Spin-proof snapshots of America                           

Fiscal Irresponsibility

How Republicans are wasting your taxes

at a truly impressive rate.

Remember the Clinton years?

Dr. Spade does. He remembers we did rather well financially. Nice work, America.

Conservatives shrug this off as being some sort of odd coincidence.

But if we had 1990's results from a Republican president, would they'd say the government "had nothing to do with it?" (Dick Cheney, 2000 VP Debate).

If we had our current economy under a Democratic president, and Democratic Congress, would the Republicans praise it as being healthy and strong?

Republican President,  Republican Congress, Republican Senate

Spending has increased even as they cut taxes, and while we started a war, the only time in history we've sent troops to fight while reducing taxes (see our Tax page).

Conservatives still say that they'll reduce spending, especially as tax cuts reduce the money available to the government, but do they?

Let's ask Don "I stuffed it like a turkey" Young,

(R-AK, and yes, that is Dr. Spade's favorite quote).

He's referring to the recent transport bill, which included another Alaskan bridge ($253 million) independents call "useless," but as head of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Young made sure his state got a big slice of the pie.

You could say Don Young is the exception, not the rule, but let's check that, then call a spade a spade.

• The transport bill exceeded President Bush's state "veto limit" by  $2.4 billion, but he still signed it.

• The pork in it was ten times that amount (according to the conservative Economist).

• Its 1,752 pages were not available for public review until after it was approved.

• 2,243 spending projects were added after the House passed its version in March.

• Its twin, the Energy Bill, included $85 billion of subsidies and tax breaks for energy companies.

The sad truth is that deficits don't "starve the beast" into fiscal responsibility. When running deficits, Congress tends to reduce funding for basic services but keep all the pork for special interests.

Just look at this session. Republicans control all committees in both the House and Senate, to say nothing of the White House. No blaming the Democrats here, no matter how fun it is.

How the White House deals with the Budget Crisis

By lying.

They just can't be honest about the budget. Here's an excerpt from the Nation (including Dr. Spade's favorite admission, "For a (relatively) easy-to-follow analysis of Bush's budget proposal, I turn to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Yeah, they're a bunch of liberals over there. But they know their math.")

George W. Bush released a budget today that he claims is responsible, honest, and designed to cut the $400 billion-plus deficit in half by 2009. Not so. ...The budget does not include the $80 billion Bush is asking for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And that probably won't cover the full tab.) It doesn't account for the $1 trillion to $2 trillion that Bush needs to pay for the private investment accounts he wants to carve out of Social Security. It also doesn't recognize that several hundred billion dollars will disappear from the revenue stream when the government rejiggers the alternative minimum tax."

(don't trust The Nation? Try the Christian Science Monitor here. And see our Sources page.)

Spend! Spend! Spend! But not for national security, at least not at the levels you promised, nor at the levels your departments have said they require. (See our page on Security). It's more important to cut taxes than to fund those.

Of course, the entire premise of "starving the beast" -- shrinking the government -- predicates that tax cuts must be accompanied by spending cuts.

This last part is very important. (See Meet the New G.O.P.)

If you won't reduce spending -- and the Republican Congress and White House have not, even when facing the biggest deficits in the history of the world -- then you must raise taxes. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would be a good place to start, no?

How can you conservatives put up with this? The President is spending like mad, building a bigger deficit, borrowing to cover the difference, then lying about it.

Dr. Spade can only conclude

1) ... you don't really care about fiscal responsibility. That's an OLD conservative thing.

2) ... you don't really care about being lied to. As long as you're told things are good, you're happy.

3) ... you live in Canada. Or maybe England.

Probably not France.