As a sane human being who values his future, I find it particularly discouraging to watch as the Obama Administration and its accomplices in Congress run trillion dollar deficits in excess of the already ridiculous deficits left behind by the Bush Administration. My aggravation however, turns to something more like rage when I hear partisan defenders of the Democrats' agenda say "Where were you conservatives when Bush was running these deficits? I didn't hear you complaining then."
 |  |
In both cases, such people are just partisan sheep drinking their party's Kool Aid and lacking the moral courage and boldness to hold their leaders accountable to their values. But there were some fiscal conservatives trying to hold Bush accountable. In fact, if the average Democrat defending Obama's deficits would take just one moment to stop beating a straw man, he'd see that the most serious, most intellectual, most credible voices of fiscal conservatism have been earnest in holding the Bush Administration accountable.
What am I trying to say? If you support Obama's steep deficits, you're the partisan hack, not me or the institutions I support.
Here's the proof:
May 23, 2007 - The Acton Institute
Both of our major political parties have missed what seems so obvious. One says that we need more tax cuts to strengthen the economy. This is correct. The problem is that they are not willing to also make serious budget cuts. That party has spent more than any previous administration.
February 5, 2007 - The Independent Institute
The Bush administration has turned on the funding spigots—with the most rapid budget increases of any administration since that of LBJ. The administration has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on everything from expanding benefits in an insolvent Medicare program to massive increases in the defense and homeland security budgets.
February 8, 2005 - The Cato Institute
For fiscal conservatives the biggest question about the Bush second term is whether the reckless spending spree that this president launched four years ago will continue over these next four years. Let us hope not, because if the expenditure patterns continue, Bush will go down in American history as one of the biggest debt and spend presidents ever.
January 3, 2005 - The Independent Institute
During his reelection campaign, President Bush pledged to cut the federal deficit in half by 2009. The president has decided to measure his progress using an initial deficit figure of $521 billion, thus making his eventual goal a reduction to a $261 billion deficit. The problem is that the budget deficit was never $521 billion. This number was only an outdated Bush administration guess about what the deficit would be.
December 6, 2004 - The Heritage Foundation
Unless spending is peeled back, President Bush's domestic policy legacy will be higher taxes, budget deficits and stalled Social Security reform.
July 31, 2003 - The Cato Institute
George W. Bush is the most gratuitous big spender to occupy the White House since Jimmy Carter. One could say that he has become the "Mother of All Big Spenders." The new estimates show that, under Bush, total outlays will have risen $408 billion in just three years to $2.272 trillion: an enormous increase in federal spending of 22 percent.
July 27, 2003 - The Cato Institute
The Right's total abandonment of balanced budgeting is stunning. Sure, taxes are unpleasant to pay. But someone, someday has to pay for the government we're buying every year. Deficit spending just puts off the day of reckoning, but with interest. Trading off smaller taxes today for larger taxes tomorrow is a curious position for anti-tax conservatives to take.
June 11, 2003 - Citizens for Tax Justice
President Bush’s return to huge deficit spending represents a sharp break from the recent past. During President Clinton’s second term, the government actually ran on-budget surpluses and began paying down the national debt. The new level of deficit spending exceeds the previous records set during the Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush administrations, when on-budget deficits averaged 25 percent and 28 percent of on-budget spending, respectively.
It even goes back to previous Republican Presidents and their deficits:
March 4, 1992 - The Heritage Foundation
But what few taxpayers know and Bush seems to be among them, is that federal domestic spending has grown molrt [sic -electronically archived document contains errors] under his watch than under any other Administration.
January 29, 1992 - The Heritage Foundation
It [Bush's proposed budget] increases federal domestic spending, already at record levels thanks to the 1990 budget deal, by another $51.6 billion next year. This means that this spending will soar 81 percent faster than projected inflation. And the Bush budget calls for more than $25 billion of new taxes over the next five years.
April 15, 1991 - The Heritage Foundation
For every new dollar that tax payers turn over to the federal treasury as a result of last years budget deal, Con gress [sic] and the Bush Administration will spend an additional $1.83 on domestic programs, making this the largest build-up in domestic spending in three decades.
February 1987 - The Freeman
The record of deficit spending depresses and frightens most Americans. They worry that they are living on borrowed time that some day must end, or in a dream world that will crash like the stock market in 1929. They sense that something is wrong and that, in the end, the Federal debt will hurt their own financial situation. After all, debts need to be paid, even government debts. But this concern among voters is difficult to grasp as a tangible, solvable problem. They do not see the deficit as an immediate threat nor do they perceive a crisis that needs to be solved today. Therefore, they are unwilling to take the painful steps that are believed to be essential to reduce the deficit drastically.
Spread the Word!
| |
