Free Republic

In the latest Cato Tax and Budget Bulletin, Stephen Slivinski uses revised data released during the summer by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make side-by-side comparisons of the spending habits of each president during the last 40 years. While the data show that all presidents presided over net increases in spending, George W. Bush is shown to be one of the biggest spenders of them all, even outpacing Lyndon B. Johnson in terms of discretionary spending. An excerpt from the report: "The increase in discretionary spending - that is, all nonentitlement programs - in Bush's first term was 48.5...

”Can any Bushies or anyone for that matter justify this???” ----unnamed Freeper That was what sparked this Vanity. I was reading a thread and there was one of our own calling others of our own “Bushies”. There seems to be a growing amount of attacks on President Bush on this site. I really don't understand why. During his first term the man proposed spending bills like it was his money and not ours and yet there was hardly a whisper of criticism. Frankly I feel like a little criticism of him at that time was justifiable. Just as I feel...

What is the proper constitutional role for the federal government in the post-Katrina reconstruction of the Gulf Coast? Should not this subject be debated seriously before Congress mortgages generations of Americans yet unborn with the obligation to repay $200 billion in loans? Don't expect it. The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives already signaled its intention to stifle such debate when it refused to allow members of the House to consider an amendment to a bill that allocated the initial $62 billion in funds to Katrina victims. The amendment would have directed federal departments and agencies to look for...

WASHINGTON Sep 21, 2005 — Bush officials bristle at the suggestion the war in Iraq might look anything like Vietnam. Yet just as today's anti-war protests recall memories of yesteryear, President Bush's own words echo those of President Johnson in 1967, a pivotal year for the U.S. in Vietnam. "America is committed to the defense of South Vietnam until an honorable peace can be negotiated," Johnson told the Tennessee Legislature on March 15, 1967. Despite the obstacles to victory, the president said, "We shall stay the course." After 14 Marines died in a roadside bombing on Aug. 3, Bush declared:...

Yesterday on his radio show, conservative talk host David Gold said the proposed massive federal spending for Katrina "relief" is a TIME OF TESTING FOR CONSERVATIVES. Do they really believe in small and efficient government - - or will they accept socialist-scale big spending as long as it's proposed by a Republican president?Gold said he was surprised and disheartened to find many posters on FreeRepublic.com making excuses for the huge proposed spending. Bet they'd be sounding a different tune if Clinton were president and he had proposed it!

President Bush's push to give the military a bigger role in responding to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina could lead to a loosening of legal limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil. Pentagon officials are reviewing that possibility, and some in Congress agree it needs to be considered. Bush did not define the wider role he envisions for the military. But in his speech to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday, he alluded to the unmatched ability of federal troops to provide supplies, equipment, communications, transportation and other assets the military lumps under the label of...

As he did yet again in Thursday's fireside chat with a country mired in rancor and angst, George W. Bush demonstrated the remarkably adept ability to rise to the moment. Just as his critics are pronouncing him poll-dead and his second term an abject failure, he does two things that mark him as a leader destined to join the ranks of America's greatest presidents. In important speeches, like the president's compassionate reassurance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina that their lives will be put back together and their communities rebuilt, Bush's rhetoric connects. It attaches the urgency of the moment,...