President Bush cut taxes to get the country out of a recession and get the economy moving, and that was the right thing to do. However, he also boosted spending enormously and for that he has no excuse. He could easily have vetoed bloated spending bills from Congress and his vetoes would have been upheld. Pretty soon Congress would have gotten the message that they'd better pare things down themselves or they would not get any spending passed. Instead Bush has sent Congress the message that they can add all the pork they want and never give a thought as to whether Bush will veto it.
So let's see, Bush has signed McCain-Feingold; enacted steel tariffs; strong-armed Congress into approving the fantastically expensive Medicare drug entitlement program; signed an enormous farm subsidy program; joined forces with Senator Kennedy to greatly boost federal spending on education; signed the grease-laden transportation bill; etc.
A Republican Congress which was at constant war with President Clinton was able to slow down the increase in federal spending to the point where we had a cash-flow budget surplus and the current national debt was being paid down. The combination of a Republican President and a Republican Congress has resulted in skyrocketing spending, huge yearly budget deficits and a giant upward spike in the national debt.
That's "compassionate conservatism". That's today's Republican Party.
While I don't agree with the concept that the Gov't. way overspends, we should not ignore the financial consequences of 9/11 at the time we were in recession.
The discount rate wasn't reduced to around 1% for no reason.
That's today's Republican Party.
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And you know what -- it's all the Democrats' fault. I am serious. They have been neglecting their duties to voters in trying to maximally cover meaningful issues. Instead they focus on idiotic issues irrelevant to at least 97% of us like whether Heather's two mommies can get married, whether mom can abort her full grown baby, etc. They have no ideas on issues of substance, like (1) foreign policy, (2) social security, (3) terrorism etc. Hey Democrats, what new, effective solutions do you have to any of these problems???
[crickets chirping]... "Bush sucks!!!" [crickets chirping]...
When you don't have proper competition, particularly in a two-party system, you are not going to like your choices. In many ways the Republican party has gotten fat and lazy because the Democrats have provided no meaningful competition in the arena of ideas.