U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh came to Kokomo Monday armed with a chart of the expected federal budget deficit and a few words for the $3 trillion federal budget passed by the House and Senate last week.

“We have challenging times in our state ... the federal government ought to learn to live within its means, but that’s just not happening,” Bayh said during a fly-across tour of the state.

“Those on the far right want more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Those on the far left want us to spend money we don’t have and continue to borrow from China. Neither of those is the right course.”

Bayh was the lone Democrat to vote against the 2009 budget, which passed the Senate 51-44 around 2 a.m. Thursday morning, after what the New York Times called “a day of budget theater that had as much to do with the political bottom line as federal fiscal policy.”

More than 40 amendment votes preceded the Senate’s final passage of the measure, which Bayh said Monday will probably be vetoed by President George W. Bush.

“A lot of these votes are designed to create 30-second commercials rather than make public policy,” Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., told The Hill. “That’s true on both sides.”

Bayh, along with presidential candidates John McCain, R-Ariz., Hillary Clinton, D-New York, and Barack Obama, D-Ill., all voted in favor of placing a one-year moratorium on federal earmark spending during the runup to the final budget vote.

The measure failed, however, on a 71-29 vote.

According to Bayh, the budget passed Thursday contains $17 billion in earmark spending, and would raise federal spending by $36 billion over the rate of inflation next year.

Holding that course on spending would leave the U.S. with an $11.5 trillion federal deficit in five years, a $2.5 trillion increase, he said.

“When we run a deficit like this, we have to borrow money from abroad, principally from China and the Persian Gulf states,” he said. “That undercuts the value of the dollar. One reason gas is so expensive is because the dollar’s value keeps going down. That hurts family budgets and makes the economy suffer.”

While Bayh called some of the planned spending increases on health care and defense spending “understandable,” he called on Congress to reduce pork-barrel spending and close tax loopholes to make up for some of the increase.

“We might not be able to cut it all, but you might start,” he said. “Just cutting it to the rate of inflation would save you $36 billion.”

The Senate budget passed Thursday mirrored the House plan which also narrowly passed. The plan would increase education, health care and veterans’ spending, and would sunset some Bush tax cuts.

Republicans lobbied to slow increases in entitlement spending and further boost defense spending, and also argued in favor of keeping the Bush tax cuts on capital gains, and said the Democrat plan will increase taxes by $1.2 trillion annually.

After having worked his entire political career to position himself as a fiscal conservative, Bayh ticked off a list of spending votes where he’s appeared in the losing minority, including the $223 million Alaskan “bridge to nowhere project.

Only 15 senators voted against the bill containing that appropriation, Bayh said.
Asked if he’s asking for any earmarks in the budget, Bayh responded by saying “I’m willing to forego them if other states are willing to forego them.”

“What I’ve proposed is nothing like the bridge to nowhere or that kind of thing. What I tell my colleagues is ‘If you think it’s wasteful, then don’t vote for it.’ But even if you propose responsible things, they think that means you should vote for things that are irresponsible, and I won’t do that.”

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