A lifelong champion of low taxes and limited government, Senator Toomey was elected in 2010 with strong tea party support, but he declined to join the Senate Tea Party caucus. The move is consistent with the maverick political course Toomey pursued during six years in the House (1998-2004), where he clashed with his Republican majority’s big-spending ways and voted with moderates on issues such as abortion rights.
Unlike many of his colleagues, Toomey kept his term limit pledge. After a failed Senate bid in 2004 to unseat then-GOP icon Arlen Specter, Toomey headed the Club for Growth, an antitax financial powerhouse that alarmed the GOP establishment by funding primary fights against Republicans not deemed conservative enough on fiscal issues. Toomey had announced that he would not pursue a rematch with Mr. Specter in 2010, but he changed his mind after Specter voted for President Obama’s $819 billion stimulus plan in 2009, one of its three Republicans to do so.
As a freshman senator, Toomey worked across the aisle with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) of Missouri to ban member projects, or earmarks, in spending bills. And he voted with Democrats to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military. But he said he would not vote to raise the national debt limit without congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment – and he stuck to that pledge. Anticipating a showdown over the debt limit, Toomey proposed legislation that would have required the Treasury to present a plan for paying off creditors first.
In sharp contrast with every other appointee to the new joint debt committee, Toomey in April voted against a compromise bill to fund the balance of fiscal year 2011 and, on Aug. 2, against raising the national debt limit.
