PRESTOPUNDIT -- A Good Blog at a Great Price. Guaranteed.

George W. Nixon Watch. Mickey Kaus:

I recently talked with an old friend who is employed by the federal government at one of the important agencies. I asked how things were going at work. My friend said:

"I've never seen an administration spend money like this since the days of CETA. The money's flying out the door. I can barely keep up with it. ... They give money away on telephone calls! No documents. No budget. It's the worst I've ever seen it."

According to my friend, all this spending is designed to build political support. ... I've instinctively doubted that Bush is as guilty of excessive spending as the administration's critics (right and left) claim. Mainly, I figured, it was a matter of failing to restrain a congenitally spendthrift Congress. If what my friend says is true, I was wrong. We really are in a Nixonian situation--a president spending irreesponsibly in large part to buy support for a war. (Remember that the silliest excesses of big government, including the double indexation of Social Security benefits, occurred not under a Democratic president but under Nixon.) ...