"the most fiscally irresponsible chief executive in American history"

[swag]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9379241/
Leaders Who Won't Choose
In Washington, it's business as usual in the face of a national FAREED ZAKARIA

. . .Whatever his other accomplishments, Bush will go down in history as the most fiscally irresponsible chief executive in American history. Since 2001, government spending has gone up from $1.86 trillion to $2.48 trillion, a 33 percent rise in four years! Defense and Homeland Security are not the only culprits. Domestic spending is actually up 36 percent in the same period. These figures come from the libertarian Cato Institute's excellent report "The Grand Old Spending Party," which explains that "throughout the past 40 years, most presidents have cut or restrained lower-priority spending to make room for higher-priority spending. What is driving George W. Bush's budget bloat is a reversal of that trend." To govern is to choose. And Bush has decided not to choose. He wants guns and butter and tax cuts.

People wonder whether we can afford Iraq and Katrina. The answer is, easily. What we can't afford simultaneously is $1.4 trillion in tax cuts and more than $1 trillion in new entitlement spending over the next 10 years. To take one example, if Congress did not make permanent just one of its tax cuts, the repeal of estate taxes, it would generate $290 billion over the next decade. That itself pays for most of Katrina and Iraq.
. . .
The U.S. Congress is a national embarrasment, except that no one is embarrassed. There are a few men of conscience left, like John McCain, but McCain's pleas against pork seem to have absolutely no effect. They are beginning to have the feel of a quaint hobby, like collecting exotic stamps.

Today's Republicans believe in pork, but they don't believe in government. So we have the largest government in history but one that is weak and dysfunctional. Public spending is a cynical game of buying votes or campaign contributions, an utterly corrupt process run by lobbyists and special interests with no concern for the national interest. So we shovel out billions on "Homeland Security" to stave off nonexistent threats to Wisconsin, Wyoming and Montana while New York and Los Angeles remain unprotected. We mismanage crises with a crazy-quilt patchwork of federal, local and state authorities—and sing paeans to federalism to explain our incompetence. We denounce sensible leadership and pragmatism because they mean compromise and loss of ideological purity. Better to be right than to get Iraq right.
. . . more

[populistdriven]

1. Imagine A Katrina Hitting the US Every Year...

It is already happening:

Estimated cost of Katrina = $200 billion for federal rebuilding

2006 cost to taxpayers = $208 billion just to cover interest costs on the national debt for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12671176.htm

[fortyfeetunder]

2. Of course he's fiscally irresponsible!

If it isn't his money he doesn't care!

[swag]

11. I think he does care.

Look how much of our money he takes (and how much of the future's money he borrows) and gives right over to his friends and contributors in corporate America. All with no bids, no audits, zero accountability. Massive defrauding of the American taxpayer.

Well beyond corporate welfare. Outright thievery. Perhaps this sounds shrill, but just look at the massive fraud perpetrated by Halliburton et al. in Iraq. And now look at all the no-bids going to the same old sleazy players in the NOLA "reconstruction."

Facts, as they say, is facts. From your wallet to their thieving hands.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Remember in Monopoly, how you believed that if you could just

get those hotels on Boardwalk and Parkplace that you could get over the debt you were in?? Didn't work all the time then, won't work all the time today.


Boardwalk and Parkplace are Afghanistan and Iraq, and the hotels are very very expensive, (many many lives, fantastic amounts of dollars) and while our military is out on its global crusade, America's infrastructure is crumbling.

Fiddle nero, fiddle shrub... drown the govt in the tub.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Excellent analogy. I wonder if ** can ever win Monoply either?

[cliss]

6. Nice post.

I've finally come to the conclusion that Bush is in fact the Destabilizer. Call him what you will: Evil, Moron, the Anti-Christ, but his role for the U.S. is to take apart the entire system.

The reason is corruption. This country has steadily become more and more corrupt. This leads to more corruption and the economy becomes weak. The system starts breaking down.

People have actually studied corruption, and they've discovered that they are inherently unstable.

Meaning = they have within them the seeds of their own destruction. The more powerful they become, the more absolute will be their end.

And that's what we're looking at, folks.

