Now Bully Boy's concerned about spending? Now?

Earlier this year congressional leaders promised to show that they could be responsible with the people's money. Unfortunately they seem to have chosen the path of higher spending. They have proposed spending increases that would add an extra $205 billion on top of my Administration's budget request over the next five years. There's only one way to pay for such a large spending increase, and that is to raise taxes on the American people.



So declared the Bully Boy in his radio address yesterday. Suspend disbelief and accept that possibly Bully Boy knows what he's talking about and isn't in the mood for lying (really suspend disbelief), Congress is guilty of wanting to spend $205 billion more and mainly on domestic programs. Bully Boy's reaction? Threaten a tax increase. There's no money for the American people in Bully Boy's administration (except for cronies), but there's a ton for him to waste in his illegal war.


On this week's Bill Moyers Journal, the financial cost of the war was addressed. (This aired Friday in most markets. If it's already aired in your area, click here for transcript and here for a/v.)




BILL MOYERS: You said the other day to someone that we think we can fight the war in Iraq without paying for it.

JOHN BOGLE: Well, we borrow the money to fight the Iraq War by some estimates and they're not absurd estimates is running now towards a $1 trillion. We could be doing what the British empire did. We could be bankrupting ourselves in the long run. And--

BILL MOYERS: You see us as an empire?

JOHN BOGLE: Well, of course it's an empire. We reach all over the world. We thought of ourselves in many, many respects as the policemen of the world. God knows we know we're the policemen of the Middle East. And there are those say, even from Alan Greenspan on up or down, that oil is the root of that. I mean, these are great societal questions. Protecting oil, which is in turn polluting the atmosphere.
We have problems as a society. And we don't have to surrender to them. But, we have to have a little introspection about where we are in America today. We've go to think through these things. We've got to develop a political system that is not driven by money. I mean, these are societal problems for us that don't have any easy answers.
But you don't have to be an economist to know that a great deal of or a minimum in our economy is coming from borrowed money. People are spending at a higher rate than they're earning, and we're starting to pay a price for that now. Particularly in the mortgage side. But, eventually, that could easily spread and people won't be able to do that anymore. You can't keep spending money you don't have. It gets a lot of it, you know, and it wasn't that many years ago -- maybe a couple of generations ago -- that if you wanted something, you saved for it. And when you completed saving for it, you bought it. Imagine that. And that wasn't so bad. But, now, we know that we can have the instant gratification and pay for it with interest payments, of course, over time, which is not an unfair way to do it. We're going to pay a big price for the excessive debt we've accumulated in this society both in the public side and the private side.
And it's no secret that this lack of savings in our economy -- just about zero -- is putting us at the mercy of foreign countries. China owns -- I don't know the exact number -- but, let me say about 25 percent of our federal debt. China does. What happens when they start to buy our corporations with all those extra dollars they've got there? I mean, I think that's very-- these problems are long term, are very much worrisome and very much intractable.



They paved paradise and sold it to China? While Bully Boy overlooks those realities and refuses to take responsibility for his illegal war and on the very same day he slams Democrats regarding increases in spending, he also signed H.J. Res. 43 "which increases the statutory limit on the public debt limit".


The conflict is largely about the SCHIPS funding (we do not favor the legislation because we do not favor a flat tax) and, on Friday, White House flack Dana Perino attempted to paint Bully Boy as a saint but mainly revealed her ignorance saying Bully Boy cared about "making it more fair for people to be able to buy insurance . . ." Perino was lying but "more fair"?


Was Snow White banned in her home? "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" Perino really doesn't think it goes fair, more fair, fairest -- does she? (For the record the adjectives are fairer and fairest.)



For those wondering, Iraq proper didn't come up once in the press conference. A question was asked about Rush Limbaugh's use of the phrase "phony soldiers" and that was apparently all the attention the White House press corp could devote to the illegal war.


This despite the fact that spending was being addressed and despite the fact that, as John Nichols (Common Dreams) reported, on Thursday, Congress gave the Bully Boy $9 billion more in additional funding for the illegal war with only one senator voting against the measure (Russ Feingold) and only fourteen Democrats in the House voting against it (Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Earl Blumenauer, Keith Ellison, Ron Paul, Bob Filner, Barney Frank, Maurice Hinchey, Dennis Kunich, Jim McDermott, Donald Payne, Lynn Woolsey and Diane Watson voting no (Kucinich and Paul are running for their parties' presidential nomination). Presidential candidates Joe Biden, Sam Brownback, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama skipped the vote.







Now Bully Boy wants to worry about spending? Well, as Isaiah's "Irma La Dunce" suggests, step under the red light Bully Boy and raise a few bucks.