National Taxpayers Union Gives Herseth, Johnson an "F"

I had a friend call me today and note that he was listening to an interview on the radio about the spending habits of our congressional delegation. This interview was with a representative of the National Tax Payers Union. If you're not familiar with them, here's a snippet from their website:

NTU was established in 1969 to educate taxpayers, the media, and elected officials on a non-partisan basis on the merits of limited government and low taxes. NTU uses a variety of means to accomplish our work including direct mail, research papers, public speaking, email, advertising, the Internet, and lobbying.

The point of the whole interview was to talk about their rating system for congressmen and women. Their thesis? Spending is bad.

Here's how our Senators rank out:

Johnson, T............. F ............ 9%
Thune, J................ B–........... 63%
State Average........................36%

And here's how our Congresswoman does:

Herseth, S............. F ......... 19%

As a state that gets more than we give, probably the biggest question in all of this is "Is it better to be a big spender or not?" I'm sure there were measures which benefitted South Dakota in some of those spending measures.

Should we expect our elected representatives to have more "Thunish" congressional spending habits at 63% or should we want them to be "like Tim" at 9%.

I'm not going to try to argue this one, as it's one of those points that could be debated ad infinitum. There's a definite philosophical difference in the approaches. Do we elect our people in Washington on the basis of bringing home the bacon or by holding tight pocketbook strings? Do we want all that government money? Or do we complain along with the rest of the nation as to how high our taxes are?

Here's the ratings for the 2005 Congress, (.pdf warning) Check them out, and you can make up your own mind.