BCT Editorial – 9/6/06

This page was last updated on September 6, 2006.

Bush the enabler; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 6, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“President refuses to ask Americans what they can do for their country

“For being the nation’s first president with an MBA, George W. Bush has trouble understanding basic accounting.

“NBC-TV news anchor Brian Williams asked Bush whether he was asking the American people to sacrifice enough. The question was asked in the context of the rebuilding following Hurricane Katrina, but it could be applied to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, too.

“Bush’s response was, ‘Americans are sacrificing - we pay a lot of taxes.’

“He’s wrong. We are not sacrificing enough.

“If we were willing to make sacrifices, we would be footing the bill to pay for the government services we are receiving today (and in the near future) instead of foisting off the massive tab on future generations of Americans.”

“If we were willing to make sacrifices, we would accept significant cuts in federal spending today (and in the near future) to balance spending and revenue.”

[RWC] When have you read an editorial identifying any spending that should be cut? Indeed, editorial after editorial calls for more spending on this program or that.

“But instead of having a leader who challenges us to make sacrifices today so that future generations of Americans won’t be buried in our debt, we have an enabler in the White House who encourages us to live for today and not to worry about tomorrow.”

[RWC] The author could have made this comment about every president since and including FDR except for Harry Truman and Bill Clinton. Truman benefited from the post World War II boom and Clinton benefited from the 1990s technology boom and from a Republican-majority Congress for most of his term.

“We’re bankrupting the future, and we don’t care.

“And it starts at the top.”

[RWC] If anyone can produce Times editorials during the presidencies of FDR, JFK, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton that bashed that president for deficits, please let me know.

Don’t get me wrong. I oppose deficit spending, but I oppose that spending regardless of the president’s political party. I just don’t believe the Times really cares about deficits.