2 minutes ago
To my great shame, all of my daughters have dabbled in thespianism.