<crossposted on MyFDL>
Oh that Eric Cantor! He has a knack for really digging into the crust of the political earth and pulling out the nitty, gritty details. Cantor has taken it upon himself, with the help of some other jaunty House GOPers, to establish the Young Guns Program. This cute little group works real hard to essentially unseat Democrats, bluntly stated. The title Young Guns is so catchy among young, debonair GOP that Cantor decided to name his new book just that. Oh that Eric Cantor! Revivin’ the Republican Party like a good ol’ fashioned southern evangelical awakening! Ain’t it sweet?
I feel obligated, now, to point out that the title to this post is an absolute lie. Cantor decided to stake this claim during a guest spot on the Daily Show earlier this month. Politifact chose to investigate this clearly absurd claim, and concluded that it deserved a “Pants on Fire” ranking on the truth scale. (Pants on Fire, for those not familiar with politifact, is the furthest away from the truth one can wish to obtain according to their scale) Thank goodness we have fiscal masterminds like Eric Cantor in Congress to manage our budgetary decisions. The excerpt that follows is taken from Politifact’s analysis of Cantor’s taradiddle.
“What you’ve seen (in Washington),” he said, “is a crowd that has taken advantage of a crisis back in late ’08, early ’09 and spent more money than this country has spent in the last 200 years combined, in the two years since.”
We first looked at federal spending for 2009 and the estimate of spending for 2010. Combined, federal spending in those two years amounted to a little more than $7.2 trillion.
We didn’t have to add up all 200 years — you only have to add together 2006, 2007 and 2008 to reach $8.3 trillion, which exceeds the $7.2 trillion of 2009 and 2010. So by that measure, Cantor is wrong.
Why focus on a seemingly meaningless gaffe? Because this statement indirectly illustrates the mantra of today’s Republican Party agenda, embellishing spending lies about Democrats and championing themselves as fiscal “hawks.” Which, to anyone who paid any attention at all to any type of spending measures taken during the previous Bush administration, should sound somewhat hypocritical. George W. Bush, the self described “compassionate conservative,” vastly expanded government spending during his 8 years in office. This isn’t a secret, although the GOP wishes it was. Those who wish to deny entirely that any vast increase in spending was the fault of Republicans will attempt to blame the Bush spending/deficit explosion on the Democratic Congress that was present for part of the Bush years, however this is hardly the case.
During his eight years in office, President Bush oversaw a large increase in government spending. In fact, President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent.
During his eight years in office, President Bush spent almost twice as much as his predecessor, President Clinton. Adjusted for inflation, in eight years, President Clinton increased the federal budget by 11 percent. In eight years, President Bush increased it by a whopping 104 percent.
(Source: Mercatus)
Its no secret that the current Democratic administration has spent a monumental amount during the past 2 years, but nothing even close to the past 200 years of our country’s history. Both parties are to blame for excessive spending, that is pure fact. The divisiveness of people like Rep. Cantor are what cause the rifts in our current government system. The day when people of both parties can honestly admit that each are at fault for the country’s problems, is the day that we make greater strides towards a better tomorrow. Party politics have gotten out of hand during the past couple of years, and we have reached the pinnacle of partisan fringe and divide during this election cycle. It is embarrassing. It seems nearly impossible to expect something like a McCain-Feingold style bi-partisan legislative piece to come to fruition during times like these, or a conscious effort by both parties to balance the budget.
Eric Cantor is certainly not the only one guilty of this, there are plenty of other Republicans (as well as a cornucopia of Democrats) who do nothing but add to the divisiveness of our political culture today. This should bother more than just me. The stomping on the head of a Moveon.org member at a Rand Paul rally earlier this week sadly shows where we are as a country today. This is but one incident, that was caught on tape, and sets an alarming precedent for the political discourse in the United States.
No longer can people respectfully disagree with one another it seems. Now, shouting matches ensue and hateful vitriol is thrown around like casual conversation. The lies perpetuated by media folk, like Glenn Beck, stoke the fires of the angry public and fuel this new fringe we see today.
Who is going to be responsible enough to stand up to this? Bi-partisanship is dying and there are no medics around to nurse it back to health.