Doc Hastings makes a startling admission in an interview posted on the website OthelloOutlook.com on April 20, 2010. Here’s the quote while talking about the costs of health care reform:
"Last year was the first time I ever even used the word trillion," Hastings said.
Perhaps that day wouldn't have come so late in Hastings' life if he had used his 8-terms worth of seniority to get on the Budget Committee, the Appropriations Committee, or any of the other committees that he has chosen not to sit on. This nation's GNP has been in the trillions for decades. Can Hastings be as out of touch with the macro-economics of our country as he is with the economics of our district?
He pulled a fast one on his audience on another subject as well... "The congressman showed a graph to those in attendance outlining the deficit growth in the past few years. The illustration showed deficits under the Obama administration as being exceptionally higher than those under the Bush administration.
"I look at where we are in our country and I think this is a very difficult time," Hastings said. He said he believes "for government to work as intended, there needs to be an openness about everything it’s proposing."
What the congressman conveniently leaves out is the Obama administration’s decision to be honest with the American people and include the costs of the wars in the budget, unlike Doc and his fellow Republicans who tried to hide the red ink. Add the fact that the laissez-faire approach that their side took to Wall Street led to the most devastating "hand off" of an economy from one government to another since Herbert Hoover and FDR, which would have forced whoever had been president in 2009 to increase spending to save the economy. Of course, using honest numbers wouldn’t have produced such a dramatic chart for his show-and-tell.
Hastings is right about one thing, though...we do need openness about government spending. Too bad he doesn’t practice what he preaches, as his party never once, since 2001, offered an honest budget or a balanced one.