I have said this before, but it is worth repeating:
In order for the Republicans to get back to their roots so that they may one day get back in power, they are going to have to become “fiscal conservatives” again. Now granted, looking at the history of Republican rule, they have NEVER been fiscal conservatives, as the vast majority of our national debt, to include the largest annual budget deficits, were all brought to you via Republicans. However, there are a lot of idiots like me out there who don’t pay attention, and think Republicans are fiscally responsible. As such, expect the Republicans to spend the next few years simply saying no to any and all spending. What they are hoping is a couple years of them saying no and the Obama administration spending will allow them to rebuild their favorite fantasy- the GOP as prudent defenders of the taxpayer’s money.
With that in mind, Tim Pawlenty has an op-ed in the Politico, urging the Republicans to… wait for it, wait for it… “return” to fiscal responsibility:
The Republican Party’s conservative values — freedom, personal and moral responsibility, the power of capitalism and a limited accountable government — are as important as ever. The GOP should build on its core principles by making its case with common sense ideas that are better than our competitors.
Our approach on issues like security, energy independence, free market solutions for better health care and education with a focus on accountability for results instead of just increased spending are ideas that will do just that.
But it all starts by putting first things first. A cornerstone of the Republican Party must be fiscal responsibility — living within our means like most Americans do. Wall Street and the federal government chronically disregard this principle and have substantially contributed to our current economic mess.
And because he knows Republicans don’t have it in their DNA to be responsible about anything (see this morning’s post for confirmation of that assertion), he is proposing a balanced budget amendment to FORCE them to be responsible. The Republicans understand that right now their number one mission is to return to the pre-Bush fantasy (and it is a fantasy, as this graph demonstrates) that they are somehow responsible stewards of your money. The fact that this is mere fiction will not stop them, and you should be prepared to swat down all the disingenuous posturing and posing they intend to do as they attempt to simulate fiscal responsibility the next few years. This isn’t about actual fiscal conservatism, this is about getting back in power to relive the glory years of the Bush administration, because we need to face facts- the folks pushing this pile of twaddle are the same ones who make up the 28% crowd who would have voted for Bush again in 2008.
I would love a fiscally responsible government, and that is why I voted for the Democrats. At least if they blow billions, it will be on the American people.
r€nato
amen. Bush blew through $5 trillion in debt (on top of the REVENUE he spent) in 8 years, and what do we have to show for it? Unless you are in a top tax bracket or a shareholder in Halliburton or Northrup Grumman… not much.
One thing I have been fond of telling wrong-wingers when they start up with that ‘tax-and-spend liberal!’ nonsense… is that at least ‘tax and spend’ has the virtue of being honest, unlike GOP ‘borrow and spend’ which pretends that you can have something for nothing.
r€nato
how many times in a row does a drunk have to fall off the wagon, before people give up on him or her?
comrade rawshark
One of my favorite Aerosmith songs. Thanks dude.
Zifnab
The most ironic part of all this is how Republicans are racing towards "fiscal responsibility" a la the "no on all spending!" policy when the economy most desperately needs deficit spending.
In the kabuki theater of fiscal conservativeness, they’re going to try and kill all of Obama’s stimulus initiatives under the rather deluded assumption that fighting tooth and nail against road repair, health care, and middle class tax cuts will reclaim the majority. Good luck with that.
Brian J
I almost–almost–want to believe that balanced budget amendments at the state level are good things, because they might force some governments to be more responsible and because the federal government can always step in to alleviate some of the pain. Perhaps there’s evidence that this is true, or perhaps not. I’m not wedded to one particular idea on that. But at the federal level, the idea that we absolutely must have a balanced budget amendment looks to be the stupidest claim made by the Republicans in some time. Exactly who outside of those who may be running for office in the next two or four years would advocate such a plan? I can’t think of any names.
