Rhetorical Outbursts

Pssst. Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone, but Bush isn’t a conservative - at least, he’s not a conservative in the fiscal sense of the word…

Back in 1994, when Democrats controlled congress and the White House, conservatives feared the Democrats would spend America into oblivion. In January 1995, both houses of congress were sworn in with Republican majorities, and the era of fiscally conservative policies was underway… at least for a few years.

As soon as the White House was fumigated, the Oval Office carpets shampooed, and the last vestiges of Bill Clinton’s DNA were removed from the White House, George Bush moved in and was greeted by Republican majorities as far as the eye could see.

And just about the time Al Gore’s last monotonous echo faded away, Bush and the Republicans started spending. And spending. And spending. And spending. And… well, you get the point.

Consider this:

This week, the House is scheduled to debate the $2.8 trillion budget for 2007, which projects an additional $3 trillion of debt in the next five years.

Or this:

Spending on social programs, from education to veterans health care, has risen faster than at any time since the 1960s.

For those who learned “social science” rather than “history” back in high school, the 1960’s was the time of LBJ and the Great Society. Bush and the Republicans are challenging 1960’s-level spending…

Republicans came to power over the past decade-plus by campaigning against the Democrats platform of “tax and spend.” Republicans did indeed do away with tax and spend politics; instead, they have substituted their own platform of “borrow and spend.”

The only thing common to both parties is “spend,” and spending is not traditionally the province of true conservatives…