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Obama’s Inheritance

February 23rd, 2009 at 6:40 am David Frum | 22 Comments |

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The British press leans Democratic and pro-Obama, which is their prerogative, but even by prevailing standards this morning’s headline in the print FT is remarkable: “Obama to unveil plan for having budget shortfall he inherited.” Inherited? Sorry – when you spend $800 billion in your first month in office, the resultant deficits are yours, all yours.

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22 Comments so far ↓

  • gibberish // Feb 23, 2009 at 9:41 am

    Doesn’t seem that remarkable a way to present it.

    He inherited a deficit and made it bigger.

  • fact based // Feb 23, 2009 at 10:08 am

    only in the warped thinking of an ex W speechwriter could this not be an accurate. And no the resultant deficits are not “yours all yours”. Did you bother to read beyond the headline:
    …His budget to be released on thursday will show the deficit falling to 533bln by 2013 against an inherited deficit of 1.3 trillion .”

    Only in the mind of a W speechwriter would the ft headline be “remarkable”

  • Bulldoglover100 // Feb 23, 2009 at 10:49 am

    Seriously David? and are we to ignore the 1.2 Trillion that Bush left us with? and Bush’s 800 Billion bail out of Wall Street before he left office? We are to blame Obama for that too? Not to educated people you won’t. They laugh at us and our party when we play these games.

    I don’t like what’s going on any more than the other guy but I demand honesty even from my own party and your comments? are dishonest.

  • fact based // Feb 23, 2009 at 10:50 am

    after monitoring this blog since its inception with the hope of finding an interesting intelligent alternative to the rt wing repub talking points on the talk radio/fox/blog echo chamber i have concluded that Mr Frum should shut the blog down and seek employment on fox or talk radio, I’m sure it pays better than this gig. You could hire a couple of the 22 yr olds blogging here as assistants.

  • sinz54 // Feb 23, 2009 at 10:52 am

    Obama’s “plan” is just to give him political cover to spend even more money. It shouldn’t be taken seriously. It is impossible to figure out what the deficit will be and how to cut it, when tax revenues depend on the strength of the economy. And if we conservatives are right (as I’m sure we are), the economy will remain weak right through Obama’s term, greatly depressing tax revenues.

  • ireign // Feb 23, 2009 at 11:08 am

    Fact based, you sure have a lot of time on your hand. Perhaps your time would be better spent reading 1984 and realizing how Orwellian your monker is.

    I think this http://abovethelaw.com/2009/02/lawyer_of_the_day_michael_wach.php shows the problem with British upper-class thinking in general.

  • TheDudeAbides // Feb 23, 2009 at 11:11 am

    Obama took a bad situation and is making it far worse. The numbers speak for themselves. Reflexive Bush blamers fail to understand the “subtlety” of the difference. They’ll still be blaming Bush for everything that goes wrong 10 years from now.

  • fact based // Feb 23, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    ireign

    simple exercise:

    1. read frum’s comment
    2. read the ft article
    3. tell me why frum is not the one in orwellian doublespeak land

  • Egli Ha // Feb 23, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    Sorry, David, but only the money Obama has spent is his. The rest of the deficit belongs to the GOP.

    Even the money Obama has spent belongs to the GOP–if not for the GOP, the stimulus would not be necessary.

  • Bulldoglover100 // Feb 23, 2009 at 2:49 pm

    I came here also looking for a place where a Republican who was tired of the old politics could find a place that offered us hope that we might win some elections in 2010. Some place where we could look to the future and stop being freaking cry babies but the only think Mr. Frum seems to be realistic about is Sarah Palin being an idiot. Beyond that? He appears to have decided that the money from advertising comes from the far right wing nut jobs.
    This article? Is a flat out lie and I am ashamed of you Mr. Frum. Inherited? YES he inherited 1.2 trillion in debt and 800 million from the month before he took office. He has to own the stimulus plan that has passed but that does NOT remove Bush/Cheney and their rape of this country.

  • Egli Ha // Feb 23, 2009 at 3:38 pm

    Besides, the Right Man’s VP said deficits don’t matter.

  • coleman // Feb 23, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    It’s a GOP deficit. We bungled the finances of the country and we’re paying for it. Time to stop the grouchy gamesmanship and start putting forth real ideas to fix the mess we’re in. Rove, Hannity, and Limbaugh need to go away, far, far, far away. Listen to Arnold, listen to Crist.

  • Jack Bauer 24 // Feb 23, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    are you serious??!! if obama had spent nothing there would still have been a deficit. I thought this was a different website to NRO! disappointing.

  • ireign // Feb 23, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    Coleman, few questions: (1) Why should we listen to Arnold who has driven California into the ground fiscally and ruined what was left of the GOP in California? (2) Name one domestic spending program that Bush implemented that you would do away with? In general, most Democrats and liberal Republicans would have spent MORE and not LESS than Bush did.

