EDITORIAL: Socialists among us

OPINION:

We got a chuckle out of the recent crack by Rep. Spencer Bachus that there are 17 socialist members of the U.S. House of Representatives, but we are puzzled by the Alabama Republican’s math. Surely the number of socialists in Congress is much higher than 17.

Although he sounded the alarm about the reds among us, Mr. Bachus is no Sen. “Tail-gunner” Joseph McCarthy. When pressed, he is less than enthusiastic about naming names. Other than nodding toward Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who styles himself as a democratic socialist, he didn’t out anybody. The Bachus blacklist should be much longer.

In addition to Mr. Sanders, 76 House lawmakers are members of the ultraleftist Congressional Progressive Caucus, including a handful who took a pilgrimage to Havana to be feted by Fidel and Raul Castro a week ago. The Progressive Caucus is almost a third of the Democratic conference in the lower chamber. According to Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), 75 senators and congressmen scored a perfect 100 percent liberal rating for their 2008 voting records. The average liberal rating for Senate Democrats is 90 percent; their House colleagues voted the liberal line 89 percent of the time. Today’s Congress is the most leftist since the ADA’s ranking started in 1947.

There are some cold truths behind Mr. Bachus’ red-hot rhetoric - and not all of them fall at the feet of Democrats. President Obama has spent, lent or promised $12.8 trillion to fix the financial crisis. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Mr. Obama’s budget plan will expand the national debt by $9.3 trillion over 10 years, and that doesn’t include expensive health care and energy initiatives that are still being developed. No doubt government will be larger than ever under Democrat control, but that’s what we expect from them. In recent years, it’s the Grand Old Party that has been a disappointment.

On too many issues, Republicans are not offering solid, coherent alternatives to the leftward lurch of the nation. The GOP’s addiction to pork certainly doesn’t distinguish many Republicans from the Congressional Progressive Caucus all that much. Perhaps Mr. Bachus was reticent to name names because he was embarrassed how many of his fellow Republicans should be on any list of those who can’t say no to big government.