IF ANYONE WAS EXPECTED to cause fits for the House Republican leadership, it wasn't Pat Toomey. A freshman congressman from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, Toomey is as straight-laced as the coal-belt district he represents. An Eagle Scout who became an investment banker, Toomey now owns a chain of sports-themed restaurants. He's brought his clean-cut ways to the House, where he's one of the Republican party's most consistent voices for fiscal austerity. And in the age of surplus politics, that's the guy who causes trouble.
His conservative credentials made Toomey a party darling when he ran for retiring Democrat Paul McHale's seat in 1998. A constellation of Republican stars appeared in the district on his behalf. Bob Dole, Rudy Giuliani, Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Jennifer Dunn . . . the list of big names goes on, each one stumping for Toomey or headlining a fund-raiser. The National Republican Congressional Committee also pitched in with cash and advertising.
When the 106th Congress opened, the freshman Toomey was given what would be a plum assignment for almost any member, a seat on the Budget Committee. It's from this perch that he began to ruffle the feathers of House veterans. In late March of this year, he refused to yield ground to Republican spenders on a supplemental appropriations bill that would have dipped into the non-Social Security surplus for fiscal year 2000. President Clinton had requested roughly $ 5 billion to fight the drug trade in Colombia, reimburse the Pentagon for expenses incurred in Kosovo, and help victims of Hurricane Floyd. By the time the bill made it through the appropriations process, however, it totaled $ 9 billion.
In response, Toomey used his seat on the Budget Committee to stop the bloated bill in its tracks. He attached language to the 2001 budget framework that would have prevented Congress from spending the 2000 surplus on anything but debt reduction, tax cuts, Social Security reform, or Medicare reform. House appropriators, who thrive on doling out cash for various projects, naturally objected. Appropriations chairman and thirty-year veteran C. W. (Bill) Young dashed off a blustery letter to speaker Dennis Hastert in which he refused to support the 2001 budget framework with Toomey's language attached.
To win back the support of fiscal conservatives and get their supplemental bill passed, Republican leaders were forced to negotiate with Toomey. The leadership came away with what they needed by agreeing to back Toomey's amendment to set aside $ 4 billion of the current 2000 surplus for debt reduction. Republican leaders also agreed to let Toomey propose similar set-aside amendments to any future efforts to spend the 2000 surplus.
Following the unanimous passage of his amendment, Toomey expressed satisfaction. While $ 4 billion is a drop in the budget bucket, he explains, "if we had done much more than that people who wanted to spend it would have risen up" to defeat the measure. As it was, the effort represented "the first time in the history of the modern Congress that . . . an explicit appropriation for debt reduction" passed the House. Plus, since every dollar Congress spends today is used to set spending levels in future years, any money that stays off the books now will mean more savings down the road.
Toomey understands he can't get everything he wants. He says he'd "prefer to see more of [the budget surplus] go to tax cuts," but it's a "no-brainer" to retire debt rather than spend more money. This ability to see the bigger picture has won over a diverse group of supporters, including the Concord Coalition, Americans for Tax Reform, and Citizens for a Sound Economy.
Asked if the veteran Republicans he confronted will hold a grudge, he says, "I think the effort is actually welcomed by leadership." "They need to have a strong voice within the rank and file," he insists, to hold the line on spending. Toomey even preaches restraint to his constituents and, he claims, gets his message across "all the time." The key, he argues, is to emphasize inefficiency and waste in federal agencies and departments that already have plenty of money.
When it came to a congressional pay raise last summer, Toomey voted against the salary hike and then, after it passed, contributed the difference in his own paycheck to the federal treasury. And he tried to force austerity measures on the White House with a provision mandating that the administration seek reimbursement for defense expenditures in Yugoslavia.
Toomey thinks Republicans could maintain their majority if they'd stick to a consistent message of reducing debt, cutting taxes, and fighting government waste. Doing so, however, hasn't saved him from what may turn out to be a very strong challenge from a Democratic union official who's pulled in impressive contributions from a host of labor interests. Toomey counters that he's already raised more money than has ever been raised in his district. And as much as he may rile the Republican leadership, they'd like to keep him around. Speaker Hastert and majority whip Tom DeLay have both hosted fund-raisers in his district over the past six months.
If Toomey does come back as a member of the majority party in 2001, he'll still have to hustle to advance his anti-tax, fiscal responsibility agenda. He has term-limited himself to six years, like another conservative stalwart, Tom Coburn. (Toomey thinks it "flattering, but premature" to suggest that he would replace the retiring Coburn as the House's leading fiscal conservative.)
While he points out that his term-limits pledge provides "independence from interest groups and the leadership of my own party," Toomey also recognizes, "there's a fire burning under me." He must get things done while he can. If Toomey's record in the House after just 14 months is any indication, he's unlikely to cool down any time soon.
Edmund Walsh is a staff assistant at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.