Video: One last point on deficit blame-shifting
posted at 4:25 pm on March 25, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
I want to make one final point about Barack Obama and his “I inherited the deficit” meme, one made earlier today by Bruce McQuain at QandO. First, let’s hear Obama blame George Bush one more time for the “inheritance” of the ballooning deficit:
I’m not about to let Bush and the Republicans off the hook for the spending from 2001-6. They abandoned the principles of smaller government and fiscal responsibility in an orgy of spending. However, the deficit actually peaked in 2004 and began declining until 2008, when another orgy of private-industry bailouts shot it to the highest levels of the Bush administration.
However, Bush doesn’t allocate funds to the federal government: Congress spends the money. Democrats controlled Congress in 2007 and 2008, and had plenty of opportunity to cut the budget and reduce spending to trim the deficit. Did they do so? No; in fact, they increased the budgetary spending at a rate higher than that of the Republicans when the GOP controlled Congress.
And even more, the 2009 budget wasn’t Bush’s at all. The Democrats held up most of it, outside of defense spending, in order to wait for the next President. Instead, they passed continuing resolutions until pushing through the omnibus spending bill for the 2009 budget — which was signed by President Obama this month.
More to the point, Barack Obama was a member of Congress during the last four years. What did Obama do to reduce the deficits as the Senator from Illinois? What legislation did he author? What opposition did he provide to the high-spending policies of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007 and 2008?
If the answer is nothing — and it is — then Obama inherited the fruits of his own inaction and the burden of his own party’s policies. Perhaps the national media, which seemed to have awoken a little from their slumber last night, might fully achieve consciousness at the next one and give him this little civics lesson.
Related Posts:
Breaking on Hot Air
Bobby Jindal: Paternalistic, big-government liberalism is the biggest loser here
Super Nannies: EU bans olive oils, Germany ponders Autobahn speed limit
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2
As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.
hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?
mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM
Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?
parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM
They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.
They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.
A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.
Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM
MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.
rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM
I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.
fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!
And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM
They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!
KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM
I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.
Do they even know or care that they are morons.
marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM
His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.
DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM
Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:
You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM
That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM
Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.
myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2