Bush Beats LBJ on Spending [a report from Cato Institute]

Cato.org ^

[steve-b]

I am not sure CATO is sufficiently compensating for Bush having to deal with 9/11 at a time when the country was in recession.

There is no reason to apply any "compensating" for that. The President can address that situation in either the right way (insist on spending cuts elsewhere to balance the necessary increases in defense spending, and veto any non-compliant budget) or the wrong way (pour out more red ink).

[steve-b]

I was commenting on them including homeland security as an unnecessary expense.

You need to critique what they actually said, not what you make up out of whole cloth.

DISCRETIONARY spending includes everything that is not specifically required by law. It has nothing to do with how "necessary" the expenses in question are, only with how much control can be immediately exercised over them.

The proper response to an increase in necessary spending is to make corresponding cuts in non-necessary spending. The ongoing and blatant failure to do so is, quite rightly, criticized by Cato.

[steve-b]

a veto can be overwritten, at which a bill becomes law anyway

Yes, and if Congress had passed all this excess spending over Bush's veto, then Bush would be blameless (having failed after making an honest effort).

[bkepley]

You need to critique what they actually said, not what you make up out of whole cloth.

Take a break guy, it was someone else who said "uh..homeland security is not an unnecessary expense" or something like that and I commented on what he said. Now, was he wrong? Could be. Did he "make it up out of whole cloth"? I don't know but I doubt it. Even people who are wrong on an internet web site are not necessarily malevolent.

[Incitatus]

What he said.

[amchugh]

I have a feeling that whichever party wins the 2008 presidential election is going to regret it. I can’t back that up, it’s just a hunch.