http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... tid=pm_pop
Return of the real Obama
First problem, and a long-running one at that: Conservatives act as if they've always "cared about deficits", when in reality it's been conservatives (including their patron saint, Ronald Reagan) who have racked up most of the largest deficits in post WWII history. Under both Reagan and W. Bush, we got massive increases in gov't spending coupled with large tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy...IOW, big deficits. But are Bush and Reagan decried and denounced by today's conservatives? Not at all. Reagan has become a pop idol and conservative groups put up "Miss me yet" billboards with W. Bush on them!He’s [Obama] a visionary, not an accountant. Sure, he’ll pretend to care about deficits, especially while running for reelection. But now that he’s past the post, he’s free to be himself — a committed big-government social democrat.
Here we see that today's conservatism is actually against education, research, roads, and renewable energy. And what do they pit them against? Tax rates on the rich. So to today's conservatives, it's more important that the Koch brothers pay lower taxes than the rest of us, than are schools, science, roads, and renewable energy.After perfunctory nods to debt and spending reduction, he waxed enthusiastic about continued “investments” — i.e., spending — on education, research, roads and bridges, green energy, etc.
Having promised more government, he then promised more taxes — on “millionaires” and “companies with a lot of lobbyists,” of course. It was a bold affirmation of pre-Clintonian tax-and-spend liberalism.
First, the ACA is not an "entitlement". We're paying for it. Second, Obamacare was specifically modeled after Romneycare in Mass. and a proposal developed by a conservative think tank in the 1990's (in response to "Hillarycare"). But now all of a sudden it's a terrible thing...a massive entitlement to the "welfare class"?He’s already created the largest new entitlement in half a century (Obamacare).
This is just simple math and shows that Krauthammer is either rather stupid, or is relying on his audience to be so. "Spending as a percentage of GDP" requires two variables: spending and GDP. Even if federal spending remains the same, if GDP drops Krauthammer's dreaded percentage goes up. And given that Obama inherited the biggest economic collapse since the great depression, it's not surprising to see this percentage rise. In fact, it would be pretty draconian if it didn't.And he has increased federal spending to an astronomical 24.4 percent of GDP (the postwar norm is about 20 percent), a level not seen since World War II.
Again, it's as if W. Bush never existed. Were the conservatives like Krauthammer crying about having to raise taxes to pay for the Iraq invasion orthe prescription drug benefit that Congressional Republicans and W. Bush authorized? Nope. Conservatives actually cut taxes, and thus we find ourselves here and now.But this level of spending requires a significantly higher level of taxation. Hence his hardball fiscal-cliff strategy of issuing an ultimatum to Republicans to raise tax rates — or be blamed for a massive across-the-board tax increase and a subsequent recession.
The rest of the article is little more than paranoid conservatism (Obama won't be happy until there is no upper class).
So in sum, we see in one article: massive revisionist history, anti-education, anti-science, anti-infrastructure, anti-renewable energy, deception (or really bad math skills), hyper-partisanism (hating their own ideas if Dems propose them), and overall paranoia.
That is your Republican party folks.
