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Nov. 25, 2009
Daniel Pipes: Islamism 2.0
JWisdom.com: No God … No You! Know God, Know You! with Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (8 minutes)
Nov. 24, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran : The Atheists' unintended gift
JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes)
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 10, 2009 / 14 Adar 5769

The risible claim of ‘responsibility’

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Happening to scroll through old news the other day, I came across this declaration from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: "While President Bush continues to trumpet his so-called 'economic achievements,' the Bush Administration confirmed today that the budget deficit for 2006 will be one of the largest in our nation's history. President Bush's failed economic policies have resulted in budgets that are drastically out of balance and skyrocketing debt. Budget deficits translate into higher interest rates, which means that mortgages cost more, credit-card debt grows, and student loans cost more. … Democrats know how to restore fiscal discipline with tough policies of pay-as-you-go budgeting, no new deficit spending..."


Cough cough. Daniel Casse at the Commentary Magazine blog offers additional golden oldies. He remembers the New York Times' Paul Krugman writing in 2003, "As a drunk is to alcohol, the Bush administration is to budget deficits," as well as Thomas Friedman lamenting just a few months ago that "Under George W. Bush, America has foisted onto future generations a huge financial burden to finance our current tax cuts, wars and now bailouts."


Bush and the Republicans committed their share of fiscal sins (more on that in a moment) but what is maddening about Obama and the Democrats is their gall. Not only do they toss aside any concern about deficits without so much as a blush while taking our national debt into truly frightening territory, they also do so in the name of "responsibility." You can call a donkey a thoroughbred but that doesn't make it so. The Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress are increasing federal spending on nearly everything under the sun (except national defense) and claiming (utterly disingenuously) that tax hikes on the top 2 percent of earners will pay for it all. The rest of the nation can gorge itself while taking credit for prudence and responsibility.


Dishonesty and self-congratulation going hand in hand! It's dishonest because, as the Wall Street Journal has pointed out, there just isn't enough cash, even at the top of the income pyramid, to pay for all this: "A tax policy that confiscated 100 percent of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010." So the money isn't even there. But more galling is the idea that increasing the degree of dependence Americans have on their government is a step toward responsibility. Admittedly, a deep recession is not the time for cutbacks on welfare, food stamps, or other forms of relief. But can't we at least be honest about it? We are increasing dependence, not responsibility.


Besides, as is always the case, most of the beneficiaries of government largesse are not the poor or the dispossessed. Most of the trillions we are about to spend will exchange hands high above the poor and struggling. Most grantees are in favored industries, belong to politically protected unions, or work directly for governments at all levels.


For eight years, the Democrats have entertained us with a great song and dance about deficits. It is now evident that they were, not to put too fine a point on it, insincere.


On the other hand, some of us have been calling out Republicans, in good times and bad, for abandoning principle. In 2003, for example, I wrote: "When it comes to spending, alas, the Republicans are hardly Eagle Scouts either. The ideal of smaller government is in eclipse at the moment. The terror attacks have been seized as an opportunity to lard on new spending for favored constituencies. Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that the federal government will spend $22.5 billion on 9,362 pork barrel projects in 2003." And in a 2005 column titled "Who Are These Republicans," I wrote, "And now President Bush, whose greatest sin in his first term was failure to wield the veto pen, has joined enthusiastically in the legalized looting of the taxpayer."


This is not to argue that the two parties are indistinguishable. Republicans erred in the last decade by relinquishing their principles too much. But Democrats err in embracing theirs. The level of recklessness we are now witnessing with the public purse (and with national defense) should establish beyond doubt that we have elevated the supremely irresponsible party.

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