The GOP had tremendous success in the 1990`s, holding Clinton in check on spending. But they can't hold this GOP President's liberal spending habits in check, or their own pork barrel spending. Pathetic.
The spending increases were necessary to deal with a recession and the WOT. As a practical Republican I think those are concessions you make to stay in power and solve the problems that can be solved.
You maybe right. What we really should do during a recession and a time of war is reduce spending. That's a good argument. Me, I'm willing to take out a loan if my car breaks down, my kids want to go to college, or I need to buy a gun really quick because my neighbors have threatened to kill me.
Clinton got a balanced budget from the Congress at the expense of our military, but his spending in 95 was 20.7% of GDP. Reagan's in 85 was 22.8% of GDP. Dubya's was 19.9% in 05. So far Dubya's budgets have all been smaller in terms of GDP than the Reagan/Bush budgets. The budgets Dubya signed are not much higher than the 18.4% and 18.6% GPD spending of the lowest budgets clinton signed.
In light of the facts, and the context of reality, characterizing Dubya's modest increases from the late 90's budgets as "liberal" sounds like slavish conservative misrepresentation.
No other President has fought a major conflict without raising taxes since before the Civil War. But like you, I'm very happy the President is pushing to cut some fat out of government, and I hope to hear more.
I agree that excessive Federal spending is counter productive. We have to convince the voters, and that is hard because America has always looked to government to fix problems and we have thrived with a deficit for most of our history.
I think as we get closer to election time we will see a stark contrast between the cuts Republicans want to make, and the increases rats demand. Cynical conservatives and their rat counterparts will interprete this as Republicans submitting to the demands of the base but actually they will be responding to changing public opinion and a satisfied electorate that finally willing to tighten the belt.
We may also see a conflict in Iran soon, and you may be reminded of another big difference between rats and Republicans. If Iran is solved by the end of Dubya term, or near the begining of his successor we will again be able to balance the budget by gutting the military, and people will talk about the terrorism dividend like Reagan's peace dividend.
"The GOP had tremendous success in the 1990`s, holding Clinton in check on spending."
That's because Clinton never fought a war on terrorism.