This week Congressional Republicans cut a deal with the White House to keep the current tax rates for at least two years, cut payroll taxes for one year, and reinstate the death tax. Whatever you think about the merits of this deal, one thing is crystal clear: Congress’ top priority next year must be to cut spending. It is important that conservatives continue to communicate that (1) Washington has a spending problem not a revenue problem and (2) that despite attacks from the left, conservatives do have clear, actionable plans for balancing the budget and reducing the national debt.

Over at The Heritage Foundation, our latest video highlights over $343 billion in specific spending cuts that can be tackled immediately. The cuts are focused on empowering state and local governments, consolidating or privatizing programs, and eliminating programs that have been proven to be ineffective.

But this is just the start.

The spending cuts highlighted by this video are a step in the right direction and should be pursued, but they are not nearly enough. We need Congress to make major changes—dramatically reversing course and returning the federal government to fiscal discipline. To that end, Heritage has identified over 128 specific policy points that the 112th Congress should immediately address.

Inhofe has emerged as the chief opponent to DeMint’s anti-earmarking efforts and has quietly been preparing for this fight for months. He said Tuesday that he will deliver a “pretty strong statement” on the Senate floor Monday that will accuse DeMint of favoring earmarks until they fell out of political vogue.

However, DeMint has already acknowledged his past as an Earmarker and Inhofe has voted for a similar measure in the past. That turns any charge of simply playing politics back on him. This is also another example of the continued influence of the Tea Party movement. DeMint already has ten Senators lined up behind him. There’s said to be concern among Senators as to how a failure to act might reflect upon members up for re-election in 2012. The Tea Party has already shown its willingness to primary incumbents with which it disagrees. To paraphrase an old movie icon, Do you feel lucky, Senator? Well, do ya?

A GOP aide whose boss supports the earmark ban bristled at Inhofe’s attacks, pointing out that the Oklahoman, along with much of the GOP Conference, voted for a nearly identical moratorium on the Senate floor in 2008.

Pointing to Inhofe’s repeated charges that anti-earmark fervor is nothing more than politics, the aide questioned his support of the 2008 moratorium. “Is that how he would describe his vote for the exact same earmark moratorium?” the aide asked.

In a detailed report, the Boston Herald describes the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute as a “temple for Ted Kennedy built with pork.”

According to their account, congressional Democrats—especially Massachusetts senators John Kerry and Edward Markey—have been cramming earmarks for the project into various government funding bills. The Herald found that Kerry and Markey even intend to siphon $28.9 million of the institute’s funding from the Defense Department budget, with almost $19 million of that amount already signed into law.

Why do they think taxpayers should be paying for this shrine? A statement from a Kerry spokesman declared that the institute will bring “knowledge and good citizenship to thousands of young people.”

This has raised the ire of taxpayer watchdog groups. “If the Kennedy family wants to honor the senator, they should find a way to fund it themselves,” David E. Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste told the newspaper. Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense agreed that “this could be independently funded and doesn’t need to be getting taxpayer dollars.”

Indeed.

Clearly, it’s not as if the Kennedy clan is without financial means to fund the project themselves. Or, if they wished, they could send out private appeals on the family stationery to, say, George Soros—or to John Kerry’s wife, catsup heir Teresa Heinz Kerry—right from their posh family compound in Hyannisport. I’m sure Laurie David could be prevailed upon to throw a fundraiser in memory of “the lion of liberalism” at the Beverly Wilshire.

However, their reliance on federal funding suggests a broader agenda is in play. After all, in an era of trillions in red ink, why would congressional liberals insist on adding tens of millions to a national debt that their president has promised to “get serious about”? Why earmarks for something that most Americans would find to be a frivolous expenditure?

Obviously because liberals don’t think of it as a frivolous expenditure. In fact, it is a project of great importance to them—because it’s meant to establish an official, symbolic, governmental shrine to political liberalism.

Consider: What, exactly, is significant about Senator Kennedy? What does he symbolize?

To millions in Flyover America, “Teddy” was despised as a pampered playboy, known for decades of drunken philandering even after his unforgivable role in the death of a girl in Massachusetts.

But to the left, Ted Kennedy was and remains an icon of liberalism—and specifically, a lifelong champion of socialized medicine. That, after all, was his signature cause.

So, I believe that establishing Teddy’s Temple with millions of taxpayer dollars is meant to serve twin purposes.

First, it is intended to enshrine the pretense that one’s politics is more important than any other aspect of one’s personal character. The issue here transcends Kennedy. A central pillar of the liberal worldview is its sweeping rejection of self-responsibility—its claim that no one is ultimately responsible for his actions, but is instead a victim or plaything of circumstances beyond his control. Liberals forgave Kennedy for his personal failings just as they did Bill Clinton—because in their worldview, nobody is to be held individually accountable, either for his sins or his virtues. The ironic flip side of this premise is that everyone is instead his “brother’s keeper,” responsible for everyone on the planet except himself.

Thus, professing liberalism gives you a free pass for all manner of personal immorality and irresponsibility. All you need to do to dry clean your reputation is to advocate policies that promote egalitarian “fairness” toward your fellow “victims of circumstance.”

Second, Teddy’s Temple is a means to an even broader end. That end is to elevate his liberal ideology to the status of an official, government-approved “ideal.” You can be sure that the “good citizenship” propagated at his shrine will translate into speeches, writings, video clips, totems, classes, and materials extolling his liberalism generally, and his advocacy of socialized medicine specifically—all paid for with your hard-earned dollars.

