DaveRalis.com | The Daily Rant

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Posted 8:31 PM by
Like Bush, Congressional Democrats have lost their minds

First Congressional Democrats released what appears to be a pretty partisan report Tuesday that basically doubles the cost of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to $1.6 trillion.

Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats won't approve more money for the Iraq war this year unless President Bush agrees to begin bringing troops home.

Finally, Democrats in both houses feigned outrage when President Bush vetoed a $606 billion domestic spending bill. His stated reason: The annual funding plan for education and health is "bloated," nearly $10 billion higher than he considers necessary.

The bill Bush vetoed provides millions more than the president wants on job training, medical research, heating subsidies for the poor, grants to community agencies and community health centers and help for K-12 schools to improve performance.

Bush particularly took issue with the bill's 2,000 earmarks - lawmaker-sponsored projects that critics call pork-barrel spending - and noted the "wasteful projects" included a prison museum, a sailing school and Portugese-as-a-second-language program.

He compared Democrats to "a teenager with a new credit card," who is funding a shopping spree with tax increases.

To whit, Reid responded, "It is difficult to take seriously lectures on fiscal responsibility from the biggest-spending president in 40 years. He has maxed out the nation's credit card, funding the entire failed war strategy with borrowed money, and forcing five debt-limit increases. This is a man who cannot even account for billions of dollars lost in Iraq but has no problem vetoing critical investments at home."

Both are valid viewpoints.

Like Bush, I find it repugnant that in a time of war, Congresspeople still feel the need to anonymously grab from the public trough for pet projects - even though the Republicans did the same thing until they lost power a year ago.

And if it were any other president who was asking for the additional power to blue line the pork out of such bills, I might agree.

But not now. Not this president.

Bush has grabbed, absorbed and abused more power than any other president in history, save honest Abe. And Lincoln only fought one domestic war, Bush is fighting two overseas, plus a war to be named to be later (possibly Iran).

However, both Congress and the voting public share some of the blame for enabling Bush, who is clearly a borrowing addict unconcerned by the $9 trillion national debt his faulty premised war in Iraq has wrought.

After all, who approved those debt-limit increases and every spending bill for both wars?

The measure of leadership isn't politics, it's how your govern - or more specifically how and why you spend money. Under that definition, both parties have failed America disgracefully.

Labels: Democrats, George Bush, Harry Reid, Iraq