Addressing the 'Mess We Inherited' Slogan

Posted By Bobby Eberle On April 3, 2009 at 7:08 am

Working late yesterday, the House and the Senate passed budgets which more or less follow Obama's plan. We are now on the verge of seeing the largest budget in the history of the country signed into law. All that's needed is for the House and Senate to iron out the differences and for Obama to sign the bill into law.

With passage, America will move one step closer to socialism, with taxes going up and freedoms going down. And what do we hear from the Democrats? The same tired line that they are doing this to fix the "mess they inherited" over the "past eight years." It's a line that plays well in the media and resonates with the American public. But, as usual, the phrase is not only misleading, it's just plain wrong.

First, a little perspective. For most of the Bush presidency, the country experienced economic growth. In the first quarter of 2002, the economy grew at 2.74 percent. In the third quarter of 2003, the growth stood at 7.49 percent. The first quarter of 2006 saw growth at 4.82 percent.

Then, at the end of 2007, we saw the effects of the housing mess starting to take hold. The fourth quarter of 2007 featured "growth" of -0.17 percent. There was a rebound in the next two quarters, and then everything went south. The last two quarters of 2008 had negative growth (recession) of -0.51 and -6.34 percent, respectively.

For real economic analysis of what happened, I recommend The Heritage Foundation and other similar web sites. However, from a logical perspective, I'd like to pass along a few Friday tidbits for thought.

First, Obama and the Democrats love to blame the economic collapse on Wall Street and those evil "derivative" traders. When someone is out of a job, it's easy to point the finger at "the rich guy," and the Democrats do this with precision. What Obama doesn't tell the American public is that trading on Wall Street is something that goes on everyday. The problem isn't that some people were trading... the problem is what was being traded. With lending institutions being forced by the government to make bad loans, it was only a matter of time before the trading of these "assets" would lead to problems. Is this a problem, Obama inherited? Yes. But it was a problem he inherited from the Democrats going back to the Clinton administration. Their push to put people into houses they couldn't afford is a major component of the mess we're in today.

Then, there are the "Bush" budgets. Yes, the budgets were too big. No doubt about it. The spending, spending, spending, and more spending are four reasons why Americans turned away from the Republican Party. They expected fiscal discipline and, in return, got more spending and more government programs.

As FOXNews.com reports, following the passage of the budget, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "It's going to take a lot of work to clean up the mess we inherited, and passing this budget is a critical step in the right direction."

First of all, there is the key piece of information that liberals love to forget, and that is that Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the last two of those "terrible eight years." Did they exercise fiscal discipline with their budgets? No. Second, and more to the point, during the first six years of the Bush presidency, did they put forward budgets that spent less? No.

There was always debate over any Bush budget, and in that debate, the Democrats always wanted to spend more. Had Bush relented and passed Democrat budgets instead of Republican ones, the "mess" that the current Democrats say they "inherited" would be even worse.

Now, Obama basically has the budget he wanted. We will soon see plans for massive health care spending, environmental taxing, and more and more. The deficits will reach new heights and the debt will be massive. The Democrats will say that it is necessary to "fix the mess we inherited," but in reality, they are spending, spending, spending, and taxing, taxing, taxing in order to advance a socialist agenda that will cost even more in the upcoming years.

Perhaps in 2010 or 2012 or 2016, Republicans can run on the message that we need to "fix the mess we inherited." But will it be fixable by then? I certainly hope so.

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"The mess we inherited"? Tell me, is this an entirely new Congress? There's not one Congressman who was in office last year? I know I've been out of touch, but it seems to me that while there are indeed new members of Congress, there are a heck of a lot in both houses, and from both sides of the aisle who not only were in office last year but some for a lot of years. Kennedy...Kerry...Pelosi...Reid...Dodd to name just a few off the top of my head.

Look, Congress may feel that they have a "mess" to clean up. Personally, I think that's the feeling more of the liberal side and the Democrats than it is the the more moderately minded, much less the conservatives or the Republicans. I'll absolve anyone elected in November who is new to Congress, meaning that they were not re-elected to either chamber, or went from the House to the Senate, or the other way around. 

The President can't make law, Congress makes the law. The President presents a bill, it goes through Congress, and finally to the President's desk for signature. Congress may feel that there's a gun held to their head and pass it through both Houses, but it is still passed by Congress. Bush made mistakes, but a lot of those mistakes were aided and abetted by Congress simply because Congress allowed a bill to go through it's chambers.

And let's not forget: many bills are passed because of favors. Favors offered to vote for a current bill, or maybe because of something done in the past. It's done in Congress, it's done between Congress and the White House, and it's done between Congress and lobbyists. And probably other ways, too. 

My advice to Congress: the American public isn't nearly as stupid, dumb, and ignorant as you think. We're on to you. Change was the buzzword during the last election. You want change? Don't wish for something you just might get.