Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is showing himself to be cast in the mold of Republican presidents like George W. Bush and candidates like Sen. John McCain.
During a PBS News Hour segment, Pawlenty, Gov. Mark Sanford of North Carolina (R) and Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., were interviewed by Judy Woodruff, on where does the Republican Party go from here.
Following on something Sanford had said, Pawlenty weighed in with this conveniently incomplete version of history (emphasis ours):
I think Mark described it very well in the sense that we’re the parties of fiscal discipline, amongst other things. You can’t say that and then go and have — be an accomplice to what’s going on in Washington, D.C., which is, you know, the nation’s just choking in debt, it’s drowning in debt. There’s no real effort by Republicans or Democrats to balance the budget, not just in the context of this economic crisis, but for years and decades preceding this.
You know, that’s just — it’s not freedom, it’s not liberty when you handcuff your children and your grandchildren to a wagon full of debt. It’s not freedom and liberty if you allow the government to take over the health care system.
Thus, with a spinning vortex of hot air, Pawlenty dismissed the 1990s, when the Clinton administration and congressional Democrats, admittedly with cooperation from some Republicans, instituted the “pay-go” rule. That rule required that when someone wanted to undertake new or increased spending for something, they had to reduce or eliminate spending for one or more other things.
That simple, sensible austerity measure paid incredible dividends in a few short years. When the Clinton administration ended, it had delivered the first balanced budgets and created the the first budget surpluses in many years. Here’s where things stood Oct. 28, 1999:
* The $123 billion surplus in 1999 is the largest dollar surplus in history, even after adjusting for inflation;
* The surplus, expected to be about 1.4% of GDP, is the largest surplus as a share of the economy since 1951;
* 1999 is the second year in a row of surplus, marking the first back-to-back surpluses since 1956-57;
* This is the first time in U.S. history that we’ve experienced seven years in a row of fiscal improvement.The Largest Debt Reduction in History:
* Over the last two years, America has paid down $140 billion in public debt, the largest debt pay-down ever;
* The debt held by the public is $1.7 trillion lower than was projected when President Clinton took office;
* As a result, in 1999 alone, interest payments on the debt were $91 billion lower than projected.
That was just in ‘99. Surpluses in 2000 and 2001 were even greater.
“Drowning in debt . . . for years and decades preceding this,” Pawlenty said.
Not quite.
But that was not all Pawlenty got wrong. He carefully depicted our current fiscal and financial mess as a bipartisan thing. In truth, it is very much something Republicans brought on, with the Bush White House leading the way.
Fact No.1: Bush has done more borrowing and spending than all previous presidents combined, $1.07 trillion vs. $1.04 trillion.
Fact No. 2: When Republicans gained control of Congress and the White House at the beginning of the decade, one of the first things they did was throw out the pay-go rule.
Fact No. 3: Republicans alone decided to finance the entire cost of the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq through borrowing, rather than raising taxes and/or cutting spending elsewhere.
“It’s not freedom and liberty if you allow the government to take over the health care system,” Pawlenty said.
Here in Republicanland, Americans by the hundreds of thousands have “enjoyed” the right in recent years to endless grief leading to financial ruin if they or a loved one suffered a broken back, developed cancer or endured a similar catastrophe.
That’s good old conservative freedom in action: struggle, suffer and go bankrupt as a do-it-yourself project.
Pawlenty is either as poorly informed as his Alaska counterpart or — and this seems more likely — he’s deliberately trying to revise history so as to spread the blame onto Democrats, while simultaneously disappearing the first balanced budgets and budget surpluses in nearly a half century.
Pawlenty also demagogued what president-elect Barack Obama wants to do to help another 35 million Americans be able to afford health care insurance.
The joke is old but still too true to be funny. You can always tell when Republicans are lying: their lips are moving.
Way to go Woodruff: It would’ve been really swell if Woodruff had politely mentioned to Pawlenty about the Clinton balanced budgets and surpluses. It would have been really fair if the segment had included a Democrat, to counter some of the revisionist history and propagandizing.
Just another case of the liberal media being unfair to poor, misunderstood conservative Republicans — not!
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Let’s all gather ’round the table and hear uncle Anderson’s tales of Democrat fiscal responsibility.
Clinton was a big spender. He benefited from the tech bubble and the downsizing of the military.
There wasn’t much effort by Democrats to reign in spending during the Bush years. They offered programs and grabbed earmarks as fast as anyone, and for the most part voted for all the stuff.
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
We’ve gathered, now how about you tell us all about Republican fiscal responsibility? Just because ‘tax-and-spend’ and ‘fiscal conservative’ are repeated ad nauseum by the likes of Pawlenty and talking hairpieces doesn’t make them true. Yeesh.
