Posted on 03/05/2009 5:41:40 AM PST by Huck
Mr. Obama ceded authority to congressional appropriators, who wrote the stimulus bill that is history's largest spending increase. Then Mr. Obama got behind the pork-laden omnibus-spending bill. And Mr. Obama has also proposed $4 trillion in outlays this fiscal year and $3.6 trillion next fiscal year.
Mr. Obama cannot dismiss critics by pointing to President George W. Bush's decision to run $2.9 trillion in deficits while fighting two wars and dealing with 9/11 and Katrina.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
He blames President Bush's deficits on war and hurricanes, but tell me Mr. Rove, how many earmarks did Republican appropriators create?
In fact, how are Republicans doing right now on earmarks? Newsmax just published a list of the top 20 earmarkers in the omnibus bill. Read em and weep.
1. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. -- $122.80 million.
2. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. -- $114.48 million.
3. Kit Bond, R-Mo. -- $85.69 million.
4. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- $77.90 million.
5. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. -- $75.91 million.
6. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska -- $74 million.
7. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa -- $66.86 million.
8. James Inhofe, R-Okla. -- $53.13 million.
9. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. -- $51.19 million.
10. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii -- $46.38 million.
11. Patty Murray, D-Wash. -- $39.22 million.
12. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. -- $36.55 million.
13. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. -- $36.16 million.
14. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. -- $35.58 million.
15. Robert Casey, D-Pa. -- $27.17 million.
16. Harry Reid, D-Nev. -- $26.63 million.
17. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. -- $25.32 million.
18. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. -- $23.83 million.
19. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. -- $21.96 million.
20. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. (Retired) -- $19.56 million.
President Obama is free to lie about deficits because he's merely following in the GOP's footsteps. Hell, they are along for the ride. You justify your deficits with war spending, he justifies his with financial crisis spending, which, again, President Bush initiated.
Mr. Rove, you and your president put us in this pickle. If you can't be honest about it now, there's really no point in listening to a word you have to say. The GOP is completely and utterly without credibility on the subject of earmarks, or deficits, save for the few congressmen who were willing to buck your administration. Tell the truth, or go away.
Errrr... Bush's total budget deficit was not $2.9 trillion. More like $1.8 trillion.
Exactly. The above - combined with huge tax increases on all aspects of domestic oil production - are the difference between the recession we would have had and the awful depression we're about to have.
Obama's not "following in the Republicans' footsteps; he's breaking a whole new trail.
SHelby is a POS hypocrite.
The Bush administration was not responsible for this pickle - Bill Clinton’s subprime mortgage scheme was. Everything else was a domino effect. Obama DOUBLED this pickle during his first 30 days in office. Obama is in a deficit league all by himself.
George W Bush May 17,2002 :”Freddy Mac will launch 25 different initiatives to eliminate home-ownership barriors. Under one of these, consumers with bad credit will get amortgage with an interest rate that automatically goes down after a period of consistent payments… I’m serious about this. This is a very important initiative for all Americans, a chance for us to empower people….”
Don’t forget that creep McConnel, who’s responsible for something like $52 billion all by himself on the one hand, and on the OTHER hand voted “yea” on McCain’s anti-pork amendment. The only reason he could possibly have voted “yea” was because he knew the amendment couldn’t pass. Whadda snake.
He’s definitely taking it to a new level. But he is free to do so, because the GOP has no credibility. The only difference between the parties on spending is that the GOP has to pretend to be against it, to fool their voters, while the DEMs are free to spend out in the open. How many spending bills did GWB veto?
And he’s minority leader, isn’t he? If that doesn’t tell you the GOP is corrupt, nothing will. We’ve all been played. Time to revolt against both parties. They’ve both had plenty of opportunities, and both are utter failures.
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act was signed into law by Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999. Even Bill Clinton admits that, and defends his decision by saying something like “it seemed like a really good idea at the time”.
Obama has surpassed Bush’s eight year deficit total in thirty days, and you want to focus blame on the GOP?
Earmarks, while disgusting, are a political reality infecting both parties. It has ever been thus. They are a drop in the bucket when compared to the total annual deficit.
If nothing else, the Obama administration actually sets the stage for voters backlash in both parties, especially when people are going hungry in 2010. I doubt that's what Obama meant by tagging himself as "The Great Uniter", but that's where it's going.
Hope you're stocked up on canned food and ammo.
The DEM party is unashamed in its spending. There’s nothing to debate. Pelosi’s right. They won. So there’s no point debating them. The only hope we have is a viable, credible, principled opposition to them. I contend the GOP are fakers, and that their results simply don’t cut it. So, if the DEMs and their ways are ever going to be curtailed, we need to hold the opposition responsible. It’s our only hope. The GOP is a failure. It’s like Lincoln dealing with McClellan. At some point, you need a new general. The other side is going to keep fighting either way. You don’t bother trying to argue that Lee should be fighting on our side when his cannons are pointed at you. You worry about your army, and how you are going to defeat the other side.
Let's see. Republican-Republican-Republican.
"During periods of industrial boom, the profits of finance capital are immense, but during periods of depression, small and unsound businesses go out of existence, and the big banks acquire “holdings” in them by buying them up for a mere song, or participate in profitable schemes for their “reconstruction” and “reorganisation”. In the “reconstruction” of undertakings which have been running at a loss, “the share capital is written down, that is, profits are distributed on a smaller capital and continue to be calculated on this smaller basis. Or, if the income has fallen to zero, new capital is called in, which, combined with the old and less remunerative capital, will bring in an adequate return.” “Incidentally,” adds Hilferding, “all these reorganisations and reconstructions have a twofold significance for the banks: first, as profitable transactions; and secondly, as opportunities for securing control of the companies in difficulties.”
"The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means that a small number of financially “powerful” states stand out among all the rest. The extent to which this process is going on may be judged from the statistics on emissions, i.e., the issue of all kinds of securities." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Good post and commentary. Thanks Huck. Thanks to all posters.
I agree. 2012 will be a great opportunity to reject both parties. It really makes sense. Then neither party is tempted to go along with their president. They'd be forced to deal with issues on the merits. Screw political parties. They are a disease.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
G. Washington
Purposely losing a major battle while shooting the generals in the hopes of fading into the hills to reform then return to the field victorious is a foolish plan.
Oh, I agree with you. And further, the president is NOT a Messiah. A true conservative would worry much more about the Congress; that's where the action is, at least when it comes to spending. Presidents go along to get along. They want to be able to claim success for this or that, or get their one or two things accomplished, and beyond that, they leave it to the Congress and write it off as the cost of doing business.
The Congress is the body of the people, and the states. Change must spring from the bottom up. Until we wise up, they'll continue the same old con games. Why shouldn't they? What's to stop them?
Obama was chosen by his party as the figurehead, but it's the DEMs in Congress, and their willing accomplices in the press, who are really doing the deeds.
My point is that NO GOPer can save us. Unless and until we reject both parties, I believe we'll continue the slow crawl towards oblivion. A slow crawl that has picked up the pace recently. In fact, rather than a 3rd party, I think if someone ran as NO party, and ran against party politics, they would have a chance. That person would have to be a person of high moral character, a good speaker and salesman, and he'd have to have boatloads of money, because corruption rules DC and owns both parties.
It's a tall order. I'm not banking on it. But the Lord works in mysterious ways. There is no one warming up in the bullpen. Until Republicans can put a face to their opposition and talk in clear, principled Reganesque terms, there is no hope of taking power back. Obama emerged in 2004 with a powerful rhetorical blast. Name the Republican who can claim that mantle today.
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