The leftists backing this institute know all this, and they intend for precisely these lessons to be preached there and absorbed by future generations. They understand perfectly well the power of moral symbolism and government-imposed “standards.” So, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute is calculated to establish liberalism’s anti-self-responsibility ideology as a national moral doctrine, to supplant the American legacy of individualism and personal self-responsibility that they despise.

I believe there is a third, more subtle goal here, too. Senator Kennedy was a fierce opponent of a strong national defense generally, and of virtually every specific military action our nation has conducted since World War II. Diverting millions from the Defense Department budget to the Kennedy Institute can only symbolize the liberal value hierarchy, which places a moral priority on domestic social-welfare programs over national defense.

Opposition to federal funding for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute has focused almost exclusively on its ballooning costs to the taxpayer. But we should not oppose this simply as a wasteful and unnecessary expenditure of federal funds. We should oppose the use of taxpayer dollars for this project on grounds of ethical principle—as both an explicit and symbolic rejection of American individualist ideals, and as a deliberate slap in the face of our men and women in uniform.

Thomas Jefferson summed up concisely the moral issue at stake: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”

Interestingly, since last year’s stimulus was such a disaster, the redistributionists in Washington are calling their new proposal a “jobs bill.” But as I say in the video, this is akin to putting perfume on a hog.

For further background, here is a video explaining why Keynesian economics is wrong and another predicting (in advance!) that last year’s stimulus would be a mistake. And just in case anyone actually wants the economy to grow faster, here’s one about policies that actually increase prosperity.

Charles Rangel (D-NY) was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970.

Sen. Jim DeMint says Washington politicians are like fruit on the vine: the longer they hang around, the more rotten they get.

The South Carolina Republican – hearkening back to the days of the party’s “Contract with America” – on Tuesday offered a fix to the corrupting influence of “permanent politicians,” introducing an amendment to the Constitution that would limit Senate members to three six-year terms and House members to three two-year terms.

“As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buy off special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork – in short, amassing their own power,” said Mr. DeMint, who is running for a second term next year.

Senate leaders and longtime Washington watchdogs said Mr. DeMint’s bill had a zero chance of becoming law, mostly because of a general lack of interest and the high hurdles to amending the Constitution.

“It’s a great issue to talk about, but it’s not going to happen,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic majority’s second-highest ranking leader.

Full article here.

-$300 million stimulus program to promote energy efficiency may not be energy efficient after all, audit finds

-Quid Pro Pork: Department of Justice investigates link between the exchange of congressional earmarks and campaign donations

-Washington, DC, city government steered $4.5 million in federal funds to an AIDS housing group that never filed federal tax returns and has been plagued with service and cost complaints

-DC mayor launches investigation of groups that misspent more than $25 million of public AIDS assistance

-Political scientists debate the relevancy of the research they conduct with federal funds; “We’re kidding ourselves if we think this research typically has the obvious public benefit we claim for it.”

-National Science Foundation funds political science study of online town hall meetings held by Members of Congress

-UC Davis grossly inflated the number of campus-related sexual assaults to reap more than $1 million in grants for violence prevention

-Delaware receives $2.3 million in federal funds to enhance and expand its sandy beaches

-Feds investigating the possible misuse of crime prevention funds by Oklahoma City

October 6, 2009

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released the following statement after the Senate rejected Coburn amendments that would have forced Congress to shift earmark funds back toward vital operations and maintenance. By a vote of 25 to 73, the Senate rejected an amendment offered by Dr. Coburn that would have restored to the troops $165 million earmarked within the Defense appropriations bill’s maintenance and operations accounts for congressional earmarks.

“In a time of war it is unconscionable for members of Congress to divert funds from vital operations to less-than-vital parochial pork projects. I regret the Senate voted today to protect their pet projects at the expense of our troops,” Dr. Coburn said.

The Pentagon has also expressed concern over the excessive amount of earmarks Congress has requested:

“Every dollar that we are forced to spend on things which we do not need requires us to take money from things which we do need. And the people who lose in that trade-off are our troops and the taxpayers,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman.

The operations and maintenance (O&M) accounts ensure military readiness by providing much needed funds for training troops for combat and for maintaining tanks, airplanes, ships, and related equipment such as the purchase of spare parts. O&M accounts also fund a wide range of activities such as civilian personnel management and payments, transportation expenses, health care, and child care. In May 2009, the U.S. Navy ran out of O&M funding and had to reduce training hours for carrier air wings and at-sea time for some ships. The earmarks funded in the 2010 Defense appropriations bill raid these accounts that are essential to the protection of our troops and our nation’s defense to pay for $165 million or earmarks not requested by the military.

“The Senate is putting favorable headlines back home above our men and women fighting on the front lines. American families are prioritizing and eliminating waste in their own budgets, it is a disgrace that Congress has refused this common sense approach to spending taxpayer dollars,” said Dr. Coburn.

Coburn amendments to the bill included:

Amendment 2566 — To restore over $165 million in operations and maintenance funding to members of the Armed Forces to prepare for and conduct combat operations by prohibiting funding of earmarks from operations and maintenance accounts, defeated by a vote of 25 to 73.

Amendment 2565 — To require the National Guard and Reserve Component to submit their modernization priorities to the entire Congress, and seek input from Secretary of Defense Gates, defeated by a vote of 28 to 70.

Coburn amendments accepted:

Amendment 2563— To require all reports authorized in this bill be publicized and accessible to the public once completed.

Amendment number 2585 — To restore $100 million in operations and maintenance funding to members of the Armed Forces to prepare for and conduct combat operations by accounting for the August 2009 Congressional Budget Office economic assumptions and reducing funding for low-priority research and development earmarks.