Romney is attacking Santorum for having voted increase the federal debt limit five times, arguing that Mitt has a "more comprehensively conservative record." In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Romney surrogate Jim Talent assailed Santorum for supporting Medicare Part D. Talent had also voted yes. Jim Antle sighs:
This illustrates the extent to which the big government Bush years tainted many fiscal conservatives in Congress. Even Paul Ryan ended up voting for the biggest new entitlement program since the Great Society, one that actually increased Medicare's unfunded liabilities by trillions of dollars. You can find plenty of conservative votes for TARP and No Child Left Behind too. It's tempting to write off Santorum's deviations from limited government by pointing out that they mainly stemmed from loyalty to a Republican president or parochical concerns. But loyalty to Republican presidents and parochial concerns are exactly the reasons government tends to grow even when Republicans are in office. The fact is that Republicans are great fiscal conservatives when the Democrats are in power and tend to backslide when they are in power themselves.
Chait appreciates the irony:
In all probability, Romney’s campaign against Santorum will work. What’s Santorum going to say – that Republicans always vote for the debt ceiling when there’s a Republican president, and that opposition to it is nothing but disingenuous partisan posturing that both sides used until last year, when it got out of hand and Republicans almost crashed the world economy with it? If the debt-ceiling issue became the vehicle for persuading the Republican base to nominate the least sincerely conservative candidate in the field, that would really be poetic justice for the tea party.
The Dish 