I hate to take much away from the Republicans, but if there’s one thing they excel at, it’s sticking to a message. The stimulus spending will be related to investments for the future, in both physical and human capital. It shouldn’t be looked at as money frittered away on the government equivalent of another HDTV, and every time the Republicans try to claim it is, Obama and the Democrats should just stick to the same message. Why not take away another one of the weapons the Republicans have and be intellectually sound at the same time?
r€nato
good point Zifnab – Republicans are fiscal conservatives when someone else is spending the money.
When they’re the ones spending the money… not so much.
ppcli
Reagan budget guru David Stockton admitted that one of the motives for the drunken-sailor deficit spending of the early Reagan years was to ensure that whenever some Democrat came to power (sooner or later, some Democrat was bound to) their hands would be tied by the enormous debt they faced. The miraculous GOP talking-point repetition machine morphed this uncomfortable admission into "Reagan showed that deficits don’t matter."
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The only flaw in the standard GOP practice has been that the massive collapse came while the GOP was still in power, with Republican fingerprints over the whole thing. They assumed that there would always be one more irresponsible trick they could play to push off the day of reckoning until they could blame the Democratic party for it.
Just Some Fuckhead
I know it’s not popular to mention but Democrats in Congress for the last eight years haven’t been voting against all this crazy spending. And they’ll continue to spend like crazy. The difference is hopefully better priorities with a better President.
gex
My sentiments exactly.
Incertus
@Just Some Fuckhead: My father-in-law describes the two parties like this: the Republicans are the landowner on the hill who makes you work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, and beats you with a stick. Democrats are the landowner who only makes you work 12 hours a day, gives you every other Sunday off, and kicks you in the junk or junk-equivalent once in a while. Neither is great, but one is marginally better.
The Grand Panjandrum
I guess the Republicans really are the Daddy party–Sugar Daddy. A Sugar Daddy would never make you pay for anything, would they?
Brian J
Weren’t some of the old rules, like PAYGO, enacted when they took control again?
Zifnab
@r€nato: Well, its kinda a joke because the biggest Republican bugaboos in the federal budget are entitlements. And they’re also the hardest budget items to touch.
I think part of the game is the fact that people actually see where their money is going. 6.2% of my paycheck gets deposited in Social Security and another 1.2% goes to Medicare. I’m cool with that. 25% going to a nebulous "federal government" bothers me much more as I can’t tell whether its going to fund Nancy Pelosi’s new drapes in the Speaker’s Office or to pay for the US Army cover up of another Haditha massacre.
Breaking up the budget into observable chunks and sending taxpayers an invoice would go a long way towards shattering the Republican fiscal conservative myth, in my opinion. When people get the letter in the mail saying 53% of their $20,000 tax payment got spent on the military, they might think about budget cuts and taxes a bit differently.
gbear
Tim Pawlenty can go suck Grover Nordquist’s bathtub.
Tim’s been in charge while health care, education, and infrastructure in MN have gone into the crapper while he’s stayed absolutely attached to his no new taxes pledge. He’s raided every stash of money that the state had, raised fees on everything (not a tax, mind you) and just generally shafted every city in the state by making them pick up the tab for stuff the state had always covered. Now that we’re in a budget crisis again, EVERYthing is on the table, except, of course, his no new taxes, no closing gaping off-shore corporate tax loopholes, no messing up my resume pledge.
And he’s sporting a mullet again now that he’s not vice-presidential. Frickin hockey puck.
The Grand Panjandrum
Oy. My achey breaky heart can’t take it.
Svensker
We live in Scott Garrett’s district in NJ and he is one of those of super "fiscal responsibility" Repub guys — and in fairness to him, he voted against everything during the Bush years that would cost money. Everything. Except of course the War on Terra, which is necessary because otherwise we would all die right now, and besides the filthy mooslems don’t believe in The Lord so we better kill ’em faster than they can breed, the filth, and they’re mean to Israel which is the place The Lord will be coming back to soon if we just kill them dang filthy mooslems in a hurry. Amen. Also.
