on fiscal predictions and on health care bills

[vvalkyri]

Lifted from jmax315,
The next time you hear someone accuse the Democrats of fiscal irresponsibility, show them this.

This would be a NYTimes analysis of the Congressional Budget Office projections of the budget surplus or deficit for the years 2009-12. Related article: How a Sea of Red Ink Spread From a Puddle. (BTW, the article is fairly critical of

Comments

[jmax315]

Correct. But in the context in which one usually encounters the "fiscally irresponsible" bogon, it's being used as a reason to support the Republicans. Who have consistently spent more than the Democrats since Reagan's administration.

The Republican sound-bite on the subject is "Tax and spend Democrats". There is a measure of truth to that, but corresponding Democratic sound byte (which they don't use for some reason that I've never figured out) is "Borrow and spend Republicans".

I'm not being offered the option of fiscal responsibility by either party; my point is that it's ludicrous for the party that's shown the least fiscal responsibility to tar their opponents with the "fiscally irresponsible" brush.

[jmax315]

Oh, and just to provide a bit of context: my sound-bite take on the two major parties:

Democrats - Run-of-the-mill political scumbags.

Republicans - Evil, mean-spirited political scumbags.

[wotw]

Fiscal irresponsibility is not measured by how much you
spend; it's measured by how much you spend unwisely.

The Bush administration was indeed a champion of fiscal
irresponsibility, but you can't prove that just by adding
up all the spending. The prescription drug benefit, for
example, is arguably an example of fiscal *responsibility*.

When you add up all the good spending and all the bad
spending and present a single number, you're sure to get
a number that's entirely meaningless.

[scaleslea]

I just want us to move to some kind of system where my doctor DOES NOT have to get permission from an Insurance Company accountant before performing a lifesaving procedure.

Doc

[cos]

Which is, I believe, a feature that Medicare and the VA already have. So presumably the "public option" under Obama's reforms would also have this nice feature.