[CrispyQ]

9. LOL!!

It took many "Go Directly to Jail! Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200!" before I finally learned that the first row was a much better real estate investment than Park Place & Boardwalk!

[madokie]

35. Monoply, hmm, been a while, but you got it right I think

with the hotels as oil producing countrys etc. I'll have to go dust that old bugger off and reread the instructs
:think:

[Why Syzygy]

5. Why not get a Constitutional ammendment

to prohibit failed 'oil men' from running for President?

[tom_paine]

22. Though I know you are joking, Amerika HAS no Constitution anymore

Imperial Amerika is run on Imperial Will and Imperial Will alone. Occassionally, the trapping of pre-Bush democracy are required to fool the rubes, but only until the last of us born in Free America grow old and die.

Then, such BS won't be necessary anymore, though they may still keep it like the Romans kept the Imperial Senate around right up until the very end.

But realistically, Amerika HAS NO CONSTITUTION.

[Why Syzygy]

26. Understood

However. If he wants an anti-gay ammendment, I want an anti-idiot ammendment. It is my country.

[rzemanfl]

7. The Estate tax would generate even more money if rich folks

started to die faster...if you can imagine that happening somehow.

[Why Syzygy]

8. A friend pointed out

that the elder Bushes are, well getting to that age.
A cynic might believe that Georgie feathered his nest with that tax cut precisely for himself.

[swag]

10. It's sad how effective those "death tax" commercials are

with the uninformed. When I last visited my parents, they were all hot and bothered by those lying commercials from the laughably named "Club for Growth." They thought, from the commercials, that the estate tax would eat 60% of what they could leave to me and my brother. I had to explain to them that their estate, though lovingly cultivated through years of hard work and savings, was a long long way from qualifying for the estate tax.

http://www.faireconomy.org/estatetax/ETWhoPays.html

Two percent of Americans are now subject to the estate tax. These are people with estates larger than $1.5 million ($3 million for a couple). Half of all estate taxes are paid by the top 0.14% of Americans. These are people with estates larger than $5 million.

[wildflower]

12. I'm bothered by this term "entitlement spending."

Has it been going on for a while now and I didn't notice it? I noticed the Republicans using it on "This Week" today to refer to social programs.

wildflower

[swag]

17. When the pejorative taint from one piece of GOP language manipulation

begins to fade, they tend to move onto another twisted phrase.

It's been going on for decades. Recall Reagan's invocation of the "welfare queen" who, as it turned out, did not exist.

Language manipulation is one of the longstanding tactics of the corporate totalitarians. Don't expect them to abandon it soon.

[TahitiNut]

30. It's an indication of resentment from the 'entitled' Robber BARONS.

An entitlement is a government-enforced perquisite, once exclusively reserved for royal titles. Ownership of real property is, quite literally, an entitlement. (It's actually not "ownership" in the sense we ordinarily think of it. It's a government grant of authority.)

The wealthy are wealthy solely as a result of entitlements - government-enforced titles to real property, intellectual property, equities, leases, and other artifices of government.

100% of government spending is "entitlement spending" - and the role of government is constantly a tug-of-war between 'entitlements' and 'rights.' When we think of 'Justice,' it's in the fairness and humaneness with which our government grants (and enforces) entitlements with the least infringement on human rights.

[wildflower]

31. I remember George Will also using the word today on "This Week"

I believe it was in reference to whether New Orleans should be rebuilt as it was. He felt there was no "entitlement" for this.

Cokie Roberts took issue with him, surprisingly (but someone mentioned that she is from New Orleans, which I didn't know).

I guess in this myth of a free market society, social programs are perceived as "entitlements," whereas giveaways to corporations and the wealthy are "tax incentives" and such.

wildflower

[roseBudd]

13. voted it up n/t

[swag]

16. It's interesting that even the national security moderates,

like Steve Clemons from http://www.thewashingtonnote.com are starting to focus on what a perilous state these unprecedented Republican deficits are putting the country in. This story is not going away, in fact it is enjoying a crescendo, and Bush's idiotic New Orleans speech is pushing that crescendo, especially among panicked conservatives.

