Political Math, Bush, & Clinton

I have to laugh when I hear left-wingers claiming that Bush is some sort of radical who’s going to “undo the New Deal”. Bush is a big spending, government expanding, RINO on the domestic side. Jonah Goldberg elaborates,

“For more than a year, we’ve heard one leftist after another complain that President Bush is the most radical president in modern history. I don’t just mean in foreign policy — where more than a little radicalism has been long overdue — but here at home as well. Harold Meyerson actually compares George W. Bush to Jefferson Davis, because they both share such a fundamental opposition to progressive government. We’re told that Bush has gutted education, health care, and protections for the elderly. He’s declared that puppies with thorns in their paws will just have to suffer, and that John Ashcroft plans on confiscating balls of yarn from kittens across America.

In short, they say he is doing at home what his harshest critics claim he’s doing abroad: tearing down the established order which has long served to protect us and keep us secure.

I have no idea where they got this idea.

It’s as if they showed up for algebra class and started reading from their French textbooks. Not only do I have no idea what page they’re on, I really have no idea what they’re talking about.

A few quick facts. George W. Bush has:

– increased federal spending on education by 60.8 percent;

– increased federal spending on labor by 56 percent;

– increased federal spending on the interior by 23.4 percent;

– increased federal spending on defense by 27.6 percent.

And of course he has:

– created a massive department of homeland security;

– signed a campaign-finance bill he pretty much said he thought was unconstitutional (thereby violating his oath to uphold, protect, and defend the constitution);

– signed the farm bill, which was a non-kosher piñata filled with enough pork to bend space and time;

– pushed through a Medicare plan which starts with a price tag of $400 billion but will — according to every expert who studies the issue — go up a gazillion-bajillion dollars over the next decade;

– torched Republican — and American — credibility on trade, in both agriculture and steel;

– got more people working for the federal government since the end of the Cold War;

– not vetoed a single spending — or any other bill, and he has no intention of eliminating a single department;

– sold out like a fire sale at Filene’s on Title IX, a subject I know a little about because my wife is the foremost expert in the universe on it;

– pushed to send more Americans to Mars while inviting a lot more illegal immigrants to hang out here in America.

And that’s all before Bush went into reelection mode. Read Tuesday’s lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, and you’ll find that this is the spendiest (yes, that’s right, “spendiest”) president in American history, second only to LBJ.”

You want me to sum it up for you? When it comes to domestic policy….

Clinton + tax cuts & conservative judges – an opposition party restraining his spending = George W. Bush.

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!