Posted on 09/25/2005 10:56:29 AM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
September 25, 2005
The Sunday Times
Andrew Sullivan: Is Bush a socialist? He's spending like one
Finally, finally, finally. A few years back, your correspondent noticed something a little odd about George W Bush’s conservatism. If you take Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that a socialist is someone who is very good at spending other people’s money, then President Bush is, er, a socialist.
Sure, he has cut taxes, a not-too-difficult feat when your own party controls both houses of Congress. But spending? You really have to rub your eyes, smack yourself on the forehead and pour yourself a large gin and tonic. The man can’t help himself.
The first excuse was the war. After 9/11 and a wobbly world economy, that was a decent excuse. Nobody doubted that the United States needed to spend money to beef up homeland security, avert deflation, overhaul national preparedness for a disaster, and fight a war on terror. But when Katrina revealed that, after pouring money into both homeland security and Louisiana’s infrastructure, there was still no co-ordinated plan to deal with catastrophe, a few foreheads furrowed.
Then there was the big increase in agricultural subsidies. Then the explosion in pork barrel spending. Then the biggest new entitlement since Lyndon Johnson, the Medicare drug benefit. Then a trip to Mars. When you add it all up, you get the simple, devastating fact that Bush, in a mere five years, has added $1.5 trillion to the national debt. The interest on that debt will soon add up to the cost of two Katrinas a year.
Remember when conservatism meant fiscal responsibility? In a few years, few people will be able to. I used to write sentences that began with the phrase: “Not since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society spending binge. . .” I can’t write that any more. Johnson — the guns and butter president of liberalism’s high-water mark — was actually more fiscally conservative than the current inhabitant of the White House. LBJ boosted domestic discretionary spending in inflationadjusted dollars by a mere 33.4%.
In five years, Bush has increased it 35.1%. And that’s before the costs for Katrina and Rita and the Medicare benefit kick in. Worse, this comes at a time when everyone concedes that we were facing a fiscal crunch before Bush started handing out dollar bills like a drunk at a strip club. With the looming retirement of America’s baby-boomers, the US needed to start saving, not spending; cutting, not expanding its spending habits.
This was one reason I found myself forced to endorse John Kerry last November. He was easily the more fiscally conservative candidate. Under Clinton, the US actually ran a surplus for a while (thanks, in part, to the Gingrich-run Congress). But most conservatives bit their tongues. Bush promised fiscal tightening in his second term and some actually believed him.
They shouldn’t have. When Bush casually dismissed questions about funding the $200 billion Katrina reconstruction with a glib “It’s going to cost what it costs”, steam finally blew out of some loyal Republican ears. When the house majority leader Tom DeLay told the conservative Washington Times that there was no fat left to cut in the budget and that “after 11 years of Republican majority we’ve pared it down pretty good”, a few conservatives lost it.
Here’s the chairman of the American Conservative Union: “Excluding military and homeland security, American taxpayers have witnessed the largest spending increase under any preceding president and Congress since the Great Depression.” That would be correct. When you have doubled spending on education in four years, launched two wars and a new mega-entitlement, that tends to happen.
Here’s Peggy Noonan, about as loyal a Republican as you’ll find, in a Wall Street Journal column last week: “George W Bush is a big spender. He has never vetoed a spending bill. When Congress serves up a big slab of fat, crackling pork, Mr Bush responds with one big question: Got any barbecue sauce?”
Here’s Ann Coulter, the Michael Moore of the far right, a pundit whose book on liberalism was titled Treason: “Bush has already fulfilled all his campaign promises to liberals and then some! He said he’d be a ‘compassionate conservative’, which liberals interpreted to mean that he would bend to their will, enact massive spending programmes, and be nice to liberals. When Bush won the election, that sealed the deal. It meant the Democrats won.
“Consequently, Bush has enacted massive new spending programmes, obstinately refused to deal with illegal immigration, opposed all conservative Republicans in their primary races, and invited Teddy Kennedy over for movie night. He’s even sent his own father to socialise with ageing porn star Bill Clinton.” Ouch.
Conservatives have been quietly frustrated with Bush for a long time now. Honest neoconservatives have long privately conceded that the war in Iraq has been grotesquely mishandled. But in deference to their own party, they spent last year arguing that John Kerry didn’t deserve his Vietnam war medals. Social conservatives have just watched as the president’s nominee for chief justice of the Supreme Court pronounced that the constitutional right to abortion on demand merited respect as a legal precedent. This hasn’t cheered them up. The nativist right, long enraged by illegal immigration, has been spluttering about foreigners for a while now. But since few want to question the war publicly, oppose the president’s nominees to the court, or lose the Latino vote, the spending issue has become the focus of everyone’s discontent.