Looking at the National Defense Budget Estimates for 2009 green book, I’m seeing these numbers, in FY2000 dollars:
FY1988 290m
FY1989 303m
FY1990 299m
FY1991 273m
FY1992 298m
FY1993 291m
FY1994 281m
FY1995 272m
FY1996 265m
FY1997 270m
FY1998 268m
FY1999 274m
FY2000 294m
FY2001 304m
FY2002 348m
FY2003 404m
FY2004 455m
FY2005 495m
Yep, sure saved Clinton gobs of cash to balance the budget.
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 11:28 am
RSF, I agree the Clinton administration benefited from the tech bubble, but as Randal excellently demonstrates, the military budget was still plenty fat and sassy. BTW, we sure didn’t see government interference and heavy taxation spoiling the tech industry’s good time, did we?
What we did see was administration and congressional Democrats adhering to pay-go, unlike Republicans when they took control.
Randal, excellent point. Thanks for those figures.
on Nov 16th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Selective memory — Republicans are very talented at that.
Their other main gimmick is to pretend that they lost the election because they’re “too moderate.” “The party needs to stand for something,” “those RINOs and moderates dragged us down,” etc.
on Nov 16th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Please, please, the Republicans most definitely are the party of “small government” and “fiscal responsibility”–it says so on all their promotional stuff. They don’t do it, of course, but they are the party of it, if you see what I mean.
Don’t forget, either, that they believe in creating their own reality, generally by wanting it to be so really, really hard, and by saying so a lot. Being reality based is so…so–so Barack Obama.
on Nov 16th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Tom, you’re right. The country was really yearning for a Grover Norquist-Rick Santorum ticket.
Jeff wrote: “Being reality based is so…so–so Barack Obama.”
And so subversive, in a closet-Muslim-terrorist sense.
on Nov 18th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Doesn’t anyone here want to come over with me and be a right winger? Doesn’t anyone want to try anything different? No? Just the same ol’ liberalism, all the time?
I feel kind of picked on.
>>>>We’ve gathered, now how about you tell us all about Republican fiscal responsibility? (Randal Graves)
A sad tale indeed. There was no Republican fiscal responsibility these last 8 years. We feel guilty, and we’re working on it. But the point was that Democrats were right there with them, and they have no feelings of guilt.
>>>>Looking at the National Defense Budget Estimates for 2009 green book, I’m seeing these numbers, in FY2000 dollars:
I can’t find said green book. I don’t know where they got those numbers. I ran OMB (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/hist.pdf) numbers through an inflation adjuster:
(my numbers beside yours)
FY1989 303m 407m
FY1990 299m 379m
FY1991 273m 329m
FY1992 298m 350m
FY1993 291m 330m
FY1994 281m 310m
FY1995 272m 292m
FY1996 265m 277m
FY1997 270m 278m
FY1998 268m 282m
FY1999 274m 269m
FY2000 294m 281m
Clinton pulled roughly 100 billion a year away from the military compared to earlier budgets, back when 100 billion meant something. It gave him another 6% of the budget to play with, not huge but significant.
>>>> we sure didn’t see government interference and heavy taxation spoiling the tech industry’s good time, did we?
No, we didn’t. Republicans might get some credit here.
Wasn’t the internet born in a gov’t lab? I love R & D spending. An example of good things happening when you support high IQ people.
on Nov 18th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Indeed, the internet began c. 1969 as ARPAnet (the world’s first successful packet-switching network, etc.), a research project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Recall, too, that the Web was invented at CERN by a physicist.
Now, if you want to get in there and support “high IQ people” — not to mention physicists — so that more good things can happen, I can accept checks, money orders, or credit cards.
on Nov 18th, 2008 at 11:37 am
RSF wrote, “But the point was that Democrats were right there with them, and they have no feelings of guilt.”
I clearly recall when Democrats argued, demanded and pleaded to have the Rx drug legislation include provisions for the government to bargain with drug companies for quantity-buy discounts. That would’ve meant lower prices for seniors and for taxpayers. Republicans refused.
Yes, Democrats were right beside Republicans voting money for Bush’s self-inflicted Iraq disaster. After seeing young movement-conservative appointees who didn’t know squat bungle nation building, wasting hundreds of billions, throwing money around like it was nothing to pacify the Iraqis temporarily; after seeing $9 billion disappear into Iraq, Syria or wherever; after seeing Bush have the world’s biggest terrorist target, Taj Mahal embassy built in Baghdad, Democrats got off the merry-go-round. Then, lying Republicans accused them of voting to not fund the troops. Then, there were billions thrown hastily and wastefully at the Katrina disaster.
Democrats had to make some deals to be able to get anything done, like adequately funding the VA. They have no more feelings of guilt than a mugging or blackmail victim.
Your attempt at revising history to suit political needs of the moment is lame and transparent, RSF. Republicans own the last eight years. They’re paying a political price for no-compromise, “my way or the highway” misrule. And they should.