McCain says Republicans 'lost our way' on spending
By John Whitesides
Political Correspondent
Tue Jan 17, 12:38 AM ET
news.yahoo.com
Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), back in the state where a bruising primary loss crippled his 2000 White House bid, said on Monday his party had "lost our way" on spending and needed to clean up widespread influence-peddling and lobbying abuses.
The Arizona senator, a potential White House candidate again in 2008, praised President George W. Bush for his judicial nominations and for making what McCain said was steady progress in Iraq.
But he said the federal budget had spiraled out of control under Republican leadership. He called for tighter restrictions on earmarking -- the congressional practice of inserting local projects in spending bills -- and tighter controls on lobbyists in Washington.
"We have lost our way on fiscal responsibility," McCain told the dinner of Spartanburg County Republicans in South Carolina, a state that promises to play a crucial early role in the 2008 White House race. "Republicans have got to clean up our act, make these much needed reforms and get back on track."
McCain has sponsored a proposal to require more disclosure of lobbying activities and tighter control on the process in light of the widening corruption scandal centered on lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
But he said the congressional practice of quietly inserting pet spending projects into mammoth federal spending bills must be stopped before significant lobbying reforms can take place.
"Unless you take out the earmarking, there are always going to be people who will line up with their hands out to curry favor with individual members of Congress," he said.
McCain cracked a joke about his bitter loss to Bush in 2000 but made no other reference to the primary, which effectively ended his bid just weeks after he had pulled off a stunning upset of Bush in New Hampshire.
McCain has been a Republican team player since then, campaigning with Bush in 2004 and enthusiastically backing his decision to go to war in Iraq and the conduct of the occupation.
He praised Bush's leadership in Iraq and said it would be a mistake to set a timetable for withdrawal.
"What we can do is what we are doing -- we are making progress," he said of Iraq, adding the occupation was "going to be long and it's going to be tough."
Earlier in the evening, McCain appeared at a Spartanburg celebration of civil rights leader Martin Luther King's birthday, reading from the letter he wrote from a Birmingham, Alabama, jail during the early days of the civil rights movement.
"At the cost of his life, he helped save us from a terrible disgrace," McCain said. "He rescued us from a shame that would have destroyed us."
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