A new-found interest

September 22, 2005

At a practical level, there’s some terribly amusing about the right finally expressing displeasure at very idea of more federal borrowing. They’ve taken their sweet time about reaching this point.

For the better part of five years, conservatives couldn’t be bothered at all. The war in Afghanistan? Charge it. Iraq? Charge it. Expanding Medicare? Charge it. Massive transportation and energy bills? Charge them, too. All the while, they backed lavish tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest Americans.

When the deficit reached $200 billion, Republicans yawned. Then it reached $400 billion, and they barely lifted an eyebrow. But now that Hurricane Katrina is poised to send the annual deficit well past the half-trillion-dollar mark, now conservatives everywhere are jumping up and down, insisting that we contain spending so that we avoid burdening future generations.

Hoping to capitalize on a period of growing concern about the federal deficit, lawmakers from the conservative House [Republican Study Committee] held a heavily attended press conference to tout a variety of potential cuts, nearly all of which have been repeatedly debated — and rejected — in the past. But while they acknowledged that most of their ideas were not new, the assembled lawmakers expressed hope that the budget crunch created by Katrina would prompt Congress to make the difficult cuts it has avoided in the past.

“Now is the time for us to begin to make the tough choices,” said RSC Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.).

It is? When Democrats started complaining a few years ago about massive deficits (after Clinton left Bush with the largest surplus in American history), and Republicans kept on cutting taxes for the wealthy and spending like drunken sailors, it wasn’t time to make tough choices?

Apparently, the magic number is $500 billion — because anything short of that leads Republicans to believe “deficits don’t matter.”

Welcome to the party, guys; it’s nice of you to stop by.

This sorry tale reminds me of the story of the Little Red Hen my father used to tell me as a boy.
Remember how it went? “Who will help me bake my bread,” said the Little Red Hen? “Not I” said the cat. “Not I “said the dog. “Not I”
said the fox.
Then after the work was done the Little Red Hen asked “Who will help me eat my bread?”
Well, boys, not so fast! The Republicans don’t deserve a crumb let alone a place at the table. NOW they’re concerned about deficits and
financial ruin for the country? Oh, really! Where the hell have they been
for the past half decade? With their heads up their asses that’s where.
Now that two girls named Katrina and Rita have come to the dance
it seems the Republicans are interested in the Deficit Reduction Fox trot.
Maybe the tune being played should be “Nearer My God To Thee,”
the song allegedly played on the deck of the Titanic as it was sinking into the North Atlantic’s cold waters. It looks like our ship of state has
hit an iceberg, too.

  • You mean there’s a disconnect between GOP talk on the deficit and GOP action?

    I’m old enough to remember when balanced budgets were a Republican issue. It’s a shame they let it go.

  • There’s an easy way to test this sudden concern for deficits. Ask them to:

    1. Give back all the pork they’ve been budgeted over the past year.

    Oops. Folks have asked & the GOP wants to keep all their earmarks.

    2. Bring the troops home from Iraq.

    Sorry. It would make the GOP look weak.

    In short, this sudden concern about deficits by the GOP is hypocritical. They are not even at the party, so we shouldn’t be welcoming them. Based on their reactions to other ways to cut the deficit, it’s evident that they just don’t believe in spending our money on Americans for things Americans need.

  • I think you’re missing the bigger point – there’s nothing about the 500 billion mark that’s triggering this – the GOP is perfectly happy creating massive deficits as long as it benefits their constituency. The complaints about the deficits created by the Katrina recovery is a cover for finding ways to make sure none of the recovery money goes to democratic party constituencies (poor black people in the south). Notice none of the GOP bitching includes complaints about more no-bid contracts to Halliburton . . .

  • When the GOP talks about making the “tough choices,” they mean cutting the social safety net, while funding their pet projects such as: more no-bid contracts to Halliburton [as Mike above says] and more tax cuts for the wealthy.

  • You got it, Leslie. American Progress today makes the same point: they’re all for slashing the hell out of anything remotely identifiable as “liberal” to save money, but would just as soon make the tax cuts permanent, abolish inheritance taxes, etc. This is just Grover Norquist talking here (except for the lavish spending for Halliburton et al, of course). Nothing new under the sun.

  • What Mike said. This not about deficits. This is about where the money is going (poor, black, democratic). Very Christian of them. It will be interesting to see if the rhetoric changes after Rita hits a red state (please, Rita, leave New Orleans alone!).

  • And don’t forget one of those unimportant big government programs that they want to cut is the CDC even as the possibility of a Asian Avian Flu pandemic becomes greater.

    • Comments are closed.