• Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, April 17, 2009:
The Obama administration is spending money like none other in peacetime history.
• Andrew Biggs, American Enterprise Institute, April 15, 2009:
This new spending, dedicated to healthcare, energy, education, and other areas, is 14 percent above the 19.9 percent average during the Bush years and higher than any peacetime presidential administration in U.S. history.
• Diana Furchtgott-Roth , Hudson Institute, March 26, 2009:
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama said that “this budget is inseparable from recovery, because it lays the foundation for secure and lasting prosperity.” In fact, what it does is lay the foundation for unprecedented levels of peacetime deficits and government spending. That’s not an "investment" that the American people need to make.
• Karl Rove, Feb. 12, 2009:
The bill he signs will create a raft of new programs and be the biggest peacetime spending increase in American history, which will give us larger deficits and create pressure to raise taxes.
• Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, January 8, 2009:
The looming red ink is unlike anything in U.S. peacetime history.
[...]
Yet somehow none of those same voices are objecting now that the government is spending its way into deficits that are so large they dwarf any during peacetime in U.S. history.
Want more? There’s lots.
Funny that a bunch of conservative hawks who were so anxious to drag this nation into war six years ago, then pilloried Democrats for not sufficiently supporting the troops at every politically convenient turn, are now so quick to forget that America is still engaged in not one but TWO wars.
Hello?
It's also uncanny how the word “peacetime” shows up in relation to any discussion of the Obama budget .... almost as if these right-wing pundits were working off the same crib-sheet. Gee, ya think? My money says this came straight off the Republican leadership’s desk.
Here’s a thought for the conservative thinkers out there. We could save more than $10 billion a month if we pulled put of Iraq and Afghanistan now. Let’s call their bluff on this, shall we? A week and a half ago Obama requested $83.4 billion more for the wars, which is supposed to last us another eight months. If you're so hot for fiscal belt-tightening, well, I think I just found a big pile of money that we could save.
President Bush never put his war spending in the budget. He hid it under the peanut shell called “emergency supplemental appropriations.” Again, this is another dishonest right-wing ploy designed to reinforce the stereotype that Democrats are “big spenders” whereas Republicans are supposedly fiscally responsible. Hilarious.
Reality is a lot different, of course, but in the world of manufactured Republican talking points, the only “truth” that matters is what sticks in the American subconscious. And that's why we keep seeing the word "peacetime" thrown about in relation to the Obama budget, as if we still didn't have a couple hundred thousand troops deployed overseas. As if we're comparing Obama's budget to, you know, Reagan's. It's the height of dishonesty.
You guys really think this is going to work? You think we're that stupid?
