By FITSNews || In one of those “Bizarro” moments that doesn’t make sense until you look at it upside down, U.S. Rep Gresham Barrett was named a “Taxpayers’ Friend” on Thursday by the National Taxpayers’ Union (NTU) – a group that clearly needs to rethink its definition of the word “friend.”
Barrett, FITS readers will recall, (in)famously flip-flopped on the original Bush bailout – a decision that continues to haunt his campaign.
Nonetheless … he still manages to fool just enough D.C. insiders so that they’ll issue meaningless endorsements like this one, ostensibly on behalf of “hundreds of thousands of members.”
“If every Member of Congress was as principled as Gresham Barrett, current and future generations of Americans could enjoy much lower taxes and a less wasteful government,” NTU President Duane Parde said. “Hard-working families in South Carolina and across the nation owe Gresham a debt of gratitude for his effort on their behalf. Gresham Barrett has truly earned the title ‘Taxpayers’ Friend.’”
Ummm, really?
In addition to his bailout flip-flop, Barrett has also been busted sending out political propaganda on the taxpayer dime. And sure … they “all do it” in Washington, D.C. but aren’t “Taxpayer Friends” supposed to be held to a higher standard?
More substantially, Barrett’s recently-released “jobs” plan included no tax relief – but did create several dozen new bureaucratic positions.
Again, what’s taxpayer friendly about that?
Also, Barrett has missed some pretty important votes peddling his pablum (and some unimportant ones) … more votes than any one in Washington, in fact …
By WorkingTommyC February 25, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Slight correction:
The title of the organization is the “National Union of Taxpayers” (NUT).
By hold tight February 25, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Yeah, you’re right Will. We should listen to you, a slovenly unemployed wife-beater, instead of a reputable taxpayer group. Thanks for enlightening us.
By Conservative Republican February 25, 2010 at 9:46 pm
It’s common knowledge Will, that the FOTA’s go to those willing to pay! Converse Chellis got the award “for cryin out loud”. That alone destroys the credibility of the award and the organization behind it. Nuff said!
By Old Bike Dude February 25, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Heeyyy Bohonkey…yayelll Pimpstick…de Pimpstick taken home de gold. WootWoot.
By Tiger Dan February 25, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Your unfounded personal animosity towards Barrett shines through once again, which is particularly striking in this case given that he has
received an A from the NTU each year that he’s been in Congress. See http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/members/house/j-gresham-barrett.html.
I’m further unsure exactly how any of your examples demonstrate that Barrett isn’t a “friend of the taxpayer.” First, you return — per usual — to TARP. Again, look at the other extremely fiscally-conservative Senators and Representatives who voted for TARP including Sen. Coburn, Sen. Kyl, Sen. Thune, Rep. Ryan, Rep. Campbell, Rep. Tancredo, Rep. Brady, and Rep. Myrick. Don’t you think that the fact that these fiscally-conservative Members of Congress took a very difficult vote indicates that something needed to be done? There was a consensus that there was a dire situation, and unless you somehow have greater economic aptitude and knowledge than, say, Ben Bernanke, you’re not adding much insight to the discussion.
Additionally, your point about Barrett’s job plan is entirely facile, given that the NTU award is based on his voting record as a Member of Congress.
By Andrew Moylan February 25, 2010 at 10:49 pm
My name is Andrew Moylan and I’m the Director of Government Affairs for the National Taxpayers Union. I’d like to explain exactly what our Congressional Rating is…and isn’t.
Our annual Rating of Congress includes every single roll call vote on tax and fiscal policy. We weight them based on importance (things like government-run health care get 100 points, minor programs get just a few) and then see how each Member’s voting record stacks up. For 2009, we included 333 roll call votes on just about every fiscal issue imaginable.
What our Rating does NOT do, however, is look at anything but the roll call votes cast on the floor of the House of Representatives that year. That means that a Member’s franked mail habits or votes they cast in 2008 (like on the Wall Street bailout, which we vehemently opposed and gave the maximum weight of 100 points) aren’t included in the 2009 Rating.
