My letters may seem as if I'm "beating a dead horse." I mean, if you support the GOP, the last thing you'd want is to look back at Washington during the last time the GOP controlled the government.
But the point is not whether President Obama is spending more than President Bush. The point is that the people who are complaining about President Obama's spending remained silent when the spending was done by the GOP. It is also not about blaming Bush and the GOP for their failure. It is that the same GOP, who crashed the economy and expanded the size of government, is promising that when they are in power things will be different. And they will try to convince America of this when they roll out their tried and true campaign themes. So unfortunately that horse still lives.
When out of power, the GOP claims they want small government. But while in power, they oversaw one of the largest expansions of government size and power in our history. And the GOP is open about the fact that they want government to be even bigger. They want government to restrict reproductive rights and to push a social agenda that is based on one set of religious beliefs over all others.
They'll talk about ending government spending. Yet when they were in power, the national debt went from $5.7 trillion to almost $11 trillion. And the Republican controlled congress increased the debt limit every year they were in control during the previous administration. In fact, the national debt, which was such a huge campaign issue for President Bush, was barely mentioned during the waning years of his presidency.
The GOP will talk about cutting taxes. Unfortunately, the tax cuts aren't paid for and as a result you get the Bush tax cuts that didn't grow the economy but increased the deficit and the debt. They will talk trickledown economics again. Unfortunately, the country has seen that there is only one thing that trickles down and it's not prosperity. The GOP will also campaign on how they will protect Social Security and Medicare despite the fact they had opposed both programs when they were proposed and they've been trying to eliminate them ever since.
But regardless of what the GOP will say and what Fox News will regurgitate, their campaign will be about them hoping their hypocrisy will be ignored. But an undistorted "fact" remains that "WE", the 66.8 million, who voted for President Obama and "WE", the 1.37 million, who helped turn a red Indiana into a blue state in '08, will not be swayed by the lies.