    Jack Bauer 24-Are you serious? By different website to NRO, are you saying that you thought it would be a Democratic website? Obama and many Democrats claimed they would tackle the deficit. Instead, Obama has taken on a huge spending bill. Saying that there would be a deficit regardless, does not take away from the point.

  • sinz54 // Feb 23, 2009 at 5:50 pm

    There’s an old saying: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” As far as the problem of deficits goes, Obama is definitely not part of the solution. Yes, he inherited a large government deficit and debt from the previous Administration. But instead of trying to fix that problem, he compounded it by adding to the Federal budget another mostly useless $800 billion “stimulus” package, another multi-hundred billion dollar bailout package for the financial sector, and yet more promises about health care reform which even he admits will cost at least $52 billion more a year. What ever happened to setting priorities? Why is it necessary to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on these things and then on health care and environmental reform too, and only afterwards say “Now let’s see if we can cut the deficit”? If keeping the deficit down was important to Obama, then is it really necessary to spend every dollar of that $800 billion? There are no trims that could have been made? If Obama is going to kick the can on deficits that far down the road, then it’s clear he really doesn’t care about running up huge deficits.

  • gibberish // Feb 24, 2009 at 5:10 am

    @sinz54 – he has set priorities…. great depression avoidance 1st, deficit reduction 2nd… Not a difficult choice even if you disagree with the methods

  • sinz54 // Feb 24, 2009 at 8:50 am

    gibberish: It appears that deficit reduction is not even 2nd on Obama’s list of priorities. Health care reform (there goes another $52 billion a year) seems to be ahead of deficit reduction, at least. So far, I haven’t seen Obama place deficit reduction ahead of any of the Left’s wet dreams about remaking America in their image.

  • HollywoodBill // Feb 24, 2009 at 8:51 am

    Arnold has ruined the Republican Party in California? Spare me. In 2002, the CA Republican Party lost the election for every single Constitutional office, a feat unparrallelled in over 100 years. Arnold won reeelection in 2006 as did Republican Steve Poizner for Insurance Commissioner. Like it or not, hard right social conservatives have not won any statewide position since 1986. While Arnold has been less than successful, that probably has more to do with him being that mythical crusading outsider without any necessary party alliances. California’s financial mess has more to do with the overspending because of the influx of money due to the real estate bubble and now its collapse. While a flawed governor, the template is there. No hard right social conservatives. A fiscal conservative yes. Religious whacko? Not a chance in the world and that libertarian philosophy which has been part of the famed Reagan alliance is now adrift from the national Republican Party. The Mountain West and the Pacific Coastal states will never vote for a religious whack job like Palin or the Louisiana excorcist, Bobby Jindal.

  • ireign // Feb 24, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    HollywoodBill, your argument is incorrect. Arnold’s tenure has seen a rise in spending to the tune of 32% in California. http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=40977 The economy and real estate market was good in 2006 yet California’s finances still stunk. He has been a terrible governor. Libertarian philosophy does not encompass claiming to be a Milton Friedman devotee while you propose more and more spending in a state that cannot afford it.

  • HollywoodBill // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:43 am

    ireign, Arnold has been a disappointment. There are always excuses if one wants to find them, but he has proven again that a Republican can win in California if they dump the social conservatives theocratic agenda. No social conservative has won statewide since 1986 and that was when Tom Bradley, as in the Bradley Effect ran for governor. There are already three good Republican candidates running for Governor who are following the template established by Pete Wilson and does work at least in getting elected.

  • sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 10:58 am

    HollywoodBill and ireign: The GOP has to come to two fundamental realizations: 1. It must develop a “50 state strategy” aimed at expanding the GOP into areas it currently does not hold. It can no longer concede every non-Red state except Ohio to the Dems. 2. Only the much-despised “RINOs” can win in Blue States–if “RINO” is defined to mean a Republican who does not subscribe to the hard-right social conservative agenda. Rudy Giuliani should be a template: He is still popular, even in the Northeast; he is ethnic (Italian-American Catholic); he is socially moderate; and he is an economic conservative and foreign-policy hawk. The GOP needs more of that type.

  • HollywoodBill // Feb 25, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    sinz, The GOP must have a 50 state strategy if they are going to be a viable opposition. And the dominance of the socons nationally is doomed to failure and they are going to have to realize that their brand of conservatism does not play nationally. At best it is a regional offshoot but it lacks any national appeal. It alreeady doesn’t play in the Northeast, the Pacific Coastal states and added in 2008 the Mountain West and the Great Lakes region. I have no idea what the solution is, but at least we are all started to understand, hopefully, what isn’t working and what will not work on a national ticket.

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