GOP Cutting-and-Running on Spending Bills

The GOP has decided to leave a parting gift for the incoming Dems - a load of budget spending bills:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills,

There's also no guarantee that Republicans will pass a multibillion-dollar measure to prevent a cut in fees to doctors treating Medicare patients.

The bulging workload that a Republican-led Congress was supposed to complete this year but is instead punting to 2007 promises to consume time and energy that Democrats had hoped to devote to their own agenda upon taking control of Congress in January for the first time in a dozen years.

Conservatives have been very critical of the pork-barrel spending and thousands of earmarks that has come from the GOP Congress, and pork is apparently part of the factor motivating the decision to flee Washington before the work is done:

Driving the decision to quit and go home rather than finish the remaining budget work is a determined effort by a group of conservative Republicans to prevent putting a GOP stamp on spending bills covering 13 Cabinet Departments - and loaded with thousands of homestate projects derided as "pork" by critics.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill would rather complete this year's budget work and have the GOP's imprint rather than a Democratic one on how federal agencies will be spending their money through next September. However, conservatives such as Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., fear doing that would leave as the GOP's legacy a foot-tall bill containing thousands of parochial projects. Last week they seized the upper hand by employing delaying tactics to drag the budget process to a halt in the Senate.

"The last thing Republicans need is an end-of-Congress spending spree as our last parting shot as we walk out the door," said DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton.

Some Republicans also look forward to using unfinished budget work to gum up an early Democratic agenda that includes raising the minimum wage, negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, cutting interest rates on college loans and repealing some tax breaks for oil companies.

"Other stuff may get pushed off the table," said GOP lobbyist Hazen Marshall, a former longtime Capitol Hill aide. "It kills (Democrats') message."

All's fair at this point. I can certainly understand the GOP's desire to leave the messes to the new kids.