I usually don’t do this, but I was making the rounds for one of my other gigs this morning, stopping by many of the far-right sites I check in on daily. I’m frequently amazed by what I find, but today, one post stood out for me.
Riehl World View, a fairly prominent conservative blog, noted today that the DNC has taken out a loan in order to give a boost to some Senate campaigns, with the party increasingly confident that the Senate majority is within reach. RWV believes this is evidence of a fiscally irresponsible party.
The DNC doesn’t have enough money to finance all of the campaigns it wants to finance. So, what will they do about it? Simple. Go into debt.
I thought this is the Party so upset about things financial and such that they think they deserve to control the budget by taking over the House? If you needed proof the Dems can’t be trusted this is yet another example. […]
If they take Congress, you know exactly where they’ll be coming for the next loan to finance what they can’t afford. Good grief, they couldn’t even wait to get elected to demonstrate how fond they are of spending other people’s money. Today the bank, tomorrow your paycheck. Welcome to Democrat rules.
Now, I can appreciate the fact that the right is grasping at straws to stop Democratic gains this year, but for a conservative, without a hint of irony, to suggest that the DNC taking out a simple loan is a sign of fiscal irresponsibility is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a very long time.
If Dems “can’t be trusted” because they’re borrowing a few million for a campaign cycle, what does it say about Republicans’ trustworthiness that Bush has run the biggest budget deficits in the history of the world?
We’re talking about a movement that has barely raised an eyebrow while Bush has added trillions (that trillions with a “t”) to the national debt. Complaining about Dems taking on an internal debt while Republicans in Washington have put two wars on the national charge card is rather breathtaking, even by conservative standards.
Dems are demonstrating “how fond they are of spending other people’s money”? The DNC is taking out a loan; they’re going to spend their own money. Spending other people’s money is when the Bush administration boosts federal spending more than any president since LBJ.
Indeed, all of this reminds me of the White House bragging last week that this year’s budget deficit is now only (only!) a quarter of a trillion dollars. While boasting of this “success story,” the president took credit for something he did not do.
With great fanfare, President Bush last week claimed credit for a striking reversal of fortune: New figures show the federal budget deficit shrinking by 40 percent over the past two years, a turnaround the president hopes will strengthen his push for further tax cuts. […]
Economists said Bush was claiming credit where little is due. The economy has grown and tax receipts have risen at historic rates over the past two years, but the Bush tax cuts played a small role in that process, they said, and cost the Treasury more in lost taxes than it gained from the resulting economic stimulus.
“Federal revenue is lower today than it would have been without the tax cuts. There’s really no dispute among economists about that,” said Alan D. Viard, a former Bush White House economist now at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute. “It’s logically possible” that a tax cut could spur sufficient economic growth to pay for itself, Viard said. “But there’s no evidence that these tax cuts would come anywhere close to that.”
Economists at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and in the Treasury Department have reached the same conclusion.
I’m not an economist, but listening to Republicans talk about fiscal responsibility makes me want to tear what’s left of my hair out.