Senator Kent Conrad Calls Earl Pomeroy A Liar

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Written By:
Rob Port

Nov 12, 2010
12:34am

Senator Conrad has been making a lot of headlines lately with some bold talk about the nation’s fiscal situation. Of course, Conrad has made a career out of bold talk on fiscal matters followed up by less-than-bold action. After all, this is the guy who didn’t bother to sacrifice his political career (something he’s asking of his modern colleagues) back in 1992 when he had promised to retire from the Senate if the budget deficit didn’t go down.

More recently Conrad, fresh of blasting years of Bush-era deficits in the hundreds of billions, has helped President Obama (who he endorsed for President) pass budgets running deficits in the trillions.

But some of his bold talk of late struck me as interesting given his soon-to-be-former colleague in Congress Rep. Earl Pomeroy position on the Social Security Program:

“We are borrowing 40 cents on every dollar that we spend. That cannot continue, so we gotta face up to it,” Conrad said. “Anybody that says, ‘Oh, you don’t have to touch entitlement programs,’ they’re not telling people the truth.”

I actually agree with Conrad, though I doubt his sincerity given his track record. Entitlement spending is, overwhelmingly, the largest part of our national budget. We can’t afford it, and it needs to be reformed and/or eliminated.

But if Senator Conrad truly believes that people who say we can’t touch entitlements are lying, then he’s calling Rep. Earl Pomeroy a liar given his position that we can’t touch the Social Security program.

Of course, Conrad doesn’t really mean this. At the end of the day, the only fix for government deficits that Kent Conrad has ever truly supported (beyond just talk) is tax hikes.

Which is exactly what will come out of this deficit commission. Big tax hikes, superficial and temporary spending cuts that won’t even be really cuts but reductions in spending growth.

Let’s hope Conrad joins Pomeroy in retirement in 2012.