Especially within the ranks of conservatives?
"'A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." Not only is this famous Everett Dirksen quote probably apocryphal. Dirksen's own Republican Party has made it irrelevant. In the era of compassionate conservatism, a billion here and there is just a rounding error.
'Last week, President Bush proposed the first $3 trillion federal budget. This is just five years after he introduced the first $2 trillion budget. To put such dizzying numbers in perspective, consider that it took nearly two hundred years for the federal budget to pass the $1 trillion mark. Alas, that was under Ronald Reagan in 1987. Even Homer nods.
'So what do the headlines say? Stop this outrageous expenditure? Clean up the Exxon Valdez sized spill of red ink? Call off the Grand Old Spending Party?
'Not a chance. The Associated Press blares, "Bush's budget would cut over $2.9B from NJ hospitals." Colorado hospitals would be hurt too, says the Denver Business Journal. The New Brunswick Home News Tribune editorializes, "No time for feds to cut transportation aid."
'California's Press Enterprise reports, "Bush proposal cuts national forest fire prevention budget." Maryland's Frederick News Post highlights, "Proposed cuts would hit Goodwill.'"
See more:
The American Spectator
W has led the party of Reagan into the Wilderness of Big Government, as he lives within the contradiction of tax cuts and bigger budgets. The Clintons may cause a schism within the historic FDR coalition, and W may split off tax and spend Republicans, and bring about a new alignment of freedom loving, small government democrats. The times, they are historic.
Linear Mode
