Loves me some CPAC -- the perfect trainwreck of nuttiess, groveling, bigotry and wingnut marketing madness. I couldn't help but notice that every hand-in-the-air, CHOOSE ME CHOOSE ME CHOOSE ME candidate could be destroyed by a single question if anyone -- Hannity? Hannity? Hannity? -- chose to ask it. The Democrats better ask this question ten times a day everyday because the "liberal media" has already failed this test once. The question after the squiggly-wiggly...
Every Republican candidate -- including mock-centrist Jeb Bush -- was vehement about three things...
1) TAX CUTS!
2) ALL OUT WAR WITH ISIS! ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS!
3) GOVERNMENT SPENDING OUT OF CONTROL! BALANCED BUDGETS! SLASH THE DEFICIT!
I'm pretty sure you can see the problem here. And we've already been here once. Bush cut taxes for his billionaire pals, jacked up the defense budget and spent two trillion dollars on his pet wars, sending deficits (in the words of Charlie Pierce) "spinning over the moons of Jupiter."
So is it too much to ask that every candidate be asked this question?
"Dear (Candidate CrazyPants) -- You've told us that you have had enough of this hippie appeasement from President Obama. You've indicated you'd wage all-out war in the Middle East against ISIS. You've also indicated you're for tax cuts, and a balanced budget. In order to pay for what will undoubtedly be a one, two or even three trillion dollar war once mental health care for returning vets is figured in, will you commit to asking Americans for a large tax increase to pay for this war? If not, how will you pay for a trillion dollar war without increasing the deficit?
Bush -- to his eternal discredit -- finessed this question by having Paul Wolfowitz swear to Congress that the war would cost 40 million dollars and be paid by oil revenue, blah blah blah. They knew they were lying, but the librul media was so desperate to wave the flag the Bushies were never called on it.
War, Tax Cuts, Balanced Budget -- Can't be done. Republicans always put Dems in a box by calling 'em tax raisers. It's time Dems put Republicans in a box by calling them on their idiotic fantasy economics