Edwin Buckham paid Christine DeLay

Fort Bend Now reports on how Nick Lampson, DeLay's Democrat opponent, spent part of his Tuesday:

One day after President George W. Bush signed a bill raising the national debt ceiling to a record $8.965 trillion, Lampson appeared in Sugar Land Town Square, handing out “Payment Due” notices to passers-by.

Lampson’s hand-outs were styled like credit card bills, showing current charges of $781 billion, and a $27,724.97 “payment due” from every man, woman and child in the country.

OK, this stunt got the coverage it deserves . . . on the pages of a newspaper-type weblog. (I don't mean to denigrate Fort Bend Now. They are good at what they do. But it isn't Channel 13.) What is disappointing, however, is Team DeLay's response:

“This stunt would be funny if it weren’t so hypocritical,” said DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty. “If he really wanted to get his Democrat message across, he would have passed out IRS collection notices to highlight their real agenda – raising taxes to fund more liberal pet programs.”

Now Lampson probably would be a big spender. But his point Tuesday was entirely defensible. The national debt and deficit spending represent deferred taxes. We will eventually have to pay off the debt. How do DeLay's policy preferences impact the spending side of fiscal policy? Fort Bend Now identifies a big difference: Lampson wants to eliminate the use of earmarks in spending bills. A few weeks ago, DeLay bragged about his use of earmarks. How in the world did DeLay let Lampson run to the right of him on government spending?

That said, I'm sure that DeLay is better on the tax side of fiscal policy. DeLay would undoubtedly be more likely to support growth-oriented tax cuts than Lampson.