….just remember one important fact when you attack Democrats for their “tax and spend” ways:
Our nation had a $236 billion surplus when George W. Bush took office, and thanks to GWB and Republican majorities in the House and Senate, that surplus turned it into a $1.3 trillion deficit by the time President Obama took office.
Then again, not a single soul should be surprised at the profligate spending of Republicans, given they’re the same folks who sent 363 tons of cold, hard American currency to Iraq with a total worth of roughly $12 billion, only to lose $8.8 billion of the money.
One can always tell when a Democrat is feeling insecure about his/her decision to stay to the left.
Thanks for the morning giggle.
What’s the alternative? Fiscal irresponsibility and homophobia?
I’m not about to take a lecture on responsible budgeting from the party that turned a surplus into a deficit as quick as they did.
Cindy, there’s no insecurity here; I just thought I’d point out that Republicans are far from fiscally responsible.
Thanks for your insight though!
Zach, Zach, Zach,
Don’t you listen to our superior right wing friends? It’s all Obama’s fault. He time traveled back in time and made Bush waste that surplus and start that unjust war.
Get over what they are saying capper. Drop the “unjust war” and move on. Look forward not backwards.
Sometimes I want to live in the world the right lives in. One where you can totally ignore any possibility that the previous administration had anything to do with our current situation because Obama has been president a year now. The way these right wing talkers say it like it is a FACT that Bush cannot be blamed for anything, that any blaming of Bush is simply illegitimate. Their decrees blow my mind.
When you hear/read the right blaming President Obama and ignoring what Bush did just remember they are doing it not because they believe what they are saying…their goal is to discredit President Obama and they don’t care if it’s untrue. The GOP/conservatives were devastated over President Obama’s win and they will do anything…and I mean anything…to win next time around. My suggestions would be…for the Democrats to start listening to all the voters…respond to their question even the small ones like where they can find a yard sign (are you listen Mayor Barrett handlers?)…and for the love of God stop reacting to the GOP and the teabaggers. Be on offense not defense. Start pointing out what is right with the Democratic candidates instead of obsessively pointing out what is wrong with the GOP candidates. Negative campaigns never ever work!
You bet we will do anything to win, if only to put a stop to the Obama trainwreck, that yes, is very much apparent after only one year. People are starting to catch on to that.
One second you suggest “for the Democrats to start listening to all the voters” then in the next breath you say “stop reacting to the GOP and teabaggers.” Well which is it? Or do you not care that the GOP and “teabaggers” (as you denegrate calling them) are part of ALL VOTERS.
Good luck on your Barrett yard sign. You should be thanking them that their top priority is not to be preoccupied with stupid yards in January.
Forgot…what is up with your hostility? I didn’t say Barrett’s top priority should be yard signs…did I?? What I said was…Barrett and his handlers should listen and respond to the voters’ questions…even the ones that may not be top priority like where they can get yard signs…because if a person doesn’t feel like they are being heard by a candidate they are not going vote for them. Got it??
Listening and reacting are two entirely different things.
I am well aware the GOP and the teabaggers will do anything win. I find many of them disgusting. I like mainstream type of people who are willing to see both sides and are willing to work together for the common good.
Maybe “disgusting” isn’t the right word. I’ll just say I don’t have a lot of respect for people who compare our President to Hitler and/or use the N-word like it’s normal and without shame.
You mean like this:
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
Sorry, didn’t mean to be hostile about the yard signs. I do see your point now about the importance of being responsive. And I do agree with you that there must be a level of respect in politics. I don’t include a lack of respect in my definition of doing what it takes to win. I don’t support the Hitler comparisons or the N-word, though I will point out plenty of people referred to Bush as Hitler and called him very bad things too. But suddenly now liberals say we need to respect our President, funny how that works.
forgot, you’re absolutely right. For every rightwinger who’s called Obama something awful, there’s an equal number of lefties who did the same thing to President Bush. I think there’s plenty of room to disagree without resorting to those kinds of things, though I’m sure I’m probably guilty of crossing the line every now and then.
We’re all hypocrites, we just don’t like to admit it.
I’ve never contradicted myself. NEVER.
wink
Anyone could have seen that surplus was headed for deficits very quickly, because the surplus was based off of an economic bubble and not because of many tough decisions or policy changes for the better. Federal obligations keep expanding. Interesting that you single out Iraq and not the bloated ag bill or Medicare Part D expansion.
I will say that it IS Obama’s fault by drastically adding on to the problem instead of reversing it, though he appears to be changing course with his speech tonight by claiming to freeze less than 15% of the budget. But by his logic, if government stimulus spending was our only way out of the problem, how does a freeze help us now? Oh yeah, it doesn’t matter because that’s what people want to hear now.
