Say Anything Blog

North Dakota’s “budget hawk” Senator, Kent Conrad, is holding Bush’s nominee for budget Director, Jim Nussle, hostage.  He won’t let Nussle be appointed.  Why?  It has nothing to do with Nussle’s qualifications, and everything to do with Conrad using the obstruction as leverage against the Bush administration over spending.

See, Kent “budget hawk” Conrad wants to spend a couple of billion dollars more of our tax dollars than the President is willing to approve.  The President is threatening to veto Conrad’s budget if it includes his additional spending.  In response, Conrad is refusing to appoint Nussle.

Ernest Istook, writing in the National Review, has more:

It’s tough enough to get Senate approval of judges who aren’t card-carrying members of the ACLU. Now, it seems, the Senate will balk at blessing the president’s pick for budget director unless the nominee promises upfront to rubber stamp whatever spending spree liberal congressional leaders care to indulge in.

The hostage is Iowan Jim Nussle. A former House Budget Committee chairman, Nussle negotiated and passed six consecutive budget agreements while serving in the House. He is eminently well-qualified for the top budget post in the administration.

But qualifications take a back seat to politics in today’s Congress. Nussle’s sponsor, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) says the nomination may not fly because Democratic senators have beefs with Bush. The chief obstructionist is Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.).

Conrad has butted heads with Nussle in the past. In previous terms as Senate Budget chairman, he twice refused to compromise with then House Budget Chairman Nussle, thus blocking House-Senate agreements on spending totals.

But Conrad’s foot-dragging on the Nussle nomination is about future spending levels, not past budget battles. The chairman wants Bush to drop his opposition to liberal spending proposals as a precondition to getting Nussle confirmed to the budget slot.

This year’s congressional budget proposes $23 billion more than Bush’s budget for next year, and Bush has threatened to veto appropriations bills to enforce his lower number. Conrad wants to deal with a cooperative White House negotiator, not a tough one.

Politics can often be a war, and I don’t begrudge Conrad these tactics.  I’d certainly expect Republicans to be no less tenacious than this in pursuing a conservative agenda.  What is aggravating, though, is that Conrad passes himself off as being fiscally responsible.  Local North Dakota media refers to him as the “budget hawk” all the time.  Yet here we have the spectacle of Conrad holding up a budget director appointment for the sake of adding billions more in spending to a budget.

Which is more than a little bit like a toddler throwing a fit in a store because his mother won’t buy him a toy.

If Conrad wants to play hardball to push this spending through, so be it.  But if he’s going to behave this way, can we drop the “budget hawk” nonsense?  Can we start recognizing him for the tax-and-spend liberal he is?

And, while we’re at it, do you think we could maybe get some of North Dakota’s local media to cover this story which has been making national headlines for weeks now?