[Roger Slater]

Originally posted by Roy Hamilton:
That's true Lo, but Clinton wasn't at war now was he? Perhaps if he had been...

Yes, it was rather stupid of Bush to start an unnecessary, elective war that would not only backfire in terms of foreign policy and national security, but would also cost so much money that it would damage the US economy and threaten America's economic standing in the world. Perhaps he actually believed what he and McCain promised, that the war would be funded by Iraqi oil revenues?

But even still, the war does not fully account for the extra 3.5 trillion dollars that Bush added to the national debt. At best, it accounts for about a third of it.

The fact remains that Bush and the Republican Congress inherited a budget surplus and a shrinking national debt, and they basically threw it all away. Having done so, they are falsely accusing the Democrats of being the "tax and spend" party.

The truth means nothing to the Republicans lately. Sarah Palin is billed as a fiscal conservative even though she took a debt-free Wasillia and, when she was through being its mayor, left it with a $22 million debt. And as governor of Alaska, she took the temporary surplus brought about by higher oil prices and distributed it to the taxpayers, which would have been a nice gesture had she not then been forced to turn around and have the state borrow money for existing programs. In other words, she opted to operate the state on borrowed money because she preferred the grandstanding gesture of sending thousand dollar checks to the voters.

Again, the truth means nothing. Even after the lie was pointed out, Sarah Palin continues to deliver the same speech in which she flat-out lies about her supposed opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere. Among other things, she lies by saying that she sent the money back to Washington, when the simple fact is that she kept the money and used it for other projects (including building a new road leading to the site of the bridge that would not be built after all).