Dear Socially Liberal Fiscal-Conservative Friend,
That’s pretty toothy, so I’m going to call you “Bob.”
But whatever specific name you go by, Bob, you know who you are.
You’re the sort of person who says to his conservative friends or co-workers
something like, “I would totally vote for Republicans if they could just give
up on these crazy social issues.”
When you explain your votes for Barack Obama, you talk about how
Republicans used to be much more moderate and focused on important things such
as low taxes, fiscal discipline, and balanced budgets.
When Colin Powell was on Meet the Press the other
day, you nodded along as he lamented how the GOP has lost its way since the
days when it was all about fiscal responsibility.
And, Bob, you think Republicans are acting crazy-pants on the debt
ceiling. You don’t really follow all of the details, but you can just tell that
the GOP is being “extreme,” thanks to those wacky tea partiers.
So, Bob, as a “fiscal conservative,” what was so outrageous about
trying to cut pork — Fisheries in Alaska! Massive subsidies for Amtrak! — from
the Sandy disaster-relief bill? What was so nuts about looking for offsets to
pay for it?
Bob, I’m going to be straight with you. I never had much respect
for your political acumen before, but you’re a sucker.
You’re still spouting this nonsense about being fiscally
conservative while insisting that the GOP is the problem. You buy into the
media’s anti-Republican hysteria no matter what the facts are. Heck, you even
believe it when Obama suggests he’s like an Eisenhower Republican.
Well, let’s talk about Eisenhower, your kind of Republican. Did
you know that in his famous farewell address he warned about the debt? “We
cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the
loss also of their political and spiritual heritage,” he said. “We want
democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent
phantom of tomorrow.”
Bob, we are that insolvent phantom, you feckless, gormless clod.
The year Eisenhower delivered that speech, U.S. debt was roughly half our GDP.
But that was when we were still paying off WWII (not to mention things like the
Marshall Plan), and the defense budget constituted more than half the U.S.
budget (today it’s a fifth and falling). Now, the debt is bigger than our GDP.
Gross Domestic Product is barely $15 trillion. The national debt is over $16
trillion and climbing — fast. The country isn’t going broke, Bob, it is broke.
When George W. Bush added nearly $5 trillion in national debt in
two terms you were scandalized. When Obama added more than that in one term,
you yawned. When, in 2006, then-senator Obama condemned Bush’s failure of
leadership and vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling, you thought him
a statesman. Obama, who wants to borrow trillions more, now admits that was
purely a “political vote.”
Yet when Republicans actually have the courage of Obama’s own
convictions, you condemn them.
You nodded sagely when Obama said we needed a “balanced approach”
to cut the deficit. He said he couldn’t rein in entitlements without also
raising taxes on “millionaires and billionaires.” Well, he won that fight. We
raised taxes on millionaires and billionaires exactly as much as he wanted. We
also raised the payroll tax on everyone.
Obama’s response to getting the tax hikes he wanted? He says we
still need a “balanced approach” — i.e., even more tax hikes.
Anyone who calls himself a fiscal conservative understands we have
a spending problem. Do the math. A two-earner couple who retired in 2011 after
making $89,000 per year will have paid about $114,000 into Medicare over their
lifetimes but will receive $355,000. When will it dawn on you that Obama
doesn’t think we have a spending problem? I ask because when he said “we don’t
have a spending problem,” it seemed to have no effect on you.
And yet you still think Paul Ryan’s budget was “extreme.” Do you
know when it balanced the budget? 2040. What’s a non-extreme date to balance
the budget, Bob? 2113?
Look, Bob, I don’t want to go spelunking in that cranium of yours.
I don’t know why you think you’re a fiscal conservative. The simple fact is,
you’re not. The green-eye-shaded Republicans you claim to miss would be
scandalized by the mess we’re in, largely thanks to voters like you, Bob. Eisenhower
would take a flamethrower to today’s Washington.
I don’t expect you to vote Republican, never mind admit you’re
simply a liberal. But please stop preening about your fiscal conservatism,
particularly as you condemn the GOP for not being fiscal conservatives, even
when they are the only fiscal conservatives in town.
— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a
visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. You can write to him by
e-mail atJonahsColumn@aol.com,
or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2013 Tribune
Media Services, Inc.
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