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The Buck Stops Here Only Because I Inherited It

By W. James Antle, III on 2.10.09 @ 6:50AM

In the post-post-partisan era, President Obama likes to emphasize that he inherited the deficit and the economic crisis. He doesn't like the "revisionist history" of Republicans who doubled the national debt but are now opposing his stimulus package and other big-government plans.

Well, Mr. President, I opposed almost every large spending item of the Bush years -- the highway bill, both farm bills, the energy bill, all the earmarks contained therein, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, No Child Left Behind, the Wall Street bailout, the Big Three bailout, the increases in foreign aid, the post-Katrina waste, and even the Iraq adventure. Am I allowed to criticize your even bigger spending items?

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stysonss| 2.10.09 @ 8:17AM

It depends on why you're criticizing it, doesn't it? To simply say, " I don't care what it's for or whether or not we need it; if it costs a lot, I will never back it," isn't much of an ideology. If the stimulus is both necessary and (hopefully) effective, then wouldn't one back it, regardless of the GOP's past drunken sailor spending? Why do the past mistakes of the GOP matter here, unless one is admitting that a knee-jerk vocal opposition to spending is all that one has?

Roy| 2.10.09 @ 8:42AM

It is also ludicrous revisionist history to assert that "Republicans" and "Bush" did all that. Sure, they did, but the Democratic party of Democrat leaning Democrats also voted for every last big spending item, in many cases in bigger numbers than Republicans. No Democrat, in any way, under any circumstances, anywhere, ever, tried to cut the size or scope of any government program other than unimportant priorities like national defense.

As far as the above poster - better a knee jerk opposition to spending than a knee jerk support of spending. But you are correct, either position needs to be open to evidence. I am persuadable that this or that infrastructure program should be funded on the merits, but the idea that we are DOOMED, DOOMED, DOOMED I tell you unless we shut up, obey, and immediately hand over 1,000,000,000,000 dollars which will be spent without reference to any actual productive gain, fills me with blistering contempt. It makes you wonder how the human race ever struggled through for the last hundred millennia before there were brave, bold, all wise bureaucrats to confiscate huge wads of cash from them and hurl it blindly in all directions in order to "stimulate the economy".

Robert| 2.10.09 @ 10:24AM

Its funny to hear Obama criticize these deficits and his answer...spend more! Change?

Shawn Macomber| 2.10.09 @ 10:26AM

Man, it would be the best thing ever if Barack Obama responded to Jim in the comments section here. But I think he probably would rather argue with the Ghost of Bush than flesh-and-blood Antle.

W. James Antle III| 2.10.09 @ 10:51AM

I confess to knee-jerk opposition to the federal government spending money it doesn't have in the service of a theory that has seldom been vindicated in practice when its own forecasters can't point to any long-term benefit. While we are already deeply in debt. And while living beyond our means is what got us here in the first place. And while we still have a Constitution.