HiddenMysteries: GOP (aka HYPOCRITES) deficit howl lacks credibility

Bush made war on terror partisan; R’s try the same with economic recovery

Congressional Republicans have made a curious choice in their virtual party-line vote against President Barack Obama's stimulus package. They seem to be putting their chips on the Rush Limbaugh perspective. Limbaugh has said he hopes Obama will fail.

In this new Republican strategy there is an incongruity. GOP lawmakers have said the stimulus bill heaps too much debt on the next generations. Where were these reborn fiscal conservatives when the prior administration ran a war - whose costs now rival World War II - on a credit card?

One of President George W. Bush's most damaging and self-destructive choices was to make the war on terrorism a partisan issue. It was a Karl Rove tactic designed to produce "a permanent majority." By doing that and by shunning the sympathy of other nations, Bush turned a golden moment into a dead-end strategy. And now the diminished Republican numbers in Congress are making the nation's economic recovery a partisan issue. Indeed, they are betting on calamity.

The congressional Republican profession of horror at the site of deficit spending resembles the feigned surprise of the police chief in the movie Casablanca who was "shocked" there was gambling at Rick's Cafe and then was handed his winnings. The GOP's new deficit spending mantra is a lot like congressmen and senators who shun certain health care funding scenarios because they "don't want to see health care rationed." In truth, we ration health care now. In fact, every culture has rationed health care. It's simply a matter of how we choose to ration it. Will some of us get health care, or will a broader swath of Americans get it?

Deficit spending is worth it if a nation gets something for its money. The infrastructure elements of President Obama's stimulus package are especially worthy. It is the largest such package since the Eisenhower administration, when America built the interstate highway system. This is a good marriage of an urgent need and a pressing moment.

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GOP (aka HYPOCRITES) deficit howl lacks credibility

Monday, March 02 2009 @ 11:53 AM CST