
 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
March 10, 2009 / 14 Adar 5769
The risible claim of responsibility
By
Mona Charen
| 
|
|
|
|
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.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Mona Charen's column by clicking here.
Mona Charen Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Lewis Grossberger
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Jim Mullen
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Lori Borgman
The Savvy Consumer
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Every Monday Matters
Nutrition Myths
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|