Say Anything Blog

Having decided to anoint himself a “budget hawk,” Senator Kent Conrad sees the time around when our President releases his annual budget as his time to shine.  The funny thing is the duplicitous way in which he decides to shine.

Take, for instance, this from Senator Conrad about our nation’s budget deficit problem:

Washington – Senator Kent Conrad and his Senate colleagues were joined today by seniors, college students and children to call attention to the misguided priorities in the President’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2009.

“The sad reality is that the President’s policies have exploded the nation’s debt. Instead of paying our bills now, the President has been running up the charge card. And he’s handing the bill to our children and grandchildren,” Senator Conrad said. . . .

“The President has said that he wouldn’t pass on problems to future generations. But that is exactly what he is doing,” Senator Conrad said. “The debt buildup on his watch threatens our economic security and it threatens our children’s future. We can’t allow it to continue.”

Well of course we can’t allow it to continue, so I’m sure the Senator will run right down to the Senate chamber and introduce some legislation to slow down spending growth so that we quit digging ourselves into this hole of debt, right?

Wrong.  Instead, Senator Conrad is going to complain that the President’s budget doesn’t include enough pork for his home state.

That’s right.  Senator Conrad manages to criticize the President over deficit spending out of one side of his mouth while criticizing the President for not spending enough money on North Dakota out of the other side of his mouth.

Make sense?  Only if you remember that Conrad is a tax-and-spend liberal whose idea of balancing the budget is taxing more than you spend.  Which means he can keep calling for more spending, as long as he calls for more taxes to pay for that spending.

Angry about your taxes, America?  Blame people like Kent Conrad.