I was no big fan of George Bush, but this takes the cake!
It was only four years ago that Democrats stopped George W. Bush’s plan to reform Social Security (a case in which the word “reform” actually did mean making it better). At the time, then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) claimed, “Social Security, if we don’t do anything, [is] safe for approximately the next 50 years.” But time flies when you’re spending other people’s money. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that Social Security, for the first time since 1983, will have a cash deficit next year, though even that assumes overly optimistic payroll growth. By 2016, it will be running permanent deficits.
That being said, according to CNS News, “President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year — 2010 — more than the Bush administration spent on [the] war in Iraq from the first ‘shock and awe’ attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January.” During the campaign, of course, Obama used the federal debt as a bludgeoning tool against his opponent. “Because of the Bush-McCain policies, our debt has ballooned,” Obama warned in March 2008. “This is creating problems in our fragile economy. And that kind of debt also places an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay it.” The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl estimates, “President Obama’s budget will likely produce $13 trillion in deficit spending over the next 10 years — nearly $4 trillion more than forecast.” That’s about 10 times Bush’s last deficit.
Obama also complained about the cost of Iraq — “When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war” — but this doesn’t compute either. As another report from The Heritage Foundation indicates, “Applying that same standard to means-tested welfare spending reveals that welfare will cost each household $560 per month in 2009 and $638 per month in 2010.” Witness liberal “compassion.”
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