Posted on 09/14/2009 1:39:34 PM PDT by Federalist Patriot
Well, Rush, considering that too many members of the GOP went along with massive government spending and the TARP bailout, if the GOP gets back into power and reverts to its Beltway nonsense, the protestors WILL be getting after Republicans in droves.
Rush is right only 98% of the time. This is his 2% moment.
spot on tex. spot on.
It’s the first time I’ve heard someone say that Frank Luntz is a phony conservative. I’ve wondered sometimes too if he was a phony conservative.
Rush forgot David Frum.
I created this for a poster a little while back:
In fairness, there really was not much to get mad at Repubs as far as the spending went...
Bush’s tax cuts caused the majority of the deficit, but it did what was intended, getting us out of recession. At least he did the right thing by cutting taxes instead of doing a trillion dollar porkulus.
Also, Bush never had more than 18% of the budget to cut. The rest was defense, interest on the debt, and entitlements. What cuts he asked for, were mostly blocked by the Democrats, although he did get some budget cuts every year except the last two IIRC (even though the budget increased).
Yes, he did increase spending on defense, but it was badly needed. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost, but they were only about 5% of the budget annually. He also was responsible for NCLB and Medicare part D, but both have been successes. NCLB forced teachers to prove they were educating kids (that is why teachers to a person hate NCLB), and Medicare part D has come in 40% under budget. Both were campaign promises that he kept, and both were far less expensive than the Democrat’s proposals.
For the last three months of his term, he believed he had no choice but to bailout the financials with TARP. He also had to work with Pelosi to get anything passed at all. I was not happy with the authorization to bail out Wall Street, but it worked. It prevented a catastrophe. We didn’t know at the time of the $550 billion dollar run on our money markets, but the President did. FWIW, of the 700 billion authorized, there is about 330 billion outstanding, and more will be paid back. He believed he had no choice, and I agree. I understand though, why many do not.
When you add in the challenges from Enron and the dotcom bust, 9/11, all of the natural disasters under his term (and there were a bunch of them...five hurricanes including Katrina in 2005 alone), and the war on terror, and the financial collapse, GWB and the Republicans actually were conservative in their spending, even though the debt doubled in eight years (5 Trillion).
In fact, because of GWB’s business friendly policies of holding down taxes and regulations, our GDP grew rapidly enough to keep government spending in the 18.5-20.5% of the GDP, below average for the last thirty years. If not for the real estate collapse, our budget would have been balanced in 2008...it almost made it in 2007. The debt to GDP held steady at about 60% of GDP, about the same as 1990-1996.
It is mostly the paulites that keep tagging GWB as such a huge spender, but they are wrong. They discount the fact that for six years Democrats voted as a block against everything Delay and Bush tried to do with the budget, and the incredible demands on the government in the same time period.
On the other hand, Obama’s spending (just in the budget) may exceed 35% of GDP. He may well double the debt in his first term (10 trillion). There really is no comparison between the massive spending we are seeing now, and the previous administration’s. Unfortunately, Republicans voting as a block cannot affect Obama’s budgets, as the Dems (with the help of a few RINOs) could GWB’s.
Tom Delay told conservatives that Republicans did the best they could, and it was the truth. With Obama and the Democrats having shown their true colors on spending the last three years, it is time to quit trying to paint GWB and the Republicans spending as somehow the same. It wasn’t, and it is easy to prove. A good example is conservative’s throwing Republicans under the bus for $44 billion in earmarks, about 2% of the budget in 2005. In place of them, we have Pelosi who won’t even talk about earmarks, and a porkulus bill that will spend $300 billion on exactly the same type of projects. 44 billion was not an exorbitant amount, it was just presented that way as a Democrat talking point.
Certainly spending was far higher than what libertarians would prefer, but now we need to acknowledge the realities of the Bush Administration’s fiscal policy.
By the way, I’m not picking on you particularly, but your theme keeps coming up, and it only helps Obama cover the staggering amount of spending he and the Dems are doing, spending that will destroy our country.
I have the charts and links to back everything up I have said in this post, so this is not just BS! (Sorry for the long post!)
Bush’s tax cuts caused the majority of the deficit,
Economy Pays Price For Bush Tax Cuts.
Their conclusions were totally wrong as proven by the explosion in revenue in 2005-2008, but their numbers on the revenue loss until 2004 are valid.
and entitlements
Bush never had more than 18% of the budget to cut.
although he did get some budget cuts every year except the last two
I couldn't find one link that lists them all, but most are in the google search.
he did increase spending on defense, but it was badly needed
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost, but they were only about 5% of the budget annually.
897,000,000,000 war cost divided by 20,359,000,000,000 budgets from 2002-2009= 4.4%
Medicare part D has come in 40% under budget.
Medicare Part D Comes In Under Budget
We didn’t know at the time of the $550 billion dollar run on our money markets,
2008 TARP bailout was prompted by fears of 5 Trillion dollar bank run
there is about 330 billion outstanding, and more will be paid back
My bad, its 371 billion, not 330 billion.
even though the debt doubled in eight years (increase of 5 Trillion).
Notice it tripled under Reagan, and nearly doubled under Clinton.
our GDP grew rapidly enough to keep government spending in the 18.5-20.5% of the GDP,
If not for the real estate collapse, our budget would have been balanced in 2008
The debt to GDP held steady at about 60% of GDP, about the same as 1990-1996.
There really is no comparison between the massive spending we are seeing now, and the previous administration’s.
From his comments, I kinda think Rush is mainly concerned about splitting the Pub vote by creating a third party movement.
He also said "lookit", "folks" and "in the tank".
He says a lot of things.
He wants to get power out of the hands of the most damaging party. We need to get a leader to set an agenda for restoring freedom for the Repugs and direct the rinos within the GOP instead of the other way around. Steele should be doing this but he put the stooopit in the heart of the GOP while McLame sings from the evil wing.
He left out George Bush and John McCain. Pay lip service to conservatives when you want to be elected, and then ignore them until the next election.
Uh, yeah, sure.
Guys like you are why the GOP lost power - you rationalized every misstep and transgression against core GOP values.
Sorry, but its people like you that helped put, and are helping keep, Obama and Pelosi in power.
No Republican is a perfect conservative, no leader can ignore reality....
Yeah, sure. Whatever, party-boy. Blame the voters, not the pinheads who blew their principles out the window. Might as well blame women for getting raped while you're at it.
No Republican is a perfect conservative, no leader can ignore reality....
The GOP apologist corps never ceases to amaze with their mendacity.
Try taking the country back without the Republican Party.
You don’t really care, do you? If you don’t have the votes in the primaries to get hard right conservatives nominated, you need to STFU or help stop the Democrats.
That’s not hard to understand.
The only way the GOP will win again is to embrace (and LIVE) its core principles. Voters are sick of two-faced politicians.
You don’t really care, do you?
You have no core values, do you?
If you don’t have the votes in the primaries to get hard right conservatives nominated, you need to STFU or help stop the Democrats.
You can go piss up a rope for all I care. Apologists like you ran rampant over FR for years. And we watched as the GOP marginalized itself.
That’s not hard to understand.
Guys like you are easy to understand. You are political snakes with no core values. The kind that ruin parties.
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