Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, thinks Republicans need to stop playing defense when it comes to federal budget issues. In a memo to his GOP colleagues, Sessions argues that President Obama and his Democratic allies have “succeeded in framing the fiscal debate as a choice between fiscal restraint and compassion.” Republicans need to fight back, and do so more effectively.
“Too often, Republicans have responded to this attack upon our morality by either ignoring it altogether or dismissing it as ‘class warfare,’” Sessions writes. “As we enter the first Senate budget process in four years, it is my intention as ranking member not to let these slanders go unanswered.”
Now that Senate Democrats appear poised to draft their first budget in nearly four years, it should be easier for Republicans to go on the offensive — they will finally have a specific proposal to scrutinize and compare with their own. Sessions previewed this strategy Tuesday during the first full hearing of the budget committee.