El Cid
Didn’t Tim Pawlenty make sure and not waste a lot of spare money on useless bridge repair?
Brian J
I’m curious why it’s never, ever the defense budget that can be touched. I’m not saying it should necessarily be cut. I have no idea if some areas can face reduced funding. I’m simply saying that some politicians talk about cutting Social Security or Medicare as if they couldn’t care less what happens, but seem to rule out any sort of talk about reduced defense spending.
The Grand Panjandrum
Speaking of fiscal responsibility how about Phil Gramm as Car Czar! I’m not kidding.
JL
Breaking News! Larry Craig lost his appeal to overturn his bathroom wide stance charge.
JasonF
Shorter Tim Pawlenty: Hey, Republicans. Let’s be obstructionist and claim we’re doing it on principle, and not simply because we don’t like the policy choices Democrats will make.
And I share Zifnab’s concern that balancing the budget at this particular juncture could have disastrous results for the economy. But what do you expect from a political movement that reveres the economic policies of President Hoover.
comrade rawshark
What? We’ve been told to live beyond our means for years. This guy is just as dumb as Palin.
Anyone else get a 403 everytime they post?
Notorious P.A.T.
That’s my favorite one. There’s no denying the power of capitalism–when you look at the trillion-dollar bailouts, the millions unemployed, the companies closing their doors, etc.
Incertus
@comrade rawshark:
And we’ve got the record-level consumer debt and rise in bankruptcies to prove it. Pawlenty may well be as dumb as Palin.
demimondian
@Brian J: Oh, yes, the defense budget should be cut. The use of classification as a mechanism to conceal waste, fraud, and abuse costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Whether the Dems have the spine to do that, though, I doubt.
Rainy
This is one the of the things that I wish Dems would focus on. Republicans haven’t been fiscal conservatives and there is no proof of that in the last 30 at least.
Dave
If Tim wants to save some cash, here’s a start:
Cost of one F-22: $137.5 million
Cost of one F-35: $83 million
But no, we really need two stealth fighters. Because God forbid we just use the F-35.
Next-gen fighter development has been a black hole of cash in a department that bleeds billions in overruns and wasteful spending. But I would wager that Tim and Co. have no interest in auditing the DoD.
lilly Von Schtupp
Defense spending crosses party lines. Here in Washington State, we have two very liberal senators, not to mention our reps, who have stood against area base closings and what not (Boeing anyone?).
As for Republican fiscal conservatism, it’s not just the "borrow and spend" that they get away with. It’s more accurately borrow, lose, squander and spend. Rinse. Repeat.
I will never get over the complete lack of accountability for the 9 Billion dollars that is unaccounted for in Iraq. I’m certain that is just the tip of the fiscal malfeasance.
Coupled with everything else we know about their incompetence and Democratic spinelessness, it’s a wonder our country functions at all.
eric k
I love how the Reps bring up the Balanced Budget Amendment whenever a Democrat is in office but when they are in office not so much…
Shinobi
If indeed this was a legal search, based on electricity consumption or some other justification for PC then the cops would have no reason not to submit their search warrant for review.
Don’t cops use that against people all the time? Why hide anything unless you have something to hide?
Martin
Well, ‘fiscally responsible’ is often equivalent to ‘kill self-sufficient entitlement programs’. Since defense and related spending is ballpark half of the non-debt servicing budget, and the GOP can’t help but dump shitloads of money into that, their ‘responsibility’ is actually pretty narrowly focused. And it’s shortsighted on top of that as without Social Security (which they want to kill) to borrow against, they’d never have gotten us to buying $2B planes.
Democrats aren’t much better on defense spending because so many jobs are tied to that spending. It’s a horrifically expensive jobs program, so even if they couldn’t resist doing it, doing it in other sectors would be more productive, but it’s also true that ‘weak on security’ meme is effective. Voters would get a lot more progress on fiscal responsibility if they would knock that shit off and let elected officials cancel absurdly expensive weapons programs without taking a political hit. They’d get the spending back in infrastructure, education, and other areas, so the jobs wouldn’t be lost in total, but if your job is to weld titanium you might not personally care about that.
