Regarding the debt limit.

I looked at actual numbers this week, to see if what I believed squared with the numbers.

What I believed:  That George Bush spend a LOT of money.  Wars (justified, I thought for the most part) and also ridiculous "compassionate" uses of my money, like a freakishly complicated Prescription Drug program for seniors, the now-notorious No Child Left Behind, even steel tariffs.  And TARP.  Lord, don't get me started on TARP.  But I also believed that Barack Obama spent even more.  Mind-blowing amounts on things like Cash for Clunkers, first-time homeowner support, and my very own car company.

I found this:

See the line with the dots?  That is debt limit as a percent of GDP.  Even though GDP was growing over those years, the debt limit was pretty much a stable percent of GDP.  It bumps up in 2008.  That was TARP.

But what happens in 2009 and 2010?  Spending blows up.  There is no end in sight to the spending.

Over and over I heard how this debt limit problem is another Bush issue.  But it simply isn't.  We went from about $5 trillion in 2000 to about $10 trillion in 2008.  That is all Bush.  But we now stand at $14.6 trillion, an increase of $4.6 trillion in only 30 months under Obama.

And now, as our "professional political class" negotiates a new debt limit, our President can only propose tax increases.  They have not offered one spending cut.  Not one.  Do you see that?  Nothing.  I have scoured the news wires and can only find references to tax increases and loophole closures.  In fact, there are only new programs just waiting to be implemented.  Just this week Kathleen Sebelius offered the new guidelines for insurance exchanges.  This proposal will involve the creation of at least fifty new regulatory agencies.  This is only one depressing example.

But it is Saturday night, I've spent all day at the lacrosse fields and it's time to rest and be ready for a full day of it tomorrow.  Sleep well, and let's all take a Sabbath rest from the news tomorrow.

Edited to add:  Of course Victor Davis Hanson says it all better today here.

The rule of words

Words mean things.  Which is why the repeated use of the word "rule" with regard to the government is really bugging me.

When I was in high school civics we were introduced to the concept of the "rule of law."  I found it a confusing phrase, because I kept thinking of a ruler, like with inches and feet, and not a ruler of a country.  But I finally get it, that the authority of the government in our country vests not in any one person or group of people, but in the Constitution.  Those people elected to government, in particular the President and by extension the rest of the executive branch, are guardians of the Constitution.  The President does not RULE.  The laws rule.  

So why does it seem like I see "Obama's rule begins" or "Pelosi's rule" (I know, Pelosi, how scary is that?) in the press so often?  I really don't recall the word "rule" associated with Bush or the Republicans in years past, but I am sure hearing it a lot now with regard to the Dems.  So I'll google it and see what I get:  2,140 hits, and I agree that all of them don't apply.  But that doesn't include the infamous "Obama will be ready to rule on day one" quote from the campaign.  I DON'T WANT A RULER!  What about the Democrats in general?  909 in the past year.

So what about Bush?  Okay, 5570, but I went through the first through pages and all of these refer to rules made by the Bush administration.  Rule of Bush?  123, and it looks like a lot of those are bloggers.  (Maybe I can finally get Googled by someone!)  But, from what I can find, no one is using "ready to rule" or "not ready to rule." 

So here's my point...there is a glee surrounding Obama and the Congressional Democrats, and it is coming from within and also from the main-stream media.  We didn't elect a new king, we elected a guardian of the Constitution.  The problem is that if we start looking at the "rule of Obama" or  Pelosi or whomever, then they step outside of the law.  The perception is that the ruler creates the rules and is not subject to them.  It isn't true, at least not yet.  The problem is that if you say something often enough then it becomes the truth.  (Lenin said that, not me.)  I don't want this to become the truth.

If at first you don't succeed...

go ask the President.

I'm disgusted.  And disenfranchised.  

Bush's Goodbyes

Say what you will, and I've said plenty, but George Bush is a good man.  He showed up in Iraq this weekend, and you can just see how much he loves the troops and how much they love him (via Instapundit):

And then there was the shoe-throwing incident...you know, calling Bush a dog isn't quite the insult the guy intended.  (See above.) Most Americans think more highly of their dogs than their next-door-neighbors.  

He also showed up in Afghanistan, which was a surprise on top of the Iraq surprise.  Again, he loves these troops, and it shows.  It's one of my favorite things about him.  

I think Bush's failing is that he didn't have a guiding philosophy beyond keeping us safe.  Admittedly, that was a tough job thrust upon him in the early days of his presidency.  But economically, WOW.  When he was elected I thought, "oh, good, he has an MBA and he gets finance, how to motivate people, how to run things."  I was wrong.  Our President needs to have a vision of liberty beyond not being attacked on our land, and I prefer a president who has a guiding vision of government (small) and the role of taxes and government spending in the country.  Reagan is a great example of that, someone who had developed an over-arching vision of smaller government, lower taxes, and staying out of people's lives.  Anyway.  Back to Bush...what a modest, humble man.  Hopefully you saw this interview, but he said this when asked about the Bible:  "I'm just a simple president."  That is humility.  Jay Nordlinger has a long interview with Bush over here. Here is a different view, from Bush himself:

Chew over this, too: “The real challenge will be for a president to never substitute pragmatism for an idealistic vision, because if you do, you have delayed the capacity to marginalize and ultimately defeat the ideology of the extremists.” You and I know that pragmatism is often necessary and called for, and the president knows it too. (That’s why so many “freedom agenda” people are disappointed in him, particularly given the policies, or non-policies, of the second term.) But I know what he means, and I suspect you do, too.

I think he was amazingly clear-headed on defending us.  Did anyone really think that we would go seven years without another attack after 9/11/2001?  I didn't.  But I wish he'd been so clear with economics.