If you had heard the earful I have personally received from Republican Members of Congress angry that they did NOT receive the Taxpayers’ Friend Award, maybe you’d see that we don’t just hand out awards to cronies or friends. We do the math based on a long-established methodology and let the chips fall where they may.
If any of your readers are interested in educating themselves more about the Rating or looking up the 333 votes that we included, they can go to http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/. If that’s not enough, I’d be happy to answer specific questions by phone: 703-683-5700. Just ask for me.
By Conservative Republican February 25, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Within the last few years, both Bobby Harrell and Annette Young were recipients. They ought to change this to “RINO” award! LOL
By Ynotfirst February 26, 2010 at 6:20 am
He got busted by the House Ethics Committee too.
He is no friend to taxpayers .
Barrett is not right for SC. People: he’s not on our side.
By fitsnews February 26, 2010 at 6:47 am
It is NTU … check the link below.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20100225/YOURUPSTATE/2250330/1186/NEWS01
By fitsnews February 26, 2010 at 6:53 am
Mr. Moylan,
My name is Will Folks and I’m the founding editor at FITSNews. I’d like to tell you what fiscal conservatism is … and isn’t.
Fiscal conservatism is standing up for the best interest of the taxpayers WHEN IT MATTERS (i.e. when your vote might actually make a difference in the outcome of a CRITICAL bill).
Fiscal conservatism is NOT voting the “right” way on dozens of less important, lopsided tallies where the outcome was never in doubt.
-Will Folks
By No Cred February 26, 2010 at 7:31 am
Sic — Seems to me you’re just upset that a legitimate group is giving Barrett kudos for being fiscally conservative. Will you write an article about how Haley voted to accept the stimulus dollars last year?
BTW, no mention of DeMint and Graham. Seems that your article is completely driving by Haley.
By Insider February 26, 2010 at 8:30 am
Mr. Moylan, if one voted in favor of a dozen and a half good conservative pieces of legislation that curried favor to the economic and business climate, but then turned around and voted in favor of an $800 billion bailout against the taxpayers…where is the justification. That single vote alone nulified YEARS of conservative votes.
No Cred, Haley voted in favor to debate the budget with the stimulus. On the final bill not only did she vote NO, but asked for a waiting period so everyone could study the bill. Of course the lack of leadership in the House voted that down too.
By Andrew Moylan February 26, 2010 at 9:39 am
Will and everyone else,
You won’t get any disagreement from me or NTU that TARP was an abomination and any Member, “conservative” or otherwise, should be ashamed if they voted for it. They waved a magic wand to create $700 billion out of thin air to then hand to failing private businesses. I have an 11 month old daughter that is going to be paying for TARP, the stimulus, and all the other insanity we’ve seen recently, so you better believe I’m as angry as the rest of you about it.
But what Mr. Barrett won this award for was his voting record on the House floor in 2009. I suppose we could change our Rating to include factors other than roll call votes, like positions on older legislation or franked mail habits or ethics issues, but then it wouldn’t be much of a rating, would it? Then it truly would just be handing an award out to whoever we decided we liked.
And yes, you’re absolutely right that fiscal conservatism matters most when the stakes are highest. That’s precisely why I and thousands of other NTU activists spent entire weekends in the Fall of 2008 burning up phone lines in Congress in opposition to TARP.
By Andrew Moylan February 26, 2010 at 9:44 am
Also, Conservative Republican is referring to some other award. Chellis, Harrell, and Young are all state legislators and NTU only rates Members of the U.S. House and Senate.
By Insider February 26, 2010 at 10:09 am
Mr. Moylan, I appreciate your position and dialogue. And you are absoultely correct, we do not need to encompass “morals and ethics” into the decision of such an award. We are certain there too it would have and should have been awarded to another viable candidate.
By WorkingTommyC February 26, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Mr. Moylan:
Did you do calculations on EVERY member of Congress or did a Representative have to be “nominated” or some such to be considered against other “nominations?”
Does the information your award is based on include all of Barrett’s MISSED votes?
