I can’t believe he didn’t get struck by lightning for this:
Keeping America competitive requires us to be good stewards of tax dollars. Every year of my presidency, we’ve reduced the growth of nonsecurity discretionary spending, and last year you passed bills that cut this spending. This year, my budget will cut it again and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another $14 billion next year and stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
It takes balls for him to act like his administration is packed with budget cutting deficit hawks. I will give him that.
BTW- Joe Gandelman has a massive SOTU reaction run-down.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Yea, I picked up on that last night.
I made this comment over at Dkos (before I lost my TU status):
Non-Security Discretionary Spending (4.00 / 2)
HAHAHAHAH
Oh yes, lets forget about the so-called “Defense Budget” which is the biggest Budget of all and has increased the most!
Marcus Wellby
It doesn’t take balls at all. It takes a corrupt media establishment, a useless opposition party, and the cult-like adoration of the rank and file GOP voters. But balls? Not so much.
Steve
Whenever you hear Bush say he’s going to cut the deficit in half by 2009, remember two things:
1) The deficit is entirely his in the first place. Clinton balanced the budget.
2) The entire plan to cut the deficit in half by 2009 ASSUMES that the Bush tax cuts will expire. You can’t possibly make those tax cuts permanent and still carry out the plan. Yet he keeps saying he will do both.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Heh.
SeesThroughIt
An incredibly important point–and one no Bush acolyte will ever acknowledge. “B-b-b-but…tax cuts GOOD! Reagan say so! Reagan god!”
This whole paragraph is like saying, “If you ignore the insane amount of money I’ve been throwing around, I’m actually quite the skinflint.”
JWeidner
There’s an interesting article/commentary in Newsweek that picks up on this and other contradictions Bush made during his speech and through his presidency.
Here
I thought it was pretty good anyway….
Pooh
My foot is less heavily on the accelerator as we speed toward the wall.
SeesThroughIt
By the way, I’d love to see what these 140 poorly-performing programs are. I guarantee that none of them are his faith-based abstinence-only sex ed programs (which, if you say they are performing poorly, you are being unbelievably optimistic) or similar disasters, but he will be cutting things that assist the poor or otherwise disadvantaged.
srv
Or, maybe he’s just delusional and believes what he says…
The Disenfranchised Voter
Don’t scare us, srv.
I think you might be onto something…
Ancient Purple
He was for the deficits before he was against them.
Barry
Piling onto Marcus’ comment – no, it doesn’t take balls to lie again, to people whom one has punked on a regular basis.
Pb
Yeah John, “It takes balls for him to” lie his ass off. I remember when Republicans were admiring Clinton for that same trait, too–except they had a different word for it–what was that again… admir… no… started with a vowel… oh yeah, impeachment, that was the word.
CaseyL
But Clinton lied about something that mattered to each and every American: his sex life.
Bush just lies about economics, war, governmental policies, science, domestic surveillance, and national defense. Who cares about that stuff?
MC
I’ll tell you what galls me, if the President is so much for free trade, why does he want to stop human trafficking? Small business owners engaged in sex slavery provide jobs and put money into the economy that can build roads and schools. They are the backbone of society.
It’s the same thing with the drug trade. If you think the Clear Air Act is detrimental to business, how about the Controlled Substances Act? It’s these kinds of regulation that limit America’s ability to compete in the global economy.
Someday, after income tax rates go to 95% percent to pay for War on Terror debt, medical care and pension benefits for 100 million old people, and Israel, the best jobs in America will be sex slave or drug mule. They won’t have to pay taxes or Social Security. Shouldn’t we be making steps in this direction now, rather than closing off potential new markets?
Lines
Is there a whole new level of snark today? Is snark getting taken to new levels?
Is our children snarking?
VidaLoca
Has DougJ reached the status of local cult hero? You’d think we were all sitting around in online DougJ classes or something…
Theseus
Agreed. Still agree with most of his foreign policy, but the budget, please! It’s like putting a crack addict in charge of your local pharmacy. They can’t help themselves. If anything what the last few years have shown is that it is extremely unwise to have both the presidency and Congress (BOTH the Senate and the House to boot) in the hands of the same party, regardless of their initial intentions or ideology. For that reason alone, it would be nice if a more sane Dem party could at least become electable enough to win control of at least the Senate or the House.
Paul Wartenberg
I’ve been reading the text of the SOTU…
WTF? Cutting our dependence on foreign oil by *2025???*
Procrastinate much, George? Why not try cutting it NOW! Try more measurable goals, like getting our oil dependence down in 5/ five/ cinco YEARS, not 20!!! Who the bleep is gonna keep up with this stuff 20 years from now?!
This is like his damn budgeting: buy now, pay never. Leave the damn bills and the damn priorities to the next chump who gets in office.
Paul Wartenberg
Agreed. I’m willing to bet all the ‘poor performing’ programs are all in education, health, government regulations/management, and all those other ‘non-essential’ programs that the greedheads think are taking away THEIR ‘much-deserved’ pork.
RonB
For all we know, DougJ wrote that part of the SOTU.
jg
Huh? Aside from the pharmicist never being around because he’s out trying to find crack I don’t see the danger.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Paul–
Cutting our dependence on foreign oil is “hard work”.
We’re working on it but the work is hard. It’s only gonna take a quarter of a century…
Steve
Maybe he’s a fundamentalist crack addict who won’t sell birth control. It could happen!
jg
LMAO!
Perry Como
If you only knew…
Krista
Perry — ssshhhh!
Pb
If only Reagan had had that policy (or Carter had won) — we could have cut our dependence on foreign oil by 2005.
Zifnab
Certainly the cool half-billion to Alaska for bridgework is ‘essential’ to Stevens’s realestate portfolio. And those tax cuts are ‘performing’ with record speed to restore our economy without those pesty jobs to burden it down. Looks like everything is going according to plan.
Pb
When he says “poor performing programs”, what he means is that the programs are performing for the poor.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Heh, you’re probably right Pb.
Pooh
Perry, the first rule about DougJ classes is that you don’t talk about DougJ classes…
The Disenfranchised Voter
LOL
The Other Steve
If the Iraq War were underperforming, would we stop funding that?
Fledermaus
That’s the beauty of it, there won’t be much oil left by 2025. So in reality Bush doesn’t have to do squat to meet this promise.
Krista
Doug who? We don’t know any Doug. (Sticks hands in pockets and whistles nonchalantly…)
The plan, friends, is for the U.S. to annex Canada by 2025, and take our oil. It then won’t be foreign oil, but domestic. Easy-peasy.