It's pretty safe to say that the four Democratic representatives in this story have a great deal of political motivation in criticizing their leadership on spending. No doubt the headline "Four House Democrats Revolt" and observations that the four "aren’t afraid to express opinions differing from those of Democratic leaders" are making their campaign managers' morning. So how is this garden-variety pandering a good thing?
For one, it seems like these members want to focus on specifics when most deficit hawks engage in hand-waving. The article mentions a plan to cut a Defense computer system, and if there's anything that The Washington Post's Top Secret America series is teaching us, there is plenty of budget bloat in the national-security sector. It's important for Democrats -- yes, even New Democrats -- to try to articulate what is waste and what should be cut in order to defend the programs that are good policy and maintain credibility on government spending. Moreover, the vaguer budget-cutting gets, the more likely the proponent is attempting to slip in cuts motivated by ideology rather than practicality.
However, as we all well know by now, outside of Defense spending, most of the government's regular budget isn't the cause of our increasing debt. It's health-care costs, which is why I give three of these four rebels credit on my patented "actually serious about the deficit scale" -- they voted for the health-care reform bill. New Jersey's John Adler should not be taken seriously, on the other hand, because he voted against it, complaining that a bill that cuts the deficit is ... too costly. Waaah-waaaah.
-- Tim Fernholz