I would assume that Barrett did not get points on those missed votes in your award calculations. Did the missed votes count against him as they reasonably should have?
It might be interesting to find out which votes he missed that he could have been there voting to protect taxpayers and how those votes were weighted–assuming your organization is capable of determining reasonably if a certain bill were good, bad, indifferent, and to what degrees thereof. That seems unlikely: how could a mere 100 point spread can even begin to properly weight the unprecedented, by factors of ten, difference between the horrific TARP bill and other bills voted on over the years?
Have you already or would you be willing to open up your books on the internet to expose exactly how the calculations were done per weighted vote and how all the “losers” fared in comparison to Barrett?
I’m not attempting to “dare” you to do something I think you would not do. I really am interested in looking at the calculations and the full process involved and fully expect that you should be able and willing to openly show the entire process.
I can tell you right now that the one overriding and obvious flaw in your idiotic award right off the bat is this: you’ve limited the time period of the contest to one year.
WHAT THE HELL GOOD IS THAT? It sounds like an award cooked up for sleazy political back scratching. Is your organization that moronic or did you have to work really hard to come up with an award that has the mere veneer of legitimacy and nothing else?
After all, if you have a brain, you must admit that one year is a very limited and arbitrary slice of the corruption pie to be looking at when it comes to sleazy politicians. On such a basis as your method of judgement, mass murderers can win humanitarian awards if they merely skip one year in their careers of genocide.
Would not an accumulative lifetime rating be a much better rating for ANY P.O.S. politician considering the fact that vote-selling Barrett has obviously reined in his spending votes in preparation for the run as governor (or out of shame for his obvious corruption)?
By Tiger Dan February 26, 2010 at 2:05 pm
I’m glad that everyone agrees that the NTU should reward consistency.
In that case, for his A rating for every year since being first elected to Congress, Barrett should be elected to the NTU Hall of Fame.
http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/members/house/j-gresham-barrett.html
By WorkingTommyC February 26, 2010 at 3:11 pm
http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/members/house/j-gresham-barrett.html
Well, that proves my point. He still got an 82% score in 2008 despite the TARP vote and he has, in the past, scored even LOWER than that!
If the score were based on actual dollar amounts instead of the more arbitrary weighting employed as described by Mr. Moylan, the trillions of dollar$ of corporate welfare wasted in the TARP “abomination” should have earned him a score not far above 0% for 2008.
By WorkingTommyC February 26, 2010 at 3:15 pm
And how do you earn a “B” or a “C” or a “D” on this percentile scale. He’s got an “A” for 76%???
Consistency counts for squat if this is the way an “A” is earned.
Measure it in dollars next time and let’s see how his score looks.
By Skidmarks February 26, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Congratulations on getting the attention of the NTU.
By Tiger Dan February 26, 2010 at 4:21 pm
If TARP hadn’t passed, we’d be arguing the merits of the NTU grading system from the breadline.
By WorkingTommyC February 26, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Tiger Dan:
If TARP hadn’t passed, we’d nearly be through the correction now and would not now be facing the severe risk of hyperinflation and trillions of more in debt that can only be paid off now with the destruction of the dollar.
If you don’t believe me on that, then too bad. I’ve done a study to show that my clairvoyance is equal to yours, both of us having zero ability to know the future nor know the results of choices not made in the past.
However, we’ll see what happens in the future and then you can acknowledge the fact that I and others were right about the coming economic problems, just as we were right a few years ago about the crash coming soon thereafter in 2008, just as we were right about global warming being a scam, just as I was right about a coming censure of Graham by Lexington County’s GOP and Lindsey Graham’s continuing to betray us, etc.
By Kool Kat February 26, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Dang, Working Tommy C has given a new meaning to fisting!
By Andrew Moylan February 27, 2010 at 12:19 pm
WorkingTommyC,
Yes, we do calculations on every Member of Congress. Nobody needs to be “nominated” or anything like that. The full PDF of the Rating can be found at: http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/p10-02-18-ntu-rating-final-pages.pdf
If a Member misses a vote, that is removed from the score. So, for example, if the total of potential points for the year was 1,000, but a Member missed a vote worth 25 points, his potential total would be adjusted to a max of 975.
