Federal spending increased 23% under Republican Congress
President Bush is threatening to veto at least nine out of twelve that were passed by Congressional Democrats before the August recess. On Thursday, Bush slammed Democrats for what he called :
"That's a lot of money -- even for career politicians in Washington."
Maybe the President and his party forget that when they had control of the Executive and Legislative branches, spending was significantly out of control. In fact, according to the -- a conservative think tank -- increased by 23% between 2001 and 2006:
Some conservatives have questioned Bush's commitment to fiscaldiscipline, noting — as the Heritage Foundation did in a March report —that federal spending increased 23% after inflation from 2001 to 2006.Bush did not veto any appropriations bills passed by RepublicanCongresses, which included hikes for defense, homeland security,entitlements, education and thousands of special-interest items calledearmarks that are tacked onto spending bills at lawmakers' requests.
And now suddenly Bush pretends to be shocked when Democrats try to pass appropriations bills, which must be signed into law or else the government cannot function.
The Republican House and Senate campaigns will attempt to make this a big issue in 2008. They will say that spending has increased even more under the Democratic Congress. That might turn out to be true -- but only because in the waining weeks before Democrats took the gavel, Republicans decided not to pass and instead leave them for the Democrats to deal with. Because these burdens were given to the Democrats, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were left with two options:
- Don't pass the appropriations bills, and let funding for federal agencies run out.
- Pass the appropriations bills, but get unfairly blamed for spending increases in Washington.
They picked the second option, and are getting blamed even though the government must get funding in order to function.
Comments