Blue Dogs as Blue Poodles or Blue Chihuahuas (revisited)

From Merrill Matthews in the WSJ...

More on the absurdity of so-called Blue Dogs, like Baron Hill-- occasionally effective only in modest comparison to a horribly low standard...

The Blue Dog Democrats could make or break health-care reform. That’s both good news and bad.

It’s good news because the Blue Dog coalition, formed in 1995, currently lists 52 Democrats in the House of Representatives and boasts of being “fiscally conservative.” To emphasize their point, the Blue Dogs post the national debt (more than $11 trillion)—and the share every American has in that debt ($36,683)—on their Web site.

The Blue Dogs have even growled recently that the House’s health-care reform legislation is too expensive. It raises taxes too much and doesn’t do enough to slow the growth in health-care spending.

But do the Blue Dogs really belong in the fiscal conservative pack? They talk like fiscal conservatives but vote like liberal Democrats.

So far this year, the House has seen at least four major spending bills. Here’s how the Blue Dogs voted:

• The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (Schip)...Only two voted against the expansion.

• The $787 billion stimulus...Only 10 of 52 voted against it.

• President Obama’s 2010 federal budget...not one House Republican voted for the bill, but only 14 Blue Dogs joined them in opposition.

• The cap-and-trade energy tax....29 Blue Dogs voted against the legislation...unclear how many Blue Dogs voted against the bill because of their self-proclaimed fiscal conservatism. Blue Dogs from energy-producing states, for instance, may have been looking out for local interests.

So the question is how many expensive government expansions can a group of congressmen vote for and still claim to be fiscally conservative?

Only one Blue Dog, Bobby Bright of Alabama, voted against all four bills. And only four Blue Dogs voted against as many as three of the bills....

Republicans have long called themselves fiscal conservatives. But after their spending spree in the first six years of the Bush administration, they are widely perceived to have tarnished their brand.

Are the Blue Dogs tarnishing their brand, too?...The health-care bill will be the final test....

The Democratic leadership and the president will put enormous pressure on the Blue Dogs to support the legislation. Now we’ll see if the Blue Dogs have bite to go along with their bark.