In President Obama’s speech Tuesday night, he complained on several occasions about his “inherited deficit.” I heard him do it again this morning. It was a classless dig and unnecessary to say, but beyond the rudeness it of course was true, at least to a point. George Bush spent too much money on social entitlements and pork.
But George Bush didn’t create those expenditures, which means he didn’t create the deficits. (He only executed the budget Congress granted to him, which he was Constitutionally duty-bound to do.) Congressional Republicans did until 2006, and after that, it was Congressional Democrats, who spent and borrowed substantially more.
You remember the Congress, don’t you Mr. President? Because when they were creating that deficit you keep complaining about, you were there!
But that’s not all. It wasn’t just that you were “present” (at least when you weren’t out campaigning). No – you were voting for the very thing you’re now complaining about!
What spending bill did Obama ever vote against? What regulatory reform did Obama vote for that George bush vetoed? What spending cut did Obama ever champion, point out, or even bother to vote for?
And the first time we had a multi-billion dollar boondoggle (AKA TARP I) that was guaranteed to get the next President $700,000,000,000 deeper in the hole than he would have been otherwise, how did you vote then?
And then, IN THE SAME BREATH in which he complains about his predecessor’s debtor ways, he announces a budget with the deepest deficit spending since World War II! It’s like complaining about the single scoop of chocolate ice cream because ice cream is bad for you, and then turning around and scarfing an entire carton of the stuff!
To call this disingenuous is to call the surface of the sun “a little toasty.” It is the worst kind of political shell game chicanery.
And he’s getting away with it. The critical thinking skills of our Fourth Estate are so atrophied that even if they were inclined to point out such hypocrisy and dishonesty, they don’t seem capable of even recognizing the disconnect.
All of a sudden, the First Bank of My Mattress with a .45 insurance policy seems like a pretty good plan…
