Open Thread: Fake Fiscal ‘Conservatives’
In his syndicated column, Jonah Goldberg takes to task many of the people who claim to be “fiscally conservative” but in truth are anything but. While there are people who actually are fiscally conservative and socially moderate or liberal, Goldberg makes the point that many liberals try to describe themselves in this way, even though they really do not have any conservative beliefs at all:
You’re still spouting this nonsense about being fiscally conservative while insisting the GOP is the problem. You buy into media’s anti-Republican hysteria no matter what the facts are. Heck, you even believe it when Obama suggests he’s like an Eisenhower Republican.
Well, let’s talk about Eisenhower, your kind of Republican. Did you know that in his famous farewell address he warned about the debt? “We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage,” he said. “We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”
Bob, we are that insolvent phantom, you feckless, gormless clod. The year Eisenhower delivered that speech, U.S. debt was roughly half our GDP. But that was when we were still paying off WWII (not to mention things like the Marshall Plan), and the defense budget comprised more than half the U.S. budget (today it’s a fifth and falling). Now, the debt is bigger than our GDP. Gross Domestic Product is barely $15 trillion. The national debt is over $16 trillion and climbing — fast. The country isn’t going broke, Bob, it is broke.
When George W. Bush added nearly $5 trillion in national debt in two terms you were scandalized. When Obama added more than that in one term, you yawned. When, in 2006, then-Sen. Obama condemned Bush’s failure of leadership and vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling, you thought him a statesman. Obama, who wants to borrow trillions more, now admits that was purely a “political vote.”
Yet when Republicans actually have the courage of Obama’s own convictions, you condemn them.
It’s a good column, well worth reading. Exit question: How many liberals do you know who fit this description and how many actually are intelligent enough to admit that they are leftists?
