Tom DeLay has a column today saying that Republicans will defend taxpayers by cutting wasteful spending. Well, that would be much more comforting if the GOP in the House had done a lot more to actually cut wasteful spending.

Robert Novak has the real story about how the House leadership is very unhappy with renegade GOP House members who have proposed cutting spending from the Transportation bill and the drug subsidy.

Pence and the RSC's heresy was to propose that massive federal outlays resulting from Hurricane Katrina be offset by reduced spending elsewhere. Specifically, they requested offsets to cut highway projects earmarked by individual House members, and a delay in implementing President Bush's new Medicare prescription drug subsidy. The negative reaction by the leadership was reflected when Pence, offered a seat at a later meeting, explained that he would be more comfortable standing because House Speaker Dennis Hastert had just tanned his hide.

Neither President Bush nor congressional leaders will tolerate tampering with the drug subsidy, the president's least popular initiative among conservatives. While the White House would be happy to see some highway pork eliminated, the House leaders absolutely refused. At stake here is a basic disagreement over the philosophy of government within the Republican Party as it nears the end of its 11th year controlling the House of Representatives.

I think the press conference that these Republican mavericks had last week explains DeLay's editorial today. And it's not a sufficient response.