Bunning's $10 billion bean ball

And just a month ago, Congress passed something called pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting. Ironically, this spending restraint measure was attached to an increase in the statutory limit of allowable national debt $1.9 trillion. The problem with PAYGO is that Congress waives rule any time it has to offset any new spending.

Brian Riedl has written this for the Heritage Foundation: "When PAYGO was a law from 1991 through 2002, it was never enforced. Over those 12 years, Congress enacted $700 billion in non-offset entitlement expansions and tax cuts, and then canceled every single required spending cut that would have enforced the law. As a result, entitlement spending actually grew faster after PAYGO's implementation." That trend continues today, because in H.R. 4691, Congress waives the new version of PAYGO. The bill explicitly declares the new spending an emergency, allowing Congress to sidestep the law it passed. 

The games people play. With your money. Mr. Bunning's effort to enforce fiscal sanity was well intended but unsuccessful. The spendthrifts in the Senate were outraged by his efforts to curtail their lavish handouts to their constituents. We hope Mr. Bunning will continue to oppose spending money we don't have and encourage others to join him. Any takers?