But I agree with the others that non-VA, non-personnel defense spending needs to be slashed massively.
Comrade Stuck
The GOP idea of fiscal responsibility is buying the best possible Criminal Attorney.
liberal
@Zifnab:
That’s debatable. Polls have shown that a lot of folks out there have no idea how much is spent on things, and the fact that we’re sending the better part of $1T down the military rathole might actually bother them.
Rick Taylor
Republicans have had nothing to do with fiscal conservatism for a long time. During Reagan’s Presidency the decided tax cuts trumped everything else, though Reagan was fiscally responsible compared to George W Bush. Paul Krugman sounded the alarm way back in 2000, explaining again at how dishonest they were being about the long term budgetary effects of what they were proposing, and was dubbed the shrill one for his troubles.
demimondian
@liberal:
That fact doesn’t bother me, lib. To paraphrase the PEOTUS: I’m not bothered by defense spending; I’m bothered by ineffective defense spending.
demimondian
@Shinobi: Wrong thread, old soul.
I’ll answer you on the right one.
Kyle
Frankly, it makes my head hurt to see a GOPer crow about fiscal responsibility when they have used your grandchildren’s money to enrich their friends and relatives, but really, must Pawlenty also throw in "accountability" as well? The day I see a republican who holds him or herself accountable for anything, I am sure he or she will be riding a unicorn. These folks have excuses for everything: Who would have thought . . .; it’s the press . . .; it was Bill Clinton. They are bunch of whiney pussies, and they should be mocked as such.
Joshua Norton
The only problem is that the Repugs are too much in bed with Big Business, so they see no problem with shoveling out the money to them, but screwing over the American people who provide the money and labor for Big Business to survive. "Too big to fail" didn’t work for dinosaurs, why should it for business?
The Tyrannosaurus Rex ran out of food. Big cars fed on cheap gasoline and big banks fed on the fantasy that property values only go up. They are perfect candidates for the Malthusian effect: a large correction, occurring when populations expand rapidly and either disease or famines wipe them out. Predators rely on large numbers of small prey being healthy.
It is ridiculous to rescue those failed institutions at the direct expense of their prey. Killing the food source kills the ecosystem.
The idea that a company is "too big to fail" is the very reason it is overdue for extinction.
ksmiami
Just call them Hoover Republicans over and over. Now that is a powerful message! As you can tell by my postings, I hate what Republicans have turned into and will do everything in my limited power to fuck them and grind them into sand. They are a party of Incompetent, Lazy, Anti-Intellectural and Mean as Hell, homophobic assholes who deserve to be censured and then ignored.
The Moar You Know
@Dave: Only one of those aircraft is in any way a true "stealth" fighter, and it’s not the cheap one. The other one is a replacement for the F-18 – a plane we’ve just finished upgrading and that can easily remain operational until 2020.
The uglier truth is that so-called "stealth" technology really doesn’t work very well at all, but that doesn’t seem to be a discussion America is ready to have.
Cutting the defense budget is literally spitting in the face of Jesus Christ. Tell me, why do you hate Jesus so much?
The Other Steve
What? Are you talking about today, or are you talking about 2005? Are you seriously saying that when times are good we still must have a deficit because to not have a deficit is stupid? That seems to be the argument people are making, because a balanced budget amendment has long had the option in it of overriding the requirement with a 2/3rds vote. So if the necessity calls for it, it will be done.
And what if you don’t get a 2/3rds vote? Well, maybe nothing happens, and maybe it wasn’t really necessary. Or maybe the economy tanks. Well if the economy tanks, don’t you think that those who voted against it won’t be feeling some pressure? They’ll be looking at their upcoming elections and thinking "oh shit".
Regardless, it forces a DEBATE.
