THE US REPORT

Commentary by Kay B. Day

Are you weary of listening to the inheritance defense blaming President George W. Bush that the Obama administration and Congress jump on every time they face criticism over problems with the U.S. economy and war? This defense is a classic consequence of lack of experience in a national leader and lack of ability in an ageing, clueless Congress. The 'Bush legacy' is really getting to be tiresome spin.

A perfect example is the reinvention of the healthcare wheel—rather than turning to the free market for solutions, Democrats sequester themselves and come up with thousands of pages of bureaucratic layers that will cost in the neighborhood of $1 trillion dollars. Most of the Dem party brokers have been in Washington so long they’ve become walking monuments—stone-like creatures clinging to antiquated approaches that rely on taxing “ everything that moves and doesn’t  move,” as Sec. of State Hillary Clinton said recently. That statement is a perfect example of how Democrat-think sinks the economy. (Article continues after graph below.)

The US Dept. of Education gives an idea on Democrat spending increases beyond President George W. Bush's spending. Yet Democrats criticize Bush for this and other spending they have increased.
Sometimes it’s useful to consider information predating Democrats’ taking over Congress 3 years ago. Our president and his administration leap to the “Bush did it,” defense on the economy. But Democrat programs and policies played a direct role in the mortgage meltdown—the government became a partner in lending and the result was catastrophe. It’s that simple. Fraud played a major role as well, both domestic and external. As yet there are no figures on mortgage holders who weren’t citizens but received loans. I doubt we’ll see them anytime soon. Even that is a bi-partisan issue—neither Dems nor Republicans have come up with a viable solution to the lack of security on our borders. We currently provide, at a minimum, emergency healthcare for anyone in the country legally or illegally.

There’s the Medicare debate—Dems love to criticize the Medicare drug entitlement that is part of Bush’s legacy—an estimated $800 billion cost in its first decade. Yet our president is now proposing a new healthcare bureaucracy that will likely surpass Bush’s.

Democrats succeeded in expanding the SCHIP program in a variety of ways—states jumped on that bandwagon due to increased federal subsidies and the result is adding to budget woes for the states. Dems did this with little bipartisan input, even reducing verification requirements.

The New England Journal of Medicine said of the SCHIP expansion, “In the law's most contentious provision, Congress allowed states — at their discretion — to restore Medicaid coverage for otherwise eligible children and pregnant women who have been in the United States legally for 5 years or less. A 1996 law had barred coverage for these groups, and considerable support had built over the years for giving states the option of reviving assistance for these previously covered persons. In provisions opposed by Republicans, the law also expands options for verifying citizenship and identity.”  How fast can you say ‘self-verification’?

Democrats love spreading education money around, right? So did Bush. He increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation, said The Heritage Foundation in a comparison of the Bush deficit with the Obama deficit. Obama wants to increase it even more.

Bush, said Heritage, also spent 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty. By March, 2009, Democrats had increased that by 20 percent.

So if President Barack Obama is saying he inherited a financial mess yet he intends to expand the programs and spending that created that mess, where’s the logic?

As an aside, we must point out a sizable share of Bush’s spending related to homeland security after 9/11 (his predecessor failed in many ways, especially on intelligence spending). That represented a 180 percent increase, according to Fact Check in an analysis of Bush's spending. Defense accounted for another 52.5 percent increase.

Then there was Katrina. The feds couldn’t throw enough money at that disaster, created entirely by locating a major city in an area nature did not intend a major city to be and then by a succession of administrations, both local and federal, avoiding taking measures to protect against the catastrophe anyone with common sense knew would eventually come. Furthermore, does anyone of sound mind believe limiting carbon emissions will prevent a future Katrina?

Thus far, Heritage said, “Overall, President Obama’s budget would add twice as much debt as President Bush over the same number of  years.” And that statement was made in March.

So we have our president, advisers like David Axelrod and spokesmen like Robert Gibbs making a virtual hymn out of the phrase, “We inherited it.”

They should be singing, “We don’t know what we’re doing.” And Congress should own up to the mess they’ve made of things in 3 years of control.

Both parties have avoided enacting real reforms that would address economic problems. The Democrats are succeeding in creating another Vietnam.

The least Democrats can do is to admit their own role in our current predicament. To do otherwise is to tell an outright lie to cover lack of experience in our top leadership and lack of ability in our current Congress. The inheritance defense is really getting tiresome.

And by the way, I never heard Bush blame Democrats for the mess he inherited--the imploding tech bubble comes to mind.