McCain for President 2004
from Reuters by way of CNN

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading Republican Sen. John McCain Sunday berated fellow lawmakers for "spending money like a drunken sailor" and said President Bush was also to blame for pushing the nation toward higher interest rates and inflation.

On the "Fox News Sunday" program, McCain lamented the closing actions of the Senate and House before recessing for the year, most notably passage of a massive overhaul of the Medicare insurance program for the elderly.

He also decried a $31 billion national energy bill, still pending until at least next year, much of which would fund industry tax breaks.

"The numbers are astonishing," said McCain, an Arizona Republican. "Congress is now spending money like a drunken sailor. And I've never known a sailor drunk or sober with the imagination that this Congress has."

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It was a rare admonition from a member of Bush's own political party, which hopes to benefit from a series of wins this year in Congress -- which in addition to the first-ever Medicare prescription drug benefit, included more tax relief, funds to rebuild Iraq and a law to restrict abortion.

Bush is hoping the record will help him and fellow Republicans keep control of the White House and Congress in next November's election. Democrats, however, have bemoaned the rising price tags, a sentiment shared Sunday by McCain, a member of the Senate's Armed Services Committee.

Exceeding Caps
McCain said Bush, who has never vetoed a spending bill, was in large part responsible for this year's spending levels exceeding prescribed caps of four percent growth, at a whopping eight percent.

"The president cannot say, as he has many times, that I am going to tell Congress to enforce some spending discipline and then not veto bills," McCain said.

"We are laying a burden of debt on future generations of Americans. ... Any economist will tell you, you cannot have this level of debt, of increasing deficits without eventually it affecting interest rates and inflation," he added.

McCain, who challenged Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, took particular issue with the massive energy bill, which in beginning stages cost $8 billion, a total that rocketed up with dozens of provisions inserted to benefit the districts of individual lawmakers to win their support.

"There was no policy initiatives in the energy policy. It was just one pork barrel project larded onto another," he said. "... And the administration is still saying it is one of its highest priorities, I don't know how you rationalize that."

Despite the bills that were passed, however, lawmakers recessed last week without passing a roughly $375 billion year-end federal spending bill.

The failure will not shut down the government, which can operate under stopgap funding until January 31. But it was a setback for Republicans, who had vowed to get the budget process back on track this year.

posted by awiggins | 06:44 PM