CBO Projects Higher Deficits

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has released a study of the President's budget blueprint and found that his overly optimistic growth projections coupled with vastly increased spending will accelerate our budget deficit--and our national debt.

Republicans will of course, make a lot of noise about this--and I suppose that given the perverse way in which Washington works, it is our time to do so. But a rational look backward will reveal that 1) Republicans haven't been shy about running deficits to prime the economy and 2) Republicans haven't been shy about vastly increasing spending.

Let's look at two recent recessions--Reagan's, and the George W. Bush's. Both took on higher deficits in a time of economic contraction, and both helped lead the country to higher growth. What is different about President Obama's approach is HOW he's creating deficits. Whereas Reagan and Bush drove them with tax cuts and moderate growth of government (too much under Bush for my taste), Obama is driving them with piss ant tax cuts to people who don't pay taxes and massive government spending increases in support of significant change in the relationship of the government to the governed. Reagan and Bush fought economic downturn by putting more money in people's pockets to spend--Obama is fighting economic downturn by taking more money out of the consumer pool (higher overall taxes driving higher revenue) and spending it on his agenda. So--Republicans shouldn't be bitching about deficits right now, as deficit spending is THE way to go--they should continue to bitch about WHAT IT IS THAT DRIVE the deficits...useless initiatives designed to grow the reach of government with little or no stimulative value.

Secondly, Republicans have feet of clay when it comes to increasing government spending. Witness again, Reagan and GWB. Both seemed to claim that government should be smaller and less intrusive, and both grew the size of government through increased spending. There's no doubt about it, both of these Republican presidents GREW government. Where Republicans have a story here though is WHY Republicans grew government. In Reagan's case, much of it was driven by defense spending---part of a "spend the Russians into oblivion strategy" that called upon America's greatest weapon--its productivity--to convince them of the utter futility of their ideology. Bush grew government (at least at first) in an effort to combat another existential threat--nihilistic Islamic fundamentalism, a brand of which conducted attacks on home soil. Bush's efforts to bring order to the chaos of Homeland Defense and Intelligence--in addition to the choice of going to war in Iraq--have undoubtedly contributed to a doubling of the national debt in his 8 years. Some of Bush's choices (prescription drug benefit, for example) strike me as "Obamanian", but all in all, he drove spending up in order to protect the country.

What existential threats do we see President Obama responding too? Well, there's the civilization killer of non-digitized medical records (sorry GG, can't resist). There's the great national shame of college students actually having to take on debt to finance their education. And there is the near terminal problem of homeowners being upside-down in their mortgages. Yes, I know I'm being flip, and I know there are legitimate problems to which the Administration is responding in a positive manner (energy policy, for instance, is somewhere I'm largely aligned with the President). But the Administration's ADD is ridiculously and recklessly threatening to obviate any real benefit that would accrue to the things it is doing right (transportation, energy, SOME of the actions to arrest the mortgage issue).

Bottom line here: Republicans have used deficits to the country's advantage, and so should this President. His choices of how to get there however, defy logic, and it is here where we Republicans need to highlight our policy differences.