John Hinderaker
Power Line
7/14/2010
Governor Tim Pawlenty has an excellent column in Politico this morning. Pawlenty deserves recognition as one of the most effective fiscal conservatives in America. He has succeeded in keeping spending under control not in a red state with a cooperative legislature, but in blue Minnesota, where he has battled, and defeated, a Democrat-controlled legislature. By being more determined than the Democrats and by repeatedly outsmarting them, Pawlenty has kept spending in check even though for the last two years, his support in the legislature has consisted of a House minority that can sustain his vetoes only if every member holds firm. Don’t let Pawlenty’s nice-guy demeanor fool you. When it comes to protecting the taxpayers’ money, no one is tougher.
Here are some excerpts from today’s column:
Washington under President Barack Obama is not just broken — it’s broke.
When Obama entered office, he inherited a budget deficit that reflected the toxic combination of recession, bailouts and runaway entitlement programs. But rather than getting the government’s finances under control, Obama and his allies in Congress poured gasoline on the fire with trillion-dollar boondoggles.
To put the recent spending binge in context, consider this: At the end of 2008, just before Obama took office, the federal debt was about 40 percent of our nation’s total economy. Now, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office report, the debt will explode to 62 percent of our economy by the end of this year. …
In a bizarre development, the Democratic-controlled House won’t even pass a budget for the first time in decades. Any family or business knows you can’t live within your means without a budget. Congressional Democrats have now announced they won’t even try.
This article continues at Power Line.
