Oh, NOW They're Deficit Hawks

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_01/016389.php


OH, NOW THEY'RE DEFICIT HAWKS.... Dick Cheney declared during Bush's first term, "Deficits don't matter." Congressional Republicans agreed, spent freely, and gladly put two wars on the national charge card. The results were trillions of dollars in additional debt and enormous annual budget deficits.

Now that the White House is poised to welcome a Democratic president, and an economic crisis demands massive new federal spending, congressional Republicans have decided they suddenly care about deficits again. How convenient.

Out of power, Republicans appear to be retreating to familiar old ground. They're becoming deficit hawks again.

GOP lawmakers didn't seem to mind enjoying the fruits of government largesse for the past eight years while one of their own was in the White House. Now they're struggling to regain footing at a time of economic rout, a record $1.2 trillion budget deficit and an incoming Democratic president claiming a mandate for change.

It might not be the best time for running against more government spending. But that hasn't stopped Republicans from casting themselves as protectors of the public purse, striving for relevancy as Congress tackles President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus legislation.

"Congress cannot keep writing checks and simply pass IOUs to our children and grandchildren," says Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Asks House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio: "How much debt are we going to pile on future generations?"

I don't know, how much economic collapse are we prepared to hand to future generations?

"It's hard to oppose fixing the economy right now," said Stanley Collender, a former congressional budget analyst now with Qorvis Communications, a Washington consulting firm. Collender said the depth of the crisis makes it difficult for fiscal conservatives in either party "to say that deficits are something that should be addressed right now."

"If you say that, you kind of lose credibility," Collender said.

True, but when you have no credibility, I suppose you have nothing to lose.

—Steve Benen

[Raven]

1. My question to Cornyn and Boehner: Let's hear your better idea.

I may have missed something, but I haven't heard any of these asses come up with a viable alternative to what Obama is proposing.

[babylonsister]

4. Exactly. Same as the r/w talking heads on This Week. All criticism

all the time, no solutions.

[rock]

2. I noticed n/t

[gratuitous]

3. "You kind of lose credibility"

Yeah, that's the conventional wisdom, isn't it? But you know for sure that Boehner and McConnell will get full hearings for their Very Serious Economic Theories in the popular media, and you won't hear one peep about their former free-spending ways.

The difference, and we should hammer on this point like a blacksmith with a horseshoe, is that the Republicans were wasting money on (1) unnecessary and wasteful wars to no purpose; and (B) massive federal giveaways to their overrich pals and benefactors. The spending proposed by Obama and the Democrats will be going to re-build a nation badly depleted by Republican cronyism and warmongering. This spending will put money into people's pockets, and we'll have a little more to show for it than crippled Iraqi kids, bombed Afghan weddings and really impressive holes in the ground. Things like modern schools, roads and bridges in good repair, and lots of people working together to bring those things about.

[babylonsister]

5. I'm hoping some Dem(s) will point out the wee discrepancy

in the rethug talk vs. their past actions. Someone needs to.

[tbyg52]

6. Noooo! You don't understand!

One set of rules for them, another for us. And, apparently, one pot of money for them and another (empty) for us.

[babylonsister]

7. Sure looks that way, doesn't it. nt

[OhioChick]

8. K&R

:kick:

[ColbertWatcher]

9. Voila! Opps, make that: "ta-da!" n/t

[AtomicKitten]

10. Like clockwork. n/t

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. A Republican talking about fiscal responsibility is like:

Ann Coulter lecturing about voter fraud

Newt Gringrich writing magazine articles about marital fidelity

David Vitter sponsoring anti-prostitution bills

Rush Limbaugh touting stiffer drug sentences

John Yoo adminstering courses on the Geneva Conventions

Geroge Bush writing a grammar book

I guess they don't understand that:

we have their number

[W_HAMILTON]

12. I was just thinking about this today.

But I was more concerned with how the MEDIA is handling all of this. Why weren't they on the Bush administration's ass when they were running up huge deficits? They would report on it, and then? Nothing. They wouldn't ask anyone how we were going to pay for it all. Hell, they almost made jokes about it, about how they needed to add another number to the debt clock. And now? I was watching Meet the Press, and that idiot couldn't stop asking, "BUT HOW ARE WE GOING TO PAY FOR IT? OUR DEFICIT IS ALREADY SO HIGH, HOW CAN WE SPEND MORE?" Yadda yadda.

Damn idiots. They should have been asking these questions for the past eight years, during the times when we were doing better economically, but the Bush administration still wouldn't raise taxes (or cut back spending) because they basically were using that as a bribe to get the populace to vote for them and their Republican cronies.

[Festivito]

13. Corruption funds the bigger PR game as usual. /nt

[struggle4progress]

14. Well, of course. The Grover Norquist gang wants to bankrupt the US. So whenever

they're in power, they rack up huge deficits. The point of bankrupting the US is to wipe out federal safety nets, worker-consumer-environmental protections, and anything else that limits corporate power. So when the gang is out of power, they scream that we can't afford such "luxuries"

Wanna fight back? Beat em at their own game

We can't afford spending as much as the rest of the world combined on the military: hell, the arms race is what bankrupted the Soviet Union. We can't afford the nuclear weapons complex: let's push for real worldwide arms control. We can't afford to arm every tinpot dictator in the world either. We can't afford our big prison industry: let's stop incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders and push them into treatment programs instead. We can't afford to give companies taxbreaks for offshoring and outsourcing: it undermines working men and women here, and it's ruining our economy. We can't afford perpetual tax cuts for the rich. We can't afford companies that have gotten too big to fail: what happened to anti-trust? We can't afford decaying infrastructure. We can't afford a country where many people don't have healthcare. We can't afford unsustainable development and widespread pollution and companies whose only responsibility is to their bottom line. These people are ruining us, and we can't afford to let them do that

[booley]

15. they are whatever they think they need to be

Remember, Republicans thought questioning the government was great.. when Democrats controlled it.

What ever they think will get them what they really want, the GOP talking heads to become it with absolutely no reference to the past. (it's not that they arent' aware they are being recorded. It's that they know their base doesn't care)

I honestly believe that if Shrub had eaten a live baby on TV before his numbers fell, you would see Republicans blasting the "militant veggie nazis" on the left and saying we had to outlaw abortion so more babies could be born to keep up our leader's strength.

still I guess we can at least be amused at their lack of irony. The Republicans are complaining becuase Obama isn't trying to fix the mess years of GOP control created the way the GOP wants him too.

[4_TN_TITANS]

16. I was livid listening to Boehner on Face the Nation yesterday.

And why the hell Schiefer didn't call him on his bald face hipocracy is beyond me. NOW he cares about debt.... sheesh..