The Volokh Conspiracy - Young Is What's Wrong with the GOP:

The Club for Growth's Pat Toomey explains why his organization is opposing the re-election of Congressman Don Young (R-AK).

Over his 35 years in Congress, Mr. Young made himself into the most powerful Republican on the House Transportation Committee. But instead of using his power to steer Republicans down a principled, conservative track, he helped derail the GOP train in 2006.

Mr. Young spends taxpayer money so wastefully he could make a liberal Democrat blush. As chairman of the Transportation Committee (from 2001 to 2007), Mr. Young was directly responsible for one of the biggest boondoggles of the Republican majority – the 2005 highway bill. With a price tag of $296 billion, the highway bill contained a record 6,371 pork projects. . . .

During his time in Congress, Mr. Young has come to represent the worst of a Republican Party that became too comfortable in power. In 1995, a Republican majority passed a budget that actually cut spending. Today, only 40 Republicans out of 248 GOP senators and representatives have sworn off earmarks, despite overwhelming support for earmark reform among the party's base and the general public.

Just 12 years ago, the Republican Caucus, including Mr. Young, voted for a bill to phase out farm subsidies. Three weeks ago, Mr. Young and many of those same members voted for a farm bill that exemplifies everything the GOP once stood against. Somewhere between then and now, many congressional Republicans abandoned their former commitment to limited government, fiscal discipline and economic freedom.

I wish Toomey luck in unseating Congressman Young.

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Cornellian (mail):

So how do guys like Don Young, Ted Stevens and Tom Delay keep getting their committee chairmanships and leadership positions in Congress? My conclusion is that limited government, balanced budget, fiscal prudence types, far from being the Republican norm, are actually quite rare. They're obviously not a large enough contingent to stop the Don Young's of the party from rising to the top.

6.7.2008 10:52am

NI:

I used to think there were two big lies of our age: The media is liberal and George Bush is conservative. Now I find there's a third one: Republicans are fiscally conservative.

6.7.2008 10:55am

zippypinhead:

News flash: Pork is bipartisan. Duh...

You might be able to quibble around the margins on TYPE of pork members of the different parties tend to favor (versus the overall quantity thereof). But trying to make Democrat vs. Republican distinctions on the venerable Congressional tradition of sending as much of the available loot home to the voters as they can get away with largely a fool's errand.

If the Club for Growth would like to expand their hit list, Toomey already suggested he knows where to find more names, when he said: "Today, only 40 Republicans out of 248 GOP senators and representatives have sworn off earmarks, despite overwhelming support for earmark reform among the party's base and the general public."

6.7.2008 10:58am

Tareeq (www):

The Club for Growth should pay Iowahawk for this, or at least send a copy to everyone in Young's district.

Sums up the problem with more shrewdness and humor than any ad the Democrats or the Club may produce.

6.7.2008 11:10am

PersonFromPorlock:

<i>Mr. Young spends taxpayer money so wastefully he could make a liberal Democrat blush.</i>

But not a mainstream Republican. For that matter, if <i>any</i> politician blushes it's more likely to be from hypertension than shame.

6.7.2008 11:57am

EH (mail):

While I'm reticent to criticize someone who threatens to bite me like a mink, Don Young is a symptom of something larger. People can say that true conservatism exists less and less in practice, but that is also to admit that that particular definition of "true conservative" is less useful than it used to be. Ideology is funny that way, with reality changing under its feet while it cruises merrily along.

6.7.2008 12:09pm

Soronel Haetir (mail):

As for folks like this getting committee chairs, I don't know about the House, but in the Senate I believe it goes strictly by seniority. If the House follows a similiar model 35 years in office would go a long way toward explaining it.

6.7.2008 1:34pm

Justin (mail):

Yes, clearly the problem with the GOP is a Congressman from Alaska who spends too much, and not the myriad errors in judgment, policy, and law made by the party's leadership in the White House.

6.7.2008 2:47pm

James968 (mail):

So how do guys like Don Young, Ted Stevens and Tom Delay keep getting their committee chairmanships and leadership positions in Congress

Its determined by Seniority and deals, not by choice of the members. I think this is one of the things that needs to reformed to help fix the system.

6.7.2008 3:00pm

BT:

As much as I hate term limits, I think one of the only ways to deal with the Don Youngs, Ted Kennedys, et al., is to limit their stay and therefore their ability to waste money and all the other bad things that flow from a too long tenure in congress.

6.7.2008 3:34pm

Jamie (mail):

I'm from Alaska and ordered a Parnell sign for my yard last week. I'm not a huge Parnell fan, but I can't bring myself to vote for Young.

The man is likable on a personal level, but totally insufferable. Of course, if Parnell doesn't win, the Democrats running are worse.

6.7.2008 4:03pm

Its determined by Seniority and deals, not by choice of the members. I think this is one of the things that needs to reformed to help fix the system.

It's the party rules that make these things dependents on seniority, not some external order imposed on them that they can't do anything about. If the party rules are handing chairmanships to the likes of Don Young and Ted Stevens then they should be changing the party rules.

A. Zarkov (mail):

The Republicans have always been the stupid party, while the Democrats were the evil party. Now the stupid party has also become evil, and the evil party has also become stupid. A pox on both their houses.

