Monday, February 02, 2004

You Can't Trust The GOP With Your Checkbook

A niece analysis from the Associated Press on how President Bush says one thing, but does the other.

From that piece:

The Bush administration avoided being pinned down on what it would cost to invade, occupy and rebuild Iraq.

Then, six months after the invasion, Bush hit Congress with the tab: $87 billion, a figure that left even many of his fellow Republicans gasping. That was to get through this budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

On Friday, the administration said it will not request more money for the Iraq operations until at least January, two months after November's elections.

The administration's projections on Iraqi oil revenues also were widely off the mark. Oil is bringing in a fraction of what Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz predicted last spring.


Sure, maybe we only got rid of a two-bit dictator who was of no threat whatsoever to the United States. But c'mon: forget the continual loss of America lives and the ongoing costs of occupation - this victory is major ... like those victories in Grenada and over Noriega!

Later in the piece, Grover (that's my real name) Norquist weighs in:

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a conservative who is close to the White House, said he worries less about the deficit than about the spike in overall government spending.

"Total spending is the cost to future generations," Norquist said, invoking Bush's "future generations" line. He added that he thought several Bush initiatives, including health savings accounts and Social Security reforms, eventually will rein in overall federal spending.


The key word in that line is "eventually." Kinda vague on the timing isn't it? If you want to get rid of these ridiculous federal deficits, you have to keep Republicans out of the White House.