Thanks Baron! the "Blue Dogs" are, again, pussy-cats

From Donald Lambro at TownHall.com, an update on the Blue Dogs in general-- and Baron Hill in particular...

The House's Blue Dog Democrats like to pretend they are the deficit tigers of Congress, determined to stop runaway spending and stamp out waste, fraud and abuse.

But when push came to shove, as it did in the pork-crammed $800 billion economic-stimulus bill, most of these tigers mewed like pussycats, voting in lock step with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank for a bill they had not read...

NTU's "bill tally" monitoring showed that Blue Dogs propose three-quarters less spending increases than the Democrats as a whole, but the majority of Blue Dogs still vote for most of the spending bills their party brings to the floor....

In a Feb. 4 letter to Speaker Pelosi, Indiana Rep. Baron Hill and seven other Blue Dog leaders said they had "serious reservations" about the big stimulus bill then working its way through Congress.

But on final passage, only a half-dozen brave Blue Dogs voted against the bill that will, with interest, add $1 trillion-plus to the federal debt.

One of them was Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick of Idaho...The only other Blue Dog no votes came from Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith, both of Alabama, Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Heath Shuler of North Carolina....

Go online to www.Propublica.org, a journalistic watchdog outfit that is shining some sunlight on the spending spree, and you will get an eyeful. The group boiled down the 1,000-plus-page bill to its separate appropriations. The list is a veritable who's who of all the major departments, agencies and programs in Washington. Everyone has his fingers in the pie...

And www.StimulusWatch.org now lists all of the projects that are being funded under Obama's plan, many of which raise questions as to need....