The Pig Book is out, documenting all the waste our legislators voted for over the past few years. House and Senate Republicans, or at least the Conservatives amongst them, stood against this type of wasteful spending. Here's the video, via RealClearPolitics:

Democrats in the Senate, and an unfortunately high number of Republicans, failed the earmark test by rejecting a vote for an earmark moratorium. The Democrat Majority has pushed new taxes, and they plan on spending that money on a huge number of new programs. While the Republican Leadership in the House is getting serious about fixing Washington, we find ourselves witnessing the return of the Spendocrats to power. I turned to the Albuquerque Journal to make the point:

“Congress is no longer in session, and can’t inflict any more damage for a while.”

“Democrats in the House effectively raised taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars… Meanwhile, the House ramped up spending on domestic programs, effectively locking in years of higher spending.”

Republican Leader John Boehner's office is covering this tax hike, and they're fighting for strong responsible government in Washington. I'd be remiss not to point out that the Republicans lost their way prior to 2006, doing the same things the Democrats are doing now. Republican Leader Boehner promises that the GOP has changed their ways, and are going back to embracing Conservatism in government. They're fighting the return of the Spendocrats...

Senator Jim DeMint has been pushing the earmark moratorium in the Senate, and the movement for responsible government has gained a little steam. Even Barack Obama, who abused the earmark system, was supporting the moratorium. It wasn't enough. Last night's vote on the moratorium failed badly, and the Senate obviously doesn't want to give up pork:

WASHINGTON — The Senate rejected calls from both parties' presidential candidates to take an election-year break from pork-barrel spending as a Democratic-run Congress pushed budget plans that would torpedo hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts won by President Bush.

John McCain, the GOP nominee-to-be, couldn't attract even a majority of Senate Republicans to vote with him Thursday night behind the earmark moratorium touted by party conservatives as a way to restore the GOP's credibility with voters.

It failed on a 71-29 vote. Only three Democrats joined with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in voting for it.

First off, this vote shows that our Congress doesn't want to be a responsible steward of our tax dollars, but that shouldn't surprise anyone. I don't understand why John McCain gets slammed while they don't "attack" Hillary and Barack for their failure to sway Democrats. They were just supporting this moratorium for political expediency anyways, so I can't be surprised that they weren't zealous campaigners for it.

I posted a link to my must-reads a while ago saying that Barack had decided to join the chorus of Senators calling for an earmark moratorium. No word yet on if that's actually going to happen. When we look at Barack's actual record on earmarks however, we see a very different story, and Obama has the traditional Democrat habit of giving earmarks to those closest to him. Via NRO:

Dan Riehl notes, via Amanda Carpenter, that in the list of earmarks he requested, $1 Million was requested for the construction of a new hospital pavilion at the University Of Chicago. The request was put in in 2006.

You know who works for the University of Chicago Hospital?

Michelle Obama. She's vice president of community affairs.

As Byron noted, "In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office."

This sounds like a typical case of a politician using his power to benefit his family, and a typical case of a liberal Democrat loving pork. Barack Obama may have recently joined the fight for an earmark moratorium, but for nothing more than political expediency. Barack isn't on our side in the push for a smarter smaller government

The title of the post is simple enough, but the big story here is just how many Americans will be affected if the Democrats are successful in their new tax plans. Ed Morrissey has a post up about what the Senate's up to today, and I want to focus on one specific part, the tax hikes. The New York Sun has the story:

The developments came as the Senate began a full day of votes on a $3 trillion Democratic budget blueprint for 2009. The nonbinding plan envisions a balanced budget in four years and promises generous increases for many domestic programs, but achieves those goals only by assuming major tax increases when Bush's tax cuts expire.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton both promise to reverse Mr. Bush's tax cuts for wealthier taxpayers, but the Democratic budget they'll be voting for would allow income tax rates to go up on individuals making as little as $31,850 and couples earning $63,700 or more.

If $31,850 is the new definition of rich, then America is doing much better than the media lets on. Obama, Clinton, and Democrats in general have been very persistent in insisting that they'll only repeal Bush's "tax cuts for the wealthy" but in all honesty, they'll be raising taxes on most of America. According to recent data, the median income (half of America falls below, half above) of the individual working American is $32,140. If the Democrats have their way, over half of this nation will throw more money into our broken government bureaucracy. It's not a talking point, it's the truth: Democrats want to raise your taxes.