Burnt Orange Report

Dallas Morning News Drinkin' Kool-Aide

By Byron LaMasters

The Dallas Morning News really needs to be called out more often for their totally idiotic editorials. Today's editorial reads like a Bush / Cheney Press release full of fluff and devoid of facts (ok, they do give him a minor wrist slap over the deficit).

The U.S. economy is coming back, and you can thank President Bush's tax cuts for much of the rebound.

Four years ago, President Bush inherited an economy tumbling into recession after the tech bubble burst. In the uncertainty after 9-11, the raft of tax cuts he pushed through Congress stimulated the laggard economy.

[...]

The president has pledged to reduce the projected budget deficit to around $260 billion by 2009, down from $420 billion this year. Reality check: He can't do that unless he is willing to get serious about cutting up the government's credit cards, which neither Congress nor the White House cares to do just yet. His convention wish list of generous new social programs is unrealistic, and his desire to make his first-term tax cuts permanent would wreck his pledge to cut the deficit in half within five years.

Mr. Kerry inspires less confidence. His economic proposals are dangerous prescriptions for both higher taxes and sharply increased federal spending. The Kerry plan is precisely the wrong remedy for long-term economic growth.

[...]

The test for any economic policy is whether it creates jobs and raises the standard of living. Mr. Bush is headed in the right direction.

Huh? Are they on crack? Ok, fact check:

America under Bush = 913,000 lost jobs (Department of Labor).

The Bush record? The worst since Herbert Hoover. Either the Dallas Morning News has remarkably low standards, or they're living in fantasyland.

Next up - federal spending. The DMN is worried that a President Kerry would see "sharply increased federal spending". Perhaps they never saw that left-wing commie report this summer by the Cato Institute that showed that conservative President Bush had increased domestic spending greater than those liberal Presidents - Carter and Clinton:

George W. Bush is the most gratuitous big spender to occupy the White House since Jimmy Carter. One could say that he has become the "Mother of All Big Spenders."

[...]

According to the new numbers, defense spending will have risen by about 34 percent since Bush came into office. But, at the same time, non-defense discretionary spending will have skyrocketed by almost 28 percent. Government agencies that Republicans were calling to be abolished less than 10 years ago, such as education and labor, have enjoyed jaw-dropping spending increases under Bush of 70 percent and 65 percent respectively.

[...]

Clinton had overseen a total spending increase of only 3.5 percent at the same point in his administration. More importantly, after his first three years in office, non-defense discretionary spending actually went down by 0.7 percent. This is contrasted by Bush's three-year total spending increase of 15.6 percent and a 20.8 percent explosion in non-defense discretionary spending.

That's the CATO institute folks. As for the deficit. Need I say more? Eight years of deficit reduction under Clinton, followed by four years of destroying it all. Sure, some of it was inevitable because of 9/11, but much of it is due to President Bush's out of control spending.