“Again, it would be better if our last Republican President didn’t run up the debt during his 8 year administration.”
IF GWB walked on water, the New York Times would accuse him of being a non-swimmer.
The last 2 years of Bush’s administration was with the DEMOCRATS in Congress, and Bush was unwilling to spend as much as Pelosi that he vetoed several spending bills, but they STILL came back to spend more. In fact the $430 billion spending bill the Congress just passed and obama signed was a runaraound because Bush refused to sign off on that much spending.
I am rather tired of us Republicans parroting the biased DNC talking points like its valid. Bush was not as big a spender as we make him out to be ... now that a REAL BIG SPENDER is on the scene to show how its really done! We are talking double digit spending increases for each year the Democrats are in charge.
The problem is that GOP spending irresponsibility is on the level of the flu the Democrats on the level of cancer and you are calling them both illnesses.
The fact is that both parties have been fiscally irresponsible. Republicans used to be the party of fiscal discipline. Under the first 6 years of Bush, they gave up that claim. Have you forgotten this:
WOSG wrote:
I am rather tired of us Republicans parroting the biased DNC talking points like its valid. Bush was not as big a spender as we make him out to be ... now that a REAL BIG SPENDER is on the scene to show how its really done! We are talking double digit spending increases for each year the Democrats are in charge.
The problem is that GOP spending irresponsibility is on the level of the flu the Democrats on the level of cancer and you are calling them both illnesses.
From Big Spending Bush and GOP (CATO institute, May 3, 2005)The Republicans can say, "We're just the biggest spenders in the last 30 years, not the biggest spenders ever." But the most of the current Republican party leadership can no longer make a credible claim to being smaller government, fiscally responsible stewards of the taxpayers' money. They had a chance to show that, and they chose to spend irresponsibly instead.President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years. His 2006 budget doesn’t cut enough spending to change his place in history, either.
Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush’s first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton’s last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush’s first term.
I see your point comparing Republican spending to "the flu" and Democrat spending to (presumably terminal) cancer. But people still die from "the flu." We need a choice that represents good health, not just a less severe (but still potentially deadly) disease.
WOSG wrote:
The last 2 years of Bush’s administration was with the DEMOCRATS in Congress, and Bush was unwilling to spend as much as Pelosi that he vetoed several spending bills, but they STILL came back to spend more. In fact the $430 billion spending bill the Congress just passed and obama signed was a runaraound because Bush refused to sign off on that much spending.
It took Bush 6 years and the loss of the Congress to the Democrats for him to finally find his veto pen. As long as it was Republicans being irresponsible, Bush the GOP leader was fine with it. That's not a Democrat talking point. That's a historical fact.
I'm not sure what the answer is. But the GOP did create a major problem for themselves by giving up the high ground on fiscal discipline during the first Bush term.