Yes, we have already opened up our books to show how we weighted each vote. We went through each and every one of the 1,388 roll call votes cast in the House and Senate last year. We placed a weight of 1-100 on all the fiscal votes, and removed non-fiscal votes (e.g. foreign policy, social issues). The entire list of votes that “made the cut,” including NTU’s position and weight, can be found in an Excel sheet here: http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/2009-final-votes.xls
As for limiting the time period to a year, I think it makes perfect sense. You can see how each Member voted each year, and you’re welcome to look up their lifetime averages also, if you’d like to get an idea of their total history.
There’s no “political back-scratching” involved in our award whatsoever. We have no idea how the math will come out until we actually do it. We look at each vote, weight it, and then run each Member’s record against it. Sometimes the results are a surprise, sometimes they aren’t.
By WorkingTommyC February 27, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Thank you for your response, Mr. Moylan.
I’m glad that you’re so open about your methodology.
Upon that information, I stand by my criticisms of the low standards used in the awarding of titles as well as the faulty scoring system (the mere 100 point spread, letter grading and time periods). There should be no “surprise” in the results as with Barrett nor any other politician if there were any validity in the process used.
Accumulated lifetime scoring in dollars is the only rational way to judge these political entities. Otherwise, you’re just being a useful idiot to those more than happy to manipulate the stats.
One year may give information for that one year period but does that justify giving someone the title of “Taxpayers’ Friend” if his vote for an abomination is so bad (though minimized by your 100 point spread).
Could Stalin have won an award from the Ukraine for being a humanitarian in 1935 after his starving 10 million Ukrainians in 1933? Would your scoring system for 1933 have given him a 0/100 for that single action and then otherwise scored him normally keeping an “A” grade despite the enormity of the genocide?
Your award totally destroys the context of what those crooks in D.C. are doing. They’ve indebted generations yet to come for their convenience today with one bill but you only count their behavior and award them titles based on their actions in a single year.
Your organization’s award are meaningless. If there is not some objective standard that means something and is directly related to reality, why do you even bother? All you do is hold a very large hoop a few inches off the floor and ask Barret to step–not jump–through it to get his “award.” Can you see how a rational person can look at this charade and get the idea that this is all a big scam?
You can’t even be said to be influencing their behavior in the long term if you let them off so easily. One year of behaving out of many years of behaving badly and one especially atrocious act would not entitle a prisoner to get parole, must less a certificate of good citizenship. In fact, the one act might get him the death penalty or life in prison without parole. That is to say, some acts are irredeemable.
The TARP act, to a taxpayer watchdog group should be irredeemable, or, if nothing else, disqualify said politician from every being recognized by your group–IF it weren’t all a sham to begin with.
By Andrew Moylan February 27, 2010 at 11:25 pm
WorkingTommyC,
I suspect the two of us will just have to agree to disagree, but I did want to point out one last thing. Our Congressional Rating, which we’ve been discussing here, is on some level subjective, so there will inevitably be disagreements on it.
However, we also do an objective “rating” called BillTally. Our researchers determine the cost of every piece of legislation introduced into Congress. Then, based on what a Member sponsored or co-sponsored, we can determine how much annual spending would increase (or decrease) if every bill they sponsored were to pass into law. You can find info on every Members “net spending agenda” at http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/billtally/.
That’s similar to the type of “accumulated lifetime scoring in dollars” you referenced.
By WorkingTommyC March 1, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Mr. Moylan:
I’m glad to see that you’re getting some real information out there to the voters who are interested in learning more. I’m disappointed that an organization with that much information does not do more with it, however.
If you’re that desperate to find someone to give an award to, why not give the worst offenders appropriate discommendations as a way to advertise their offenses against common sense and the U.S. Constitution?
I implore your organization to show some guts for a change instead of (appearing to be) currying favor with the very politicians you should be scourging. So far, your organization has papered over a mission with real potential for change into yet another D.C. insider favor factory.