See right now we don’t have a DEBATE. Instead we have pandering. The Republicans cut taxes and because they don’t want to piss everybody off they increase spending. See, everybody is happy! And nobody cares about deficits, so we’re safe.
At the state house level here in Minnesota, the Balanced Budget was why the Republicans lost their seats in the legislature. They didn’t want to spend any money on transportation. They wouldn’t increase spending. Finally the people kicked ’em out in 2004. They passed a spending bill and the Governor vetoed it.
So the Republicans lost more seats in 2006. They passed another bill and the governor vetoed it again.
Then the bridge collapsed.
The legislature passed the bill with such support(including Republican members) that it overrode the Governor’s veto.
The Republican response? Kick those traitors out of the caucus! The voters response "Meh", and the Democrats won a few more seats in 2008. Not quite a veto-proof majority, but damn close.
A Balanced Budget Amendment FORCES a DEBATE. If you want to cut taxes, you MUST cut spending. And if you want to raise spending, you must raise taxes. That’s how it works. We let the VOTERS DECIDE if they like it or not.
DEBATE IS GOOD FOR A DEMOCRACY!
gbear
@El Cid:
Even worse, he pulled the budget rug out from underneath bridge INSPECTION. After all, what we don’t know won’t hurt us, will it?
Tim’s most annoying factor is his unshakable ability to deflect blame and responsibility for how screwed up MN has gotten since he’s been in positions of power. It’s just never his fault that life has gotten shittier. As far as he’s concerned, your life sucks because you’ve chosen to be poor or sick.
As far as I’m concerned Pawlenty is tons worse than Norm Coleman. Coleman may be sleazy, but Pawlenty is genuinely cold-hearted. He honestly doesn’t care.
The Moar You Know
122 F-22 raptors built so far – the program has cost 62 billion dollars.
There are still plenty of troops in Iraq without effective body armor, and still Humvees rolling around without armor kits.
Shorter me: I couldn’t agree more.
Brian J
@The Other Steve:
You make several good points, but many of them seem predicated on the Republicans in congress acting responsibly. I’m not going to hold my breath.
And yes, elections would force them, in theory at least, to own up to their failures. But there would probably be a lot of suffering as a result.
The Other Steve
oops
jenniebee
Actually, the real objective for a balanced budget amendment is to make Keynesian economics anti-constitutional. One step closer to free-market paradise, baby!
These fuckers don’t care about "freedom" the way that 99% of Americans understand it. We all think that freedom means that there’s no police state coming in to haul you away if you’re suspected of not liking the status quo, whatever the status quo happens to be. They think that freedom is finally freeing all people, be they rich or poor, to use their wealth to control markets, buy political assets, and give easy credit at the company store.
Also, when the wealthy cooperate to do any and all of the above, that’s the natural order of things and even observing that it’s happening means that you’re bucking the system. When the non-wealthy cooperate to serve their own financial interests, that not only should be stopped by the wealthy by any means at their disposal, it’s also unnatural and unfair and immoral and anti-freedom, etc. When free-marketeers get started with their union busting rhetoric, it always sounds to me like a rapist complaining that his victim’s cries for help are spoiling the mood.
Brian J
That’s just it: I like the idea that our military is so skilled and effective. I have no problem with spending a lot of money on defense, if it’s justified. I think everyone except the most hardcore pacifists (and I don’t mean that as a criticism) would agree. But as you and I note above, it’s as if any sort of questioning of the defense budget is grounds for expulsion from society.
The Other Steve
So it’s better to just run deficits in good years forever, and inflate the debt to $30 trillion?
Don’t you think that might cause some suffering?
JGabriel
ksmiami:
Is that really worse than "Bush Republicans"? Especially when one considers the number of people who probably don’t even know or remember who Hoover is.
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The Other Steve
Ok, you do realize that the Keynesian notion of spending a bunch to dig your way out of a hole is intended to happen only in bad times.
Not all the time, right?