6.7.2008 4:15pm

J. Aldridge:

Politics make doing the right thing dangerous. What if all republicans joined to stop earmarks? Dems would accuse them of being insensitive.

6.7.2008 5:02pm

krs:

I disagree, Justin. I think if Mr. Young is the only thing wrong with the GOP. If he can be ousted successfully, then the party will thenceforth be problem-free, and its candidates should win elections unanimously because it will be clear to all that the GOP stands for all that is right and good in the world.

I'm sure that's what Prof. Adler meant. There's no way he could have meant that Mr. Young is an example of one of the more pressing of the many problems with the GOP. I just can't imagine anyone saying that.

6.7.2008 5:43pm

Elliot123 (mail):

"As much as I hate term limits, I think one of the only ways to deal with the Don Youngs, Ted Kennedys, et al., is to limit their stay and therefore their ability to waste money and all the other bad things that flow from a too long tenure in congress."

Isn't that the business of the people of Massachusetts and Alaska?

6.7.2008 6:47pm

Jim at FSU (mail):

Young is a "leader" because he has been there 35 years, not because he is seen as some sort of conservative role model.

The democrats have been beating the republicans because the republicans:
-have abandoned small government since 2001. What can a paleo-conservative or libertarian really do when both candidates are crappy on the issues he cares about?
-have gotten corrupt in many cases. This trumps ideology every time IMO. There is really no excuse for corruption.
-the dems are no longer attacking them from the left. When you can't fall back on "my opponent is a big government leftist" it raises the bar too high for marginal candidates.

Of course, democrats were "conservative" before and pissed away the goodwill in the early 90s. Just as surely as republicans followed their lead over the cliff after 9/11, it is almost certain that the current crop of democrats will eventually find an excuse to do the same.

6.7.2008 6:55pm

TJIT (mail):

Elliot123 you said

Isn't that the business of the people of Massachusetts and Alaska?

The problem is that the combination of sophisticated gerrymandering and ~~campaign finance~~ incumbent protection laws most candidates never face any electoral risk in the general election.

The club for growth has started to upset the existing setup by making sure that non fiscally conservative republicans face a credible opponent in the primary.

6.7.2008 8:28pm

Kirk:

BT,

Hey, I'm doing my best to limit the terms of my two pathetic senators (Murray and Cantwell), but so far my fellow-voters have tripped me up.

6.7.2008 9:58pm

Andrew Janssen (mail):

Isn't Don Young under investigation by the FBI in a corruption probe?

6.7.2008 10:07pm

I obviously disagree that Young, despite deserving to lose election, is one of the more pressing problems of the current GOP. It's part of the whole fantasy that "we'll be ok if we stick to our principles," ignoring the fact that the problem is (partly) those very principles.

6.7.2008 11:50pm

You don't think earmarks are a major problem with the GOP?

6.7.2008 11:57pm

Lev:

Elliot123 you said

] Isn't that the business of the people of Massachusetts and Alaska?

If the people of those states want to elect and elect such as Kennedy and Young to screw up their own states and screw over their own states' populations, that is indeed their business.

But by keeping such people in Congress, the people of Mass and AK are inflicting them on the rest of us, who have no say, and that is our business.

6.8.2008 12:19am

eyesay:

Jim at FSU wrote "The democrats have been beating the republicans because the republicans have abandoned small government since 2001."

Heh. The truth of that statement relies on a Republican, incorrect (lying) definition of "small government." The Republican party believes in big government interference in private decisions such as: choosing to terminate an unwanted pregnancy; using marijuana for medical or recreational purposes; private recreational activities with some someone with the same genital structures as you have; and marrying someone with the same genital structures as you have. The Republican party believes in big spending as long as the spending is used to build weapons that even the Pentagon does not want; invade foreign countries, sometimes on the most preposterous of justifications; and generally, enforcing laws on victimless crimes.

Remember: When Republicans say they are for "small government" they are lying. What they mean is that they are in favor of low taxes and sharp limits on programs designed to address the needs of America's poor people, including children. Big Government Interfering in personal lives and spending lots of money on weapons and foreign entanglements are, in Alice-in-Wonderland Repubspeak, mysteriously deemed to be "small governement."

6.8.2008 12:36am

Michael B (mail):

This is typical of one of the problems with a two-party, essentially binary system, rather than a multi-party and parliamentary system. I still favor the former over the latter, there are more positives than negatives, but perfection is not to be found in political systems and that's especially so when it comes to some congressional districts, whether it be Young in this case or a Cynthia McKinney or William Jefferson on the Democratic side of things.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama promises to usher in a Jimmy Carter II occupancy.

6.8.2008 1:52pm

NickM (mail) (www):

I can guarantee gerrymandering is not why Don Young is still in Congress.

Nick

6.9.2008 2:01pm

Layedback (mail):

Pat Tommey: a great guy who should have beaten Specter. The fact is the only aim of government, in its modern incarnation, is to get bigger and more onerous to its constituency. Its a shamen they are all on the same team anyway. The BIG GOVERNMENT TEAM. The rift between the parties is a myth to polarize us all as to the realities of our own incremental enslavement under the weight of all their fat a**es.

6.10.2008 10:45am