McConneell and McCain come through with flying colors. A good sign for the Conservative Ascendancy.

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"Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive"

When McCain is on the side of right, I love him.

I know some people are down on McCain, but how lucky are we to have this guy still in the Senate? I really think this is going to be a great year for McCain, as the party is really moving towards his longstanding positions on fiscal responsibility.

Here's to you, Senator!

Republican hypocrites. They loaded up this bill with earmarks too. They're the ones buckling to pressure from the Tea partiers.

Reid was smart to pull the bill and remove a huge target for Republican attack.

Washington now requires constant vigilance. Plenty of Republicans would love to continue the spending, if not for the great unwashed paying attention. Take a break for a few minutes and they'd be right back at spending. They fact that they still, even after the elections, require arm twisting to reject such an awful pile of spending is proof enough.

McConnell had 38 earmarks in it for $85M, the bill had 6,714 for $8.4B. The average $ per senator is $84M and 67 each. I believe these have been in the works since the spring. McConnell's two biggest were both MILCON type projects totaling $21M.

Earmarks as a process stink, but many programs that get in as earmarks are worthwhile, really wanted by the agency, and are proper spending. But we have also created way too many "National Frisby Museums" with this process also. The formal review process needs to be revised to evaluate better the earmarks.

I'm really liking McConnell, doesn't look like he would hurt a fly, isn't partisan, but has held caucus unity when one defection loses the battle. If the caucus had often caved over the last two years, where would we be - far deeper in debt and under the ruler's thumb.

The commentary is that a lot of this spending was proposed months ago, well before the Republicans in the Senate agreed to the moratorium on earmarks. Some took time to pull theirs others, claiming to believe that there was no chance of it ever reaching the Senate floor, did not. I do not know the truth. I do not support ear marks and feel that most local spending is not the province of the federal government. There are a lot of possibilities here. Perhaps the democrats believed that by including all the republican earmarks, the republicans would quietly go along fearing to oppose the bill when they have earmarks in it as well.

I was troubled to see that my Senator had a small number of earmarks in the bill. I was expecting that he would have none. I went to Tom Colburn's web site and looked at the list. Most appeared to be government funding of development projects for the DoD. Most were also solicited by the Dems in my state. We are changing the way that the government is going to be doing business. Perhaps many of the earmarks requested by my Senator were appropriate federal spending on basic research for defense programs. Hard to say. If so they can be addressed next year in a separate defense bill, for now we're better off killing this mess and starting fresh, Like I said, we are going to force a change in the mechanics of how the government spends our tax dollars.

In some sense it doesn't matter. What matters, with regard to this bill, is that McConnell, and other republicans, pulled the party appropriators back into line and this bill is DEAD.

Thanks to all who made this happen , in the Senate and the pressure appliers outside the Senate.

However, to the incoming Republicans in the 112th Congress, hear my words clearly. The regular people of this nation have awakened and are NOT going back to sleep. We will not make the mistake we made in 1994. We are watching you. We are following your votes and statements in committee and on the floor of your respective bodies. Business as you have conducted it for more than my life time (and I am an old man) is OVER.

Over the last two years spending is up 20%, If you can't cut 10% in a 3 trillion dollar budget in the first 90 days you aren't trying. For those of you who are math challenged, that's $300 billion. By the end of 2011 you should TRIPLE that number. Not cut growth, cut outlays.
Getting spending 5% under 2007 would be a good goal for 2011.

Still today you have done well. You have done your jobs. Thank you again.

To CT NRO Man et al:
McConnell and the other establishment Republicans are far preferable to Stalinist democrats - however, trust but verify...
Fire them if they cave on conservative principle - replace them with Tea Party patriots - take over the Republican party and make it the Conservative party.
There is NO compromise with Stalinists - defeat them - period. There is no more maneuvering room - we are on the brink of tyranny and socialism.

McCain will join forces with Graham to resume "reaching across the aisle" even before his arm -- currently out-of-socket from his patting himself self-congratulatorily on the back -- rights itself. Kudos to this centrist equivocator just for fighting a bill whose mere debut should have had Tea Partiers rioting in the streets? Forgive me for holding my plaudits in reserve. If so many in his party deem him worthy of basking in adulation just for his opposition to this bill, then it's a small wonder indeed that his party nominated such a weak and hopeless candidate in 2008, and it likewise bodes ill for 2012. Yea verily, the northeast GOP senators wink at overriding DADT, and simply retaining the Bush tax cuts comes at the profound cost of another 11/12 digits in dollars piled atop the debt, but let's not fret: It's time to party for John McCain!