All I can say is: about time. I believe in lower taxes. But I also believe in basic fiscal responsibility. If you do not cut spending to align with lower taxes, you are merely borrowing from the next generation. And if a Republican president has legitimised irresponsible spending, what chance is there that a Democrat will get tough?
This may, in fact, be Bush’s real domestic legacy. All a Democratic successor has to do is raise taxes to pay for his splurge, and we will have had the biggest expansion of government power, size and responsibility since the 1930s. What would Reagan say? What would Thatcher? But those glory days are long gone now — and it was a Republican president and Congress that finally buried them.
I don't even see anything bad about entitlement programs, in the abstract. They are something to be debated, discussed, weighed and otherwise judged. Part of this process is figuring out how to pay for them. Is the XYZ program important enough to raise taxes?
Right now there seems to be little discussion, least of all about payment.
You cannot expect anything less from this rag.
I was in the grocery store earlier today,and a tabloid headline caught my eye...something about (and I am paraphrasing) "the pressures of hurricane Kartina & Iraq are driving Bush back to drink."
Leave it to The Enquirer. I wanted to grab every issue of those tabloids & throw them in the trash on my way out. (But,then I weouldn't be any better than the leftists,now would I?)....I quelled my urge and grumbled to myself as I walked out of the store,satisfying myself with just putting a copy of another magazine over top of it.
I'm just a poor "working grunt" who is pleased with the transition of "Clintonianism" to "Bushism"(if you insist on making it a one person issue) which has shown to be a transition to enough is enough from we will just get along.
The maintaining of market value in dire times created by 9/11, the bull by the horns attitude to take the war from our own turf to a front overseas, the line drawn to maintain political and judicial sanity, and the well formed political agenda which struck at the heart of liberal "fanaticism" to finally after 50 years to put it on the decline.
The list isn't big, however it is a profound and effective one with strength to endure.
Ask any true liberal what their attitude is of George W. Bush is and the answer obtained will prove to show the progress achieved in itself.
He!!, when was the last time in your life that just the right of "conceal and carry" was at the front of media coverage?
A doom and gloom attitude will promote just that.
Doom and gloom.
Well said, JOE and to further that ideal, the Legislature IS voted into office, not appointed....
That is a very good point. If program XYX really is so vital to our nation, then we shouldn't have a problem raising taxes to pay for it. As you point out, these discussions never even take place.
This is very similar how many people have a problem seeing credit card spending as "real money". With a credit card, they spend money on all sorts of things they don't really need and certainly wouldn't buy if they had to use cash.
"real enemies ... the legislature. America doesn't have a king, it has a president."
Well put. "Enemies" isn't the word I'd use for Congress, but I would say they're cowardly and are the larger part of the problem. Bush has failed to lead on spending issues, that's for sure. But Congress is the main problem.
You should. Here's why:
I don't see much doom or gloom from where I'm sitting. Many, many people I know are doing a whole lot better than just a few years ago. The days of high six figure bonuses are back on Wall Street. Unemployment is low. Crime is down. Etc. etc.
But, I don't know how much of that is due to legislation.
HHHHHHOOOOOOORRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
None of the people who you are arguing with is proposing that the legislature bears no responsibility for spending. But you seem intent on ignoring the constitutional responsibilities of the President in regard to this.
Then what is it due to?
Logical fallacy. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. A famous example would be Nazi Germany and the Soviets.
The goal shouldn't be to upset liberals or leftists but to enact solid fiscal responsible measures. The GOP has failed miserably on that.
I agree.
Do you believe that economic activity can only follow from government spending?
Joe, your stuttering....
LoL!
It could be due to a lot of things. Homes have appreciated in value and people are pulling money out of equity to buy stuff. A huge influx of foreign money into the U.S. markets. Some geek sitting in his basement wrote a computer program that anticipates market changes more efficiently.
Then again, it could be due to the new tax laws, lower interest rates, and increased free trade.
Or, it could be a combination of all those factors.
It hasn't been the goal but it did.
It's not clear how Bush cannot be responsible for the spending bills since he has signed everyone of them without any reservation.
No, I'm not ignoring the Presidents responisibilties, i'm saying the ELECTED LEGISTLATURE is tha main problem.
There is no stuttering in that. God Bless all our people in uniform and America that they defend!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.