The Republicans for the past 30 years have been practicing Keynesian spending at an alarming rate in good times and bad, but mostly in good times. Is that really such a good thing?
The Other Steve
I’d just like to point out for the record, that the Balanced Budget requirement here in Minnesota caused the state legislature to pass from the Republicans to the DFL so strongly that the DFL now has a veto proof majority in the Senate, and is only 2 votes away from overriding any veto in the House.
In fact after the bridge collapsed, they had 6 Republicans switch sides and voted for an increase in gas taxes in override of the Governor’s veto.
So Tim Pawlenty’s "Voice of No" has been a good thing for the DFL.
JGabriel
@The Other Steve:
So, er, anyone else seeing the flaw in this argument?
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The Moar You Know
@ksmiami: I don’t get it. What does a vacuum cleaner have to do with the GOP?
Seriously, when picking references go with one from the current century. Although there would be something very cool in saying that rappers spin gramophones.
JGabriel
@The Moar You Know:
They both suck!
Ba-dum-bump.
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Comrade Stuck
I still remember the first day of the new Congress in early 2007, when wingnuts, like well trained talking Gerbils, took to the floor and assailed on how big spending liberals were going to wreak havoc on the American Economy. Needless to say, democrats on the floor had a good belly laugh, and even some wingnuts couldn’t keep a straight face.
Joshua Norton
Everyone knows there’s nothing like a Hoover for dealing with dirt.
ksmiami
But There is so much photographic material from Hoover… like hoovervilles and all the BW photos of souplines. We could just say that the GOP is building a bridge to the 20th century and wasn’t the last great depression a blast?!!!
Martin
Careful of how you define that. We’re now in an age where we start wars to justify the spending. See Moar’s comments on body armor vs. F-22s. Is body armor really effective defense spending if the war itself should never have taken place, or is the only effective spending in Iraq money spent on withdrawal? Would those F-22s be effective spending if we arbitrarily threw them against North Korea’s SAM wall?
Brian J
That’s very much not what I was saying.
The Moar You Know
test, the site is eating my posts, or perhaps I’ve been banned :)
Comrade Stuck
@The Moar You Know:
Not today, yet. But this has been happening to me also. No "in moderation" or "spam" just poof, gone.
Sam Simple
Don’t be duped into calling it "defense spending". 90% of what the Pentagon spends has not a damn thing to do with "defense". It has everything to do with imperialistic aggression and forward power projection. We couldn’t defend ourselves against 19 men armed with boxcutters, for fucks’ sake!
HyperIon
regarding the defense budget:
well, i am. it should be cut hard.
weapons programs especially.
but sadly, no, we’re stupid.
pay too much for health care? check.
pay too much for hardware to protect us from not-sure-whom? check.
i mean, it’s not like we’ll ever run out of money, right?
terry chay
I disagree. Being fiscally responsible now is to block the very things needed to be done to get the economy back on shape. When Roosevelt became “fiscally responsible” in his second term, the economy did a huge backslide. It took World War 2 to fix that.
Instead the best strategy for the Republicans is to let the Democrats fix the economy first and engage in balancing the budget next. Then wait until we are complacent and stupid and can think we can afford to become selfish and Republican again. Infrastructure spending when labor is plentiful (because unemployment is high) and financing it so that our children would pay down what they benefit fun makes very good sense.
It’s either that or move to the left of the Democratic party.
The Other Steve
Are you saying the money would have been spent to replace the bridge except for this damned balanced budget requirement?
That seems rather odd, considering we seemed to have plenty of money to build a 494 extension out to the Lt. Governors house in Chaska.
The Other Steve
Wouldn’t it be faster to force the economy to collapse and then blame it on the Democrats?
Zifnab
@The Other Steve:
Yes, but given that you are either unwilling or unable to fix the mess you’ve created, better to just feebly bitch and moan and make lots of helpless mewing sounds while the Democrats fix the economy "the wrong/evil/socialist way" then jump in when the markets are up and we’ve got a surplus again, promising a Living Saint Everyman Joe Genuis Businessman Down-to-Earth Washington Outsider With Years of Experience will restore honor and integrity to the White House by running it the American way by just cutting taxes, killing bad guys, and giving absolute freedom to the corporations that love us.
