Were you this adamant about paying for proposed spending when the GOP was initiating 2 wars, 2 tax cuts, and a Medicare Prescription Drug plan, none of which they paid for?
2 Wars. No. It is my opinion that you never consider the cost of a war when deciding whether to fight it. Would you ever consider the cost of defending your child's life against an attacker? Of course not.
National defense is one of the absolute functions of government. If it is determined a war needs to be fought, then cost isn't the slightest consideration.
2 Tax Cuts. No. I am a believer in supply side economics and as such, I believe that tax cuts usually fuel economic growth which ends up providing more revenue to the government, so in general, I support tax cuts whenever and wherever you can get them. The Bush tax cuts did increase revenues as it turned out.
More importantly, tax INCREASES kill the economy. Consistently. Which is a huge problem as the Bush tax cuts expire and Obama clearly will propose additional tax increases next year.
Medicare Prescription Drug plan. Yes, I opposed it, but not that vocally, for two reasons --
a) It wasn't that much money, and
b) I recognized that with it being operated by private enterprise rather than government cost growth would be controlled, which it is.
Had I know just how successful Part D would be, I would have supported it. OTOH, the Ds are meddling with it and it will destroy the best government run health care program in history. If we could keep Ds out of it, I think the program would be over more successful over time.
BTW, I'm fully supportive of health care reform that provides health care for the indigent, eliminates pre-existing conditions, etc. I just realize that getting more government in health care isn't the way to do it.
Please keep in mind I am not speculating when it comes to government run health care. This is what I do for a living. The people in my business know what we're getting into; even the liberals are scare shitless of this legislation. |
