At one of my White House gatecrasher posts yesterday, crazed JBW left a comment so totally off topic to be mind boggling:
With respect, a Republican administration is responsible for the current recession, our two open-ended and unfunded overseas wars and adding trillions to the federal deficit. The current level of outrage on the right over government spending was virtually nonexistent for eight full years before Obama took office and I find it to be the height of partisan hypocrisy.That just creates one of those, yawn, "yeah right" moments -- especially given the existence of charts like these:
And back in May, Brian Riedl wrote that:
President Obama continues to distance himself from this "inherited" budget deficit. But the day he was inaugurated, the 2009 deficit was forecast at $1.2 trillion — meaning $600 billion has already been added during his four-month presidency (an amount that, by itself, would exceed all 2001-07 annual budget deficits). And should the president really be allowed to distance himself from the $1.2 trillion "inherited" portion of the deficit, given that as a senator he supported nearly all policies and bailouts that created it?And even Obama's not unaware of his engorgement on the budget pie. See this morning's New York Times, "Debate on Creating Jobs, Without Raising Deficit":
The president also talks of cutting the deficit in half from this bloated level. But even after the recession ends and the troops return home, he'd still run $1 trillion deficits — compared to President Bush's $162 billion pre-recession deficit. In other words, the structural budget deficit (which excludes the impacts of booms/recessions) would more than quintuple.
While stimulus measures usually are not “paid for” by spending cuts or tax increases since that would defeat the purpose of pumping money into the economy, the fact that even liberal groups now are suggesting ways to avoid adding to the deficit shows widespread acceptance of the political if not economic danger of adding to the ever-growing national debt.Of course, no one wants to increase the size of the deficit, and no one's as good at doing so than the Obama administration and the current Democratic Congress. (See also, the Washington Post, "In Health-Care reform, No Deficit Cure," via Memeorandum.)
In any case, the other example of GOP scapegoating is the freaking unreal post yesterday on the Salahi dinner-crashers, "Before Obama Met Salahi, George Met Jack." Shorter Crooks and Liars: The virtually catastrophic state dinner gate-crashing crisis is nothing compared to George Bush's long-forgotten relationship to the convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff now doing time in a federal correctional facility in Maryland, or something ...
Dumb Democrats, JBW too.
My you do love casting about. True.
ReplyDeleteI don't know which I like more Don, the mind set that even mentioning the Bush administration is to be "obsessed" with them (it's been a year, who cares who was president before Obama...) or that by your definition of the phrase I've now "clearly gotten under your skin". This is the right-wing caricature thing I've been talking about.
ReplyDeleteAnd let me make sure I have this straight: in responding to another commenter talking about "sacrificing the American economy" and "keeping the country economically viable in a global downturn", mentioning deficits and unfunded wars is "so totally off topic to be mind boggling"? What else boggles your little mind so easily?
Keep up the good work.
The final FY2009 deficit numbers weren't as bad as we thought they'd be: $1.42 trillion. It came in lower because a smaller portion of the Porkulus Plan money has been spent so far than expected, and some savings were obtained by very-low-interest short term debt instruments being used.
ReplyDeleteIsn't there a searchable database of the White House visitor logs? Do they appear?
ReplyDeleteThis post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 12/1/2009, at The Unreligious Right
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats look to face a bloodbath next fall, with some already predicting a 100 seat loss.
ReplyDeleteBy 2012, most people will wince at the very mention of the name “Obama”- and the GOP could take 40 states running Gilbert Gottfried- LOL
Party’s over kiddies- time to put the grown-ups back in charge...