Some pits are nearly bottomless, and the Republicans are currently digging one with no end in sight. Hysteria and hyperbole have gripped the GOP, suddenly worried about government spending after nearly a decade of ignoring the profligate excesses of the Bush Administration.
With passage of Obama's stimulus package, Republicans are newly concerned with the burden of debts on future generations. Breathless proclamations of "fiscal child abuse" and hand-wringing about "robbing our children's piggy bank" are filling the conservative airways. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Al) said, "Every penny of the plan will be borrowed, and every penny will have to be repaid, with interest, by future generations." Did this obvious concern arise when funding the Iraq war or the Wall Street bailout? Richard Shelby, the other senator from Alabama, was suddenly curious about the source of funds, saying, "I don't know where the money comes from..." Did he ever ask that question of Bush?
Now that Obama is president, Republicans conclude that debts actually have to be repaid. Wow. Reading from some common script, Republican congressmen are going before any available TV camera to conclude that "the fiscal stimulus has to be paid for eventually in the form of higher taxes, which will have a negative economic effect in the future."
Where have these people been for the past eight years?
Let us remember that Bush created a bigger burden on future generations than any president before him. The Republicans under Bush borrowed more from our children and grandchildren than all previous Democratic presidents combined.
Where was Jeff Sessions when our government was borrowing from our children to pay Halliburton? Where was Kit Bond? Where was John Boehner? Where was Patrick McHenry? Where was Richard Shelby? Did these people, now so worried about Obama's spending, sleep through Bush's massive borrowing? Have they already forgotten that they all approved the borrowing when a Republican was doing the spending?
Won't every penny borrowed to pay for the $1 trillion war in Iraq have to be repaid by future generations? Will not that $1 trillion have a negative economic effect in the future? Won't every penny of Bush's $700 billion give-away to Wall Street have to be repaid by future generations? Won't every penny of the record deficits and debts created by Bush and his Republican Congress have to be repaid with interest by future generations?
What is now clear is that Republicans value U.S. currency differently, depending on who is spending the money. Every dollar spent by a Democrat is a burden on future generations, an example of wasteful government, a slide toward socialism, a debt to be repaid by our children. In contrast, every dollar spent by a Republican is an act of patriotism, a fight against terror, a debt that miraculously will not have to be paid by future generations. Only Democratic debt must be repaid. That absurd conclusion is the only one possible if we listen to Republicans consumed with fear about government spending under the new Administration, when they offered no such opposition and expressed no such fear under Bush. According to Republican thought, U.S. currency is no longer the Greenback; we now have the Blueback and the Redback, imbued with different powers to either corrupt or defend our country, respectively.
Reflecting the state of our economy, the GOP is now officially intellectually and morally bankrupt, creating a platform built on hypocrisy so blatant that only they can be blind to the inherent contradictions of their opposition to anything Democratic. Republicans have devolved into nothing more than shrill nay saying opponents who neglect to account for their long record of fiscal irresponsibility and massive borrowing. As the party of borrow and spend, borrow and spend, Republicans have zero credibility in offering solutions to the problems they created. The GOP has no credibility in opposing a stimulus package that effectively repudiates their failures of the past eight years.