Bush Is A Spender - Not A Conservative

Recently, Bush has been posing as a conservative. He wants voters to believe that he is holding the line against a spendthrift Democratic Congress. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The truth is that Bush has been a bigger spender than any previous president. Spending under Bush has grown at a rate of 5.3% per year (adjusted for inflation). That is only the discretionary spending, and does not count Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This is spending that he had control over.

The fact is that Bush is a big spender, and he cannot blame the Democrats. For all but the last year, he did that spending with a Republican Congress (and never once vetoed a Republican spending bill). While Bush and that Republican Congress would love to continue their mantra of being small-government conservatives, the facts show they are bigger spenders than the Democrats ever have been.

Bush apologists are quick to point out that Bush had a war to finance. There are two things wrong with that argument:

1. The war was unnecessary -- so unnecessary that he had to lie to get Americans to go along with it. He also continued it long after most Americans wanted him to withdraw.

2. Lyndon Johnson also had a war, and the Vietnam war costs combined with a "war on poverty" still did not result in as large a growth in spending as Bush has engineered.

But the growth of spending under Bush wasn't limited to defense spending. He has overseen a growth of spending across the board.

Sadly though, Bush's massive increase in spending has done little or nothing to help ordinary Americans. The only people who are better off are the rich and the corporate interests -- they are doing better than ever. It is hard to understand how Bush can have spent so much and accomplished so little.

Bush has raised incompetence to new heights, and possibly even turned it into an art form.