JGabriel
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
I blame Ayn Rand. For everything.
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Calouste
@The Other Steve:
No, the argument was that it took three elections and six years to get anything done and by that time people had died because of Pawlenty’s policies.
JGabriel
The Other Steve:
Yep. Or to be more precise, I’m saying that given artificially (or maybe "statutorally" would be more accurate) limited resources, Republicans will spend the money for their own – and their friends – profit before the public weal.
More particularly, I’m saying that collapsing bridges and dead people are too high a price.
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Gus
What TOS and gbear have been saying about Pawlenty. It never fails to amaze me how many Republican voters fall for Pawlenty’s "no new taxes" bullshit, even aside from the fact that he raised tobacco taxes and called it a fee. He holds the line on state income taxes while property taxes, licensing fees and tuition to state schools skyrocket and the quality of services plummets. Minnesota is still a pretty good place to live in a lot of ways, but we really can’t take much more Republican leadership. He’s a smug, smarmy fuck who needs a good solid kick in the junk.
leo
Part of fiscal responsibility is recognizing that you have to pay your bills. This bit of maturity that we learn as adults (well most of us) is something that’s antithetical to Republican ideology. They’re for the spending part (hence all the deficits); it’s just coming up with the cash — what we call ‘taxation’ — that gives them the shivers.
Mark Gisleson
If you count Ventura as a Republican (and he certainly governed like one) and Perpich as a blue dog Democrat, Pawlenty is our fourth consecutive "fiscally conservative" governor. The fact that the I-35 bridge collapsed on his watch and killed 13 people should be apportioned among Perpich, Carlson, Ventura and Pawlenty, with Pawlenty getting a gold star for the most egregious neglect.
Worse, caught with his bridges down, Pawlenty fast-tracked a deal for Colorado’s Flatiron, a reliably Republican company that brought in outside labor, stiffing the local contractors who were trying to create jobs for upper Midwesterners. Pawlenty gave Flatiron a deadline ambitious enough to let Bush land on the new bridge before driving to the RNC (cancelled at the last second due to hurricanes in the Gulf).
I grew up conservative and there’s been exactly nothing conservative about the Republican party since Nixon’s Southern Strategy took hold.
srv
From the NYT, Overheard Leaving Iraq:
Can’t put it any shorter than that.
Chuck Butcher
I linked you with a hat-tip John. Thanks.
liberal
@demimondian:
Suppose it were all "effective". What the hell do we need to be spending so much money on the military for?
The question isn’t just whether it’s effective, but whether it’s necessary.
Yes, in abstract terms, the US is still an incredibly wealthy country. I’m sure we could spend 10% of GDP and survive as a nation. But in terms of threats—other than those we ourselves create with quasi-imperial foreign policy—there’s no reason we need to be spending more than a fraction of what we spend now. Just because you seem to enjoy pissing taxpayer money away for unnecessary military spending doesn’t mean it’s OK to do so.
One thing people seem not to understand is that the US, unlike a lot of other countries, has no true military threats on its border. Viz, we’re not going to be invaded by Canada or Mexico anytime soon. Contrast that with, say, Russia and China, who had (by our standards) fairly nasty border skirmishes even when they were both pinko countries. Or Vietnam; they had a conflict with China after we left which killed (IIRC) ~ 30,000 Vietnamese. Per capita, that’s a far greater loss than we incurred during the Vietnam war.
liberal
@Brian J:
If you get put aside threats that we ourselves are creating—if you look at a map, there’s zero reason why Iran is a natural geopolitical enemy, for example—there’s no reason why we couldn’t have an adequate defense for $200B in today’s dollars.
liberal
@Martin:
Damn straight.