Via Dave Weigel, I see today that Rep. Dave Camp, who is set to take over at House Ways and Means, has been making some pretty sensible comments about tax reform that I daresay could piss off some self-described "conservatives" for all the right reasons:...

After berating Mitch McConnell for his apparent disinterest in banning earmarks last week, I have to do the right thing and offer credit where credit is due: While I was up in New Hampshire yesterday for meetings, McConnell announced he would support an earmark moratorium, saying this:

I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them. But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government.

That’s why today I am announcing that I will join the Republican Leadership in the House in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress.

Yes, this is McConnell stepping up to support the ban because of what it signifies and because of optics, as opposed to an eventual agreement with the likes of DeMint, Coburn and McCain on the objective nature of earmarks.  I, like many others, would prefer he took this line as a matter of philosophical/policy-based principle, as opposed to the need to send a message.

However, one thing that I have learned in politics is that the employment of both carrots and sticks is important if one wants to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others.  McConnell did the right thing here, so here's me saying "thanks" and "well done."  May the trend continue. [intro]

I love campaign season. No, it's not the insanely over the top attack ads. It's not the fact that there is typically at least one establishment RINO that all my uber-conservative friends can accuse candy-ass RINO me of having a gigantic secret crush on, either.

No, I like campaign season because it typically results in Republicans sounding like Republicans on stuff like spending, and enables me to suspend disbelief for many months and pretend that the largely disingenuous posturers are in fact going to behave like fiscal conservatives when elected, rather than being, well, them.

I hate the post-election period for the opposite reason: It's when it comes time to govern(TM) that we find out that people who totally try to claim that they're fiscal hardasses during campaign season are in fact in some cases less willing to stick to their guns on stuff that matters than the squishy candy-ass moderates in the party that they like to distinguish themselves from as a matter of convenient rhetorical positioning. What am I talking about, you ask?

Well, for starters, this:

And then there's stuff like this:

California Rep. Jerry Lewis, anxious to regain the chairmanship of the powerful House Appropriations Committee when Republicans return to the majority next year......