PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

Bloomberg on the outrageous Republican spending orgy:

President George W. Bush is presiding over the biggest growth in U.S. government spending since 1990, as a Republican-led Congress provides money for programs [such as] a dried plant exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden.

Federal spending rose 7.3 percent to $2.2 trillion in fiscal 2003 and 7.9 percent the year before, the most since George H. W. Bush was in the White House. Congress will vote this week on a $328 billion bill to fund such projects as an $18 billion loan guarantee for an Alaska gas terminal that may benefit ConocoPhillips Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp ...

``The big boom you're having right now might not be sustainable if the deficit continues to be large,'' said Steven Hess, an analyst with Moody's Investors Service.

The U.S. government's credit rating may be in jeopardy in the next decade unless lawmakers limit spending and reduce the deficit, Hess said. Merrill Lynch & Co. and HSBC Holdings Plc economists say White House projections are too low. They forecast the fiscal 2004 shortfall may be at least $600 billion.

Bush II's spending orgy seems to follow a well-practiced re-election strategy perfected by Republican presidents:

Reagan won a second term in 1984 with 58.8 percent of the vote after government spending increased by more than 8 percent a year in his first three years in office. Richard Nixon also won a second term after spending rose by higher percentages each year of his first term, reaching 9.8 percent in 1972 when he won with 60.3 percent of the vote.

Here's more on how the Republicans are burning money like a bonghead burns up weed:

Bush also is pushing for an energy bill, intended to reduce U.S. dependence on the resources of other nations, that stalled in the Senate last month. The funding for that bill has grown in Congress to $31 billion, almost quadruple the amount Bush requested.

``The deficit is manageable, but no one in Congress or the White House is doing anything to manage it,'' said Bixby, of the Concord Coalition.

Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who heads the Commerce Committee, said the Medicare bill, which Bush signed today, will cause the 38-year-old program ``to go broke,'' and the energy bill is ``just one pork-barrel project larded on to another.''

Lawmakers secured about $24 billion in taxpayer money for "hometown projects" in the fiscal 2004 budget, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington group. That's a record, equal to the combined budgets of the Justice Department, Small Business Administration and National Science Foundation.

Bush has criticized lawmakers for funding hometown projects, such as $400,000 for the New York Botanical Garden's virtual herbarium, a collection of dried plants. Still, Bush has never vetoed a spending bill. The rising cost of such projects shows Congress lacks the will to cut spending, said David Williams, vice president of policy at Citizens Against Government Waste ...

``The math is really unforgiving: you either address entitlements or raise taxes,'' [professor Glenn Hubbard] said.

Make no mistake folks, Republicans can keep pretend as long as they want, but the fact remains -- there is no free lunch. The Republican tax increases are coming -- and they will be truly enormous HUGE. Like nothing Bush I every hit us with.

And here is a little political bone to chew -- how many don't think that all it would take woud to end the administration of Bush II is a [non-crazy] Ross Perot on the ballot? If someone like Sen John McCain got pissed off enough and ran for President as an independent it would be lights out for George Bush II, just as it was for George Bush I.

Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack