The PI's Joe Connelly has a great article on what Republicans, many of whom were elected by criticizing the excesses of government, have been doing for the Country since they took over government.

The next time you hear someone talk about accountability and the excesses of government, remind them of what their Republican elected officials are doing for our State.

What's amazing, however, is how the Republicans have expanded all the excesses they howled at when Democrats ran the show in D.C. Examples:

• The K-Street Project: Since gaining control of Congress in 1994, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have pressured major D.C. lobbying firms to hire only Republicans and not to employ Democrats or contribute to their causes.
  Home to many trade and lobbying groups, K Street was a bipartisan employer. But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has made partisan hiring the price of access.
  A conservative D.C. operative, Grover Nordquist, posts information about lobbyists' contributions on the Web site of his Americans for Tax Reform.
• Purging Chairman Smith: Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is a longtime leader of the right-to-life movement on Capitol Hill, but has also shown concern for those already born.
  As chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Smith worked with Democrats to get a $2.8 billion increase in benefits into Congress' budget resolution, including money for homeless veterans and expanded benefits for disabled veterans.
  The result: House leaders removed Smith from his chairmanship at the start of this Congress.
  While demonstrating DeLay's power, it turned out to be a dumb move. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., exposed a $1.5 billion shortfall in the Department of Veterans Affairs budget, leaving VA without resources to serve returning Iraq war veterans.
• The Politics of Pork: A decade ago, newly elected Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Wash., launched a "Waste Watchers" program inviting his constituents to blow the whistle on federal excesses.
  A sincere conservative, Metcalf served a promised six years, retired to Whidbey Island, and did uncover waste. GOP colleagues who stayed on in D.C. are doling out the pork.
  Consider disbursement of homeland security dollars. Wyoming, Cheney's home state, received $37.74 per person in 2004. New York, with multiple terrorist targets, got $5.41.

• Seattle cheered recently when House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, deemed an Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement worthy of $220 million.
  Consider what Young took home. A total of $941 million in the surface transportation bill was allocated to Alaska, or $1,500 for each Alaskan.
  Young's monuments are two "bridges to nowhere." One is a $315 million double span connecting Ketchikan to its airport on Gravina Island. And the nation's taxpayers are spending $229 million to build a bridge across Knik Arm from Anchorage to Point MacKenzie.
• The Wild Sky: Cooperating across party lines, the Washington congressional delegation has worked out legislation to create a 106,000-acre Wild Sky Wilderness in the Cascades east of Everett. It has been approved by the Senate three times.
  One man has blocked the legislation -- House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif. Pombo won't hold a hearing or allow a committee vote on Wild Sky.
  Why? About 13,000 acres of the proposed wilderness is second-growth forest. Pombo has reinterpreted the 1964 Wilderness Act -- written largely by Washington Sen. Henry Jackson -- to say such land does not belong in wilderness.
  Pombo is an anti-environmental ideologue in a key position. He is sneering at the Senate and our state.