[kentuck]

14. But isn't it odd.....?

That we can afford everything except Social Security ? Hmmm-mmm..

[swag]

15. You obviously fail to appreciate the beauty of the paradox.

Or is it not a paradox and just plain old hypocrisy? At any rate, I can tell that you fail to appreciate the beauty.

[Toots]

18. Do you think they are laughing at us or suffering from paranoia?

I believe they think they are pulling a real fast one on everyone. They are like a bear cub in a honey bucket.

[libodem]

19. I equate

those tax cuts for the rich as they way those votes were purchased...a big government bribe for republican votes paid for with our tax dollars. Kickbacks for votes....more election fraud, more corruption, more scandal, but no charges, no special procecuter, no blue dress, no cigar...they get away with murder

[swag]

20. I think you're exactly right.

Will the circle be unbroken?

[priller]

21. Last paragraph is sadly true - GOP believes in pork

but don't believe in government. It's there just to increase their power and funnel money to their already wealthy friends. They don't make government work because it's not *supposed* to work.

And that's the scary thing. Our government, the way it is now, is how many Republicans think it is supposed to be. They are happy with it. Nutty!

[swag]

24. You nailed the very basic thievery of the set-up.

They bankrupt the future and give the proceeds to their political and corporate cronies.

It's shit-simple.

[bridgit]

23. that's not possible to argue with, were republicans...

to make voters fully aware of just what was on their minds only the top 10% would vote for them; they know full well that they may only have 4, maybe 8 years at a stretch to fuck shit up royally...and so they do; routinely. this batch is an utter disgrace. they've cheap-shot every lofty poetic america has to offer for little more that their donor list, fan base & defense top heavy stock & crony laden portfolios. the entirety of the rest is comprised of a 'jerry springer body politic' (no offense jerry)

i for one cannot wait to start voting these bastards the hell out of office :thumbsup:

[swag]

27. You got it all right, sister. I'm adopting the Montana 2006 Senate race

for my efforts, along with the 2006 Oregon congressional races.

I'm from Montana, spent the bulk of my life there, and can't stand to see that scumbag, corporate slush-funnel, and Jack Abramoff bedmate Conrad Burns in office one more second.

I don't know if it's Morrison or Tester or somebody else who will be leading the charge for the Democrats to take the Senate seat in 2006, but as soon as Montanans give me some solid guidance, I will be with them and against Burns 100%.

[bridgit]

32. indeed so, my brother, i'm quite nearly willing to forego...

civility within a political climate wherein the opposition does-in-no-way show up to merely play but WIN!. nothing illegal, or republican-esque even need be employed, just a steady drumbeat of timely whole-truth & i say they bastards go down :thumbsdown:

here's awaiting a flock of contemporaneous dems willing to both perry...and thrust :thumbsup:

[indepat]

25. Not one idolatrous follower cares a whit W is by far the most fiscally

irresponsible chief executive ever nor do a one in Congress who has aided and abetted this irresponsibility nor do any of the MSM who continue to support him.

[swag]

28. Certainly the idolatrous followers will never care about anything

but traditional fiscal conservatives are deserting him and his cronies in congress in droves.

[indepat]

29. I'm betting W will still get about anything he wants: fiscal conservatives

should have deserted in 2001, 2002 at the latest.

[are_we_united_yet]

33. Somehow I get the feeling

that this is all Clinton's fault!

:crazy:

[swag]

34. Yeah.

He shouldn't have left all that money laying around.

[populistdriven]

36. How the Republicans Distribute the Pork

$61 per citizen is being spent in Wyoming, compared to $14 per citizen in California.

Alaska got $58 per citizen, and New York got less than $25.

Why? Because Cheney is from Wyoming and the most senior Republican in the Senate is from Alaska.

Republicans don't care about anything but money so our government is the largest and most ineffective ever.

Katrina just exposed how weak and ineffective it really is. After Katrina any decent fiscally conservative President would have given a speech about reforming the entire government to excise the bureaucracy from it before giving a speech about spending 200 billion dollars.

After seeing the result of spending hundreds of billions on homeland security you would think Republicans would hesitate to trust government to spend hundreds of billions more.

But that Pork is just too irresistable.