HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THE OUTRAGEOUS SPENDING IS BECOMING A PROBLEM FOR OBAMA? Well, there’s the poll showing a sizable plurality in favor of cancelling the stimulus spending. And there’s the dead-even generic Congressional ballot.
But the biggest indicator is that Obama’s most reliable media shills have decided that it’s time to . . . yes . . . blame it all on Bush!
It’s true, of course, that the debt up to now is mostly pre-Obama, since he’s only been in office a bit more than four months, making the question “Who’s Responsible For The Debt?” somewhat misleading. But bad as the debt has been in the past — and it went up even during the years of alleged “surpluses” under Clinton — just look at the projected spending under Obama to see why people are upset at where things are going now. Yes, it’s this graphic again.
Heck, it’s even showing up at Obsidian Wings, where we hear: “Obama and the Democratically-controlled Congress are creating debts and deficits larger than any other US government in the history of the Republic, under any measure, with the singular exceptions of the governments that got involved in a bet-the-country war. This chart, which reflects yearly deficits under Presidents (W.) Bush and Obama, cannot be repeated enough.”
No, it can’t, which is why I keep repeating it, and why other people are trying to change the subject and blame Bush. Hey, it worked before! Meanwhile, I invite the Obama shills to explain why — if the Bush spending was so bad — the much-bigger Obama spending isn’t much worse. And if the debt’s so bad, why is a drastically, radically unprecedented increase in spending the solution? I mean, it’s not like it’s being spent well . . . .
Meanwhile, I’d advise Republicans — whose prior big-spending ways came in for plenty of criticism here — that they should be pushing the spending issue hard. The defensive response from those running interference for the White House, together with these polls, suggests that it’s an issue with traction.
Perhaps they should even get behind a measure to shut down TARP and stop the stimulus spending. If nothing else, it will be fun to watch the duck-and-weave that it elicits.
Meanwhile, I’m not the only one to see this as a positive sign:
Good news. The intellectual battle for liberty is partly won. In the New York Times, David Leonhardt concedes that piling up a massive national debt is a disaster. “This debt,” Leonhardt writes, “will constrain the country’s choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.”
Read the whole thing. As I note above, it’s fair to criticize Bush for spending — and it’s also fair to point out the disconnect between the criticism of Bush’s spending, and the celebration — or at least covering-for — of Obama’s much greater spending. He’s “making it worse.” Much worse.
UPDATE: The Economist: “Bad as the deficit was under Mr Bush, it will quadruple this year, from $459 billion in 2008 to $1.845 trillion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Mr Obama vows to slash it in half within four years, but that will still leave it bigger than the deficits for which he once lashed Mr Bush. His aides hint that he will get tough when the time is right, but he is reluctant to break campaign promises of tax cuts for all but the rich just yet. The CBO reckons the deficit will still be running at more than $1 trillion a year in 2019.”