The Delaware County Daily Times in suburban Philadelphia, today, squarely placed the blame on Harrisburg's inability to pass a budget on the shoulders of George W. Bush. It said: Of course, it doesn’t help that the country was plunged into economic disaster by the previous administration. When George W. Bush took office in 2001, he inherited a budget surplus of more than $200 billion. In 2009, he left the country with a $1 trillion deficit and projected deficits of $8 trillion or more.
The Times' reasoning appears to be if that if Washington didn't have such fiscal headaches they'd be able to shovel more money to Pennsylvania and nobody would be upset about state political hacks making 300 Gs even when they retire. Nor would people be expressing ire at the compensation of the members of the teachers union for whose pensions Harrisburg is largely on the hook .
Of course, one wonders why it might not have occurred to the editorial writers that places like California and New York and Michigan with even greater budget headaches might not get first dibs in the fed loot money which would obviously include a chunk taken from Pennsylvanians.
Now regarding the former president, while one is not inclined to defend the domestic spending that occurred under his watch, we can't recall the Daily Times objecting to Dubya's creating a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade, increasing federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation or being the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs.
And we certainly don't see the Times objecting to President Obama's drastic acceleration of those programs.
Of course, a lot of conservatives did and do.
And with regard to that $1 trillion deficit and the projected $8 trillion deficits, well, Bush's final budget projected a $408 billion deficit for fiscal year Oct. 1, 2008 to Sept. 30, 2009. The TARP fiasco, strongly supported by a certain young senator from Illinois, spent nearly $300 billion more -- hey Daily Times what reforms do you advocate for Freddie and Fannie? Then, Obama tacked on another $113 billion in "stimulus" spending, and the economic downturn caused a drastic shortfall from the tax revenue that had been projected.
Obama's first all-by-his-lonesome budget, btw, calls for a $1.17 trillion deficit.
The problem with the old media isn't that it criticizes and scrutinizes Republicans but that it fails to do so with Democrats. Stop drinking the Flavor Aid and start thinking for yourselves.
