The Sunshine Empire

Over close to sixteen years the American Left and the American Right have undergone transformations that have them standing on the opposite side of the pool screaming at the other one that their position is bad.  One example is spending.  In 1992 the Democratic Congress had a well deserved reputation of spending like there was no tomorrow.  The Republicans ran on the balanced budget amendment to reign in this wasteful practice.  They along with Bill Clinton where able to bring surpluses to the Federal budget and then the Democrat left the White House and Spendy McMoneybags took office.  Dick Cheney said famously “deficits don’t matter.”  Argue either point you want with me but it most certainly runs counter to what is the perceived Conservative dogma.  By all accounts and numbers and hard facts ‘ol Dubya is the biggest spender in the history of the Executive Branch.  Funny that the man he beat was another insane Texan.  Yet incredulously Democrats arise as the party of fiscal discipline.  There are some apologists that state that “9/11 changed everything,” but the Bush defense department budget is 25 times hire than the hight of the Reagan buildup, and that factors out the money being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Education and other spending is up and that doesn’t even include the “bridge to nowhere” highway bill.  Not one spending bill from the Republican Congress was ever vetoed by Bush, but I’m sure that’s somehow Bill Clinton’s fault.

Bill Clinton brings up another curious twist.  When Bubba took office it was found from an internal review that Clinton’s promised 25% reduction in the White House staff could be moved forward by firing the lifelong bureaucratic staff in the White House travel office that had been found to be borderline corrupt.  This became a scandal among those who watch Fox News and read the National Review.  Even this week I heard Kate Buckteeth from National Review Online bringing up this “travelgate” scandal.  Even though they serve at the pleasure of the President they went bat-shit.  The White House had been too secretive in the process and their had to be good-ole-boying at work.  Yet when Alberto Gonzalez had 8-9 United States Attorneys fired for not pursuing prosecutions against enough Democrats the Republicans have returned to the people under the President serving at his pleasure.  Oh, and forget about that whole, Alberto lying to Congress and afterward Bush said he had more confidence in him thing either.  But without missing a beat the Democrats are suddenly interested in keeping this kind of thing from happening.