Let’s start off by acknowledging that Rep. Joe Wilson needed to apologize for his outburst in Congress last night during the speech by President Barack Obama. Getting called a liar by the President in a speech may be infuriating, but a certain level of decorum is expected of our elected officials, and Wilson violated that decorum. He did the right thing by apologizing afterward.
Unfortunately, people on the Left want to keep hyperventilating about this as though the world was born on the day Barack Obama won the presidential election. As Omri Ceren and Michelle remind people, the Democrats were hardly models of decorum in the last administration. Here’s a clip from the State of the Union speech in 2005, when George Bush warned Congress that Social Security was going broke and needed reform immediately. Did Democrats politely listen to the warning? Not exactly. Listen to the boos and catcalls:
Did any of the hyperventilators today demand apologies from their side at the time? Did any Democrat ever offer an apology for their rude behavior? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
I’d take the hyperventilating with a wee more seriousness if it didn’t come from the same crowd who cheered the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush in a 2008 press conference.
And just for the record, Bush was more right than they’ll admit:
The Social Security Trust Fund reported an August net deficit of $5.865 Billion. This is the largest monthly deficit in nineteen years. Base on recent years data it was not surprising the Fund ran a deficit in August. But the magnitude of the shortfall was a surprise to me. This deficit is now the seventh in the past twelve months. That pace has never been seen before. …
-In August the US Treasury had to borrow an additional $6 billion in the public market to finance the cash shortfall of Social Security. We already have too much paper for sale to fund the budget deficit. SS added to the supply problem last month.
-The 2037 Future Value of the August deficit is -$17b based on a 4% return. What this means is that there will be a very significant revision in the 2037 drop-dead date. Based on current trends the go broke date is closer to 2025.
-This is not just a bad month. The net decline in the Funds assets for June/July/August comes to $7 billion. In 08 that period was in surplus by $5 billion, In 07 it was +$7b and in 06 it was +$13b.
Four years ago, Bush warned that collapse would come in 2042. Now it looks like 2025, thanks to Democrats who preferred to boo and catcall than to act responsibly to reform the Ponzi scheme of Social Security.
Update (AP): Lyin’ Rahm Emanuel lies his ass off about Joe Wilson: “No president has ever been treated like that. Ever.”
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