Why has this issue not been brought to a head, and more importantly, why hasn't any Democrat try to run with it? Shouldn't this be a message Democrats should be touting to the populace?
Fiscal responsibility seems to have been intimately (at least in my mind) coupled with the Republican Party. However, in light of the recent budget failures and the fact that the deficit limit has been raised to a whopping $9,000,000,000,000.00 (or more probably) this term of "fiscal responsibility" no longer has that intimate relationship with Republicans. Rather, why has no Democrat tried to run with the campaign promise that the Democratic Party can bring back fiscal responsibility into Congress? It's not like most of the Republican Party can now claim that they can offer fiscal responsibility, and I don't see why the Democratic Party couldn't steal the ideal from them anyways. Besides, I know that as a citizen, I would rather hear about tax raises from a party that shows itself to be fiscally responsible (that means SHOW THE NUMBERS, not just tell us that as an elected official you will fight for fiscal responsibility) rather then get tax cuts from those who say they are fiscally responsible and go on a spending spree.
The reason this rant/idea is here is because lately I have been feeling that I have been unfairly taxed without adequate representation. As a matter of fact, I believe that most of my taxes are being used wrongly. Anyways, the point it, hit the Republican Party where it hurts the most: their wallet. By showing that the Republican Party is just taking our money (the recent NYT analysis) and also proving that the middle/lower class is only getting a pittance of the tax cuts that Bush said benefits everyone, we can expose the hypocrisy at their base, effectively cutting off their ability to claim they are fiscally responsible.
I truly believe that this kind of message will sink (or at the very least piss off, mucho style) any Republican incumbent. Taking their own message and using it against them, can anything really be sweeter?
P.S. - Long time reader, first diary ever. Sorry if I stepped on any toes, and even more sorry I couldn't link to some other diaries (like that NYT analysis, (sorry I forgot your name!)) because HTML seems to be beyond my ken.