Electric City Weblog

Fisking Obama

In response to the increasing tired refrain of “It’s all Bush’s fault”,  Keith Hennessey takes a line by line crack at this comment the President marched out last week with his eye-popping budget:

The fact is, 10 years ago, we had a budget surplus of more than $200 billion, with projected surpluses stretching out toward the horizon.  Yet over the course of the past 10 years, the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars without paying for any of it -– all of which was compounded by recession and by rising health care costs.  As a result, when I first walked through the door, the deficit stood at $1.3 trillion, with projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade.

Read the whole thing.

It’s true that Bush was anything but a fiscal conservative – and the major reason I left the GOP in 2001.  But, damn, if Bush was the problem Obama ain’t the answer.  And Obama’s continual harping on the past just makes him look like a whiner – which it’s becoming more clear each day that he is.

Here’s the opening salvo from Hennessey:

Argument:  The previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program … without paying for any of it.

• Response 1:  Yes, we did.  At the time, Congressional Democrats tried and failed to create an even more expensive new drug program without paying for it.  (Mr. Obama was not in the Senate at the time.)
• Response 2:  This Medicare drug program is ongoing.  If the President thinks it is too expensive, then he should propose to make it less expensive.  If instead he thinks it should be paid for, then he should propose other spending cuts or tax increases to offset the future costs.  Pending health care legislation would instead expand this expensive benefit and pay for the expansion, but would do nothing about paying for the ongoing base costs to which the President is objecting.  The past six years of deficit spending from this benefit is beyond President Obama’s control.  The future spending is not.  He could do this through reconciliation with 51 votes in the Senate.

Posted in Budget, National Politics, New, The White House | 1 Comment »