Newsflash for hypocritical anti-stimulus republicans out there:
Bush was the biggest spender in our country's history.
Total federal spending has skyrocketed 45 percent since President George W. Bush took office in 2001. Adjusted for inflation, spending has jumped by 27 percent in just five years—more than twice as much as real spending grew during the eight years of the Clinton Administration. Measured on an annual basis, inflation-adjusted spending during the Bush years has increased more than three times as fast as it did during the Clinton years. Indeed, spending as a percentage of GDP has grown more under George W. Bush than it has under any other President since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
You can't vote for a party that for 8 years operates on a "Deficits Don't Matter" philosophy and then all of a sudden pretend like you are a fiscal conservative. You have no credibility on this issue. Now is the one time where increasing deficit spending is justified economically speaking.
Comments (6)
Just gotta keep things in perspective. *agrees*
Newsflash for liberals who think most opposition to the "stimulus" bill is based on partisan alignment: it's not. In fact, most of us are the very same people who were wishing that President Bush would dislike a spending bill that came across his desk enough to actually veto it. Just one would have been a start, but most of them could have been vetoed.
What seems hypocritical, however, is that those who have criticized Bush for his irresponsible fiscal policy based on party affiliation (much of that spending, though, was military spending), now want to one-up the former Commander-in-Chief by spending more in one bill than the former administration spent in almost six years of the Iraq war. Make up your minds already.
Bush spent us into oblivion. Those of us who voted for him twice did not vote for him solely on his fiscal policy (and we certainly couldn't see into the future in 2000, or even in 2004). He ran as a fiscal conservative, but governed like... well, a spending addict. There's no excuse for that, and his inability to veto a spending bill cost us dearly in getting us into this current crisis.
My question, though, is how does adding water save someone from drowning? In other words, how is spending more money irresponsibly (that has no real asset value) going to get us out of problem caused primarily by... spending money irresponsibly?
@rednick261 - First on the politics of this. My point is that democrats have been more fiscally conservative in recent memory than republicans. My point is that electing McCain would not have led to any demonstrably different level of spending. Maybe he would have cut taxes more and spent less as part of his stimulus, but he still would have done some sort of stimulus the led to deficits of this level. Also, McCain would have kept us in Iraq longer, maybe even ramping up our presence, massively increasing our military deficit spending.
And no, it's not the same as your dislike for Bush's spending. The partisan vitrol being spewed by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and the ilk has been amazing. "I hope he fails." "He's a communist." Etc. I don't remember them ever calling Bush that when he was ramping up massive record deficits.
As for adding water to save us from drowing. Depressions are the one time where it is smart economics to increase deficit spending. The goal is to increase the velocity of money in the economy and make up for the output gap. This is standard macroeconomics 101, something Bush clearly didn't understand when he was operating on a "deficits don't matter" philosophy for 8 years.
Eh, what's your point? Bush was (and still is) a fucktard and Hannity and Limbaugh are party hacks.
@evilgoalie30 - My point is that I read a lot of conservative blogs and they are all pretending like the sky is falling after having been silent for the last 8 years and after having supported Bush twice.
@ElDuderinoCA - Eh, asshat party hacks. Try finding some actual conservative blogs.