So now we have Obama cancelling a moon mission — sacrificing science — so that the federal government can play mommy and daddy in everyone’s lives.
I wouldn’t single out “the bloated ag bill” because so many Farm Bills have been bloated for so long over so many administrations, it’s almost a given in fed spending.
As for Medicare part D…yeah that was a problem. Republican’s spending more money without taking in more money.
This is funny to me. I remember when Clinton started cutting the defense budget in a time of peace and all of the uproar. I also remember when Clinton was talking about military spending to fight one war and not two. His actions in reducing the defense budget, I think, is what helped to reduce the deficit.
I also remember when (for the first time in history?) Clinton had the chairman of the FED sit next to the First Lady during a congressional speech and signalled to the world that the US would be linking its monetary policy and its spending policy together.
And then we had 8 boom years. Bush II broke that connection and you can see where we are today.
There are likely details of this I have forgotten but this is what initiated the boom years. It was not a fortunate accident that we had prosperity. It was planned that way.
George Bush wasn’t a fiscal conservative?!?! Thanks for the newsflash. While it took 8 years or more to get to that level of deficit under Bush, The Obama broke the bank to that degree in One Year!! So as a fiscal conservative, if I had to choose one level of spending…Bush vs. Obama…I’d choose the former, hands down.
BTW…catch the recent CBO report indicating the Obama’s Stimulus will now cost about $75 billion more, partially due to HIGHER than expected unemployment? The Obama assured us unemployment would level off at 8%…yet it remains slightly over 10%. Go figure.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wirestory?id=9668510&page=1
Ok, so often Democrats like to bring up the model of the 1990s with Clinton & GOP Congress. So then GW Bush got off track. In the spirit of “hope and change,” why does Obama continue to go down the GWB track and not back to the Clinton one? Why doesn’t he make an attempt at being fiscally conservative?
Also, if you think Bush or any previous president is even in the same league with Obama spending, take a look at “The National Debt Road Trip” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5yxFtTwDcc). It’s under 3 minutes and is great illustration of where we are going as Obama slams on the gas.
Forget what Clinton did or the help he got from circumstance, just look at two facts: 1) Bush 43 got this country involved in $1 trillion (or one thousand billion, or one million million) of military committments, and 2) he created the largest bureaucratic agency in history (DHS which its stepchild TSA). What further proof of fiscal irresponsibility do you need from the party of “fiscal responsibility”?
So Obama’s answer to that is to be MORE fiscally irresponsible. Great!
I was going to remind the blogger here that GWB was not fiscally responsible but I see that is moot now. Terrence Wall however is fiscally responsible. To reduce your business expenses by taking advantage of tax saving programs is a sure sign of good fiscal management. Or do all those on the left always voluntarily pay more taxes than you owe, thus making the argument that we all should?
Yes Gonzo, remember Joe Biden told us it was our patriotic duty to pay as much taxes as possible.
Especially the “top 1%”
Tax loophole= “tax saving programs” Interesting spin put on that one.
“Why doesn’t he make an attempt at being fiscally conservative?” I guess you forgot about when you brought up the budget freeze. Which got shot down. I guess bringing up an idea which got shot down is not an attempt to you?
How could it get shut down, he’s not proposing it until tonight?! And who shot it down?
Obama’s “freeze” is one in the sense that just about everything is exempted from it. He’s not going to freeze or cut anything. Also, during the campaign when McCain proosed a freeze, Obama said time and time again he did not support it because that was a hatchet approach, when a scalpel was needed, with some programs deserving to be cut while others may need more funding. Remember that? So what is different now? Oh yeah, the poll numbers are down and people support it after last year’s massive spending. And I thought he ran to be a new politican and to cut through the phoniness.
To really deal with our budget problems, we have to take on the big entitlement programs — something no politician is willing to do until absolutely necessary, which might be too late.
Loophole? If a lawmaker writes a tax law and there’s a loophole in it, any taxpayer who takes advantage of it is a bad person for trying to save some of their own money? Hence tax saving program.
Blah blah blah. I know not a single genuine fiscal conservative who was happy with Bush’s spending. Some (myself included) did not vote for his re-election though most held their noses and voted for him anyway as a perceived lesser of two evils or because they felt strongly enough about national security issues.
To paint fiscal conservatives as being in support of Bush’s spending excesses is revisionist history. This particular one was every bit as critical then as he is now.
Locke, tell me which fiscal conservatives in Congress voted against the kind of spending that led to the deficit we had when Bush left office.