How do small-government conservatives square this? According to the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute, Georgie is the biggest spending president since LBJ (who also had a war going on, so that's no excuse). There's no denying it, Georgie's a Spending Fool:"When adjusted for inflation, discretionary spending — or budget items that Congress and the president can control, including defense and domestic programs, but not entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare — shot up at an average annual rate of 5.3 percent during Bush’s first six years, Slivinski calculates.That tops the 4.6 percent annual rate Johnson logged during his 1963-69 presidency. By these standards, Ronald Reagan was a tightwad; discretionary spending grew by only 1.9 percent a year on his watch.
Discretionary spending went up in Bush's first term by 48.5 percent, not adjusted for inflation, more than twice as much as Bill Clinton did (21.6 percent) in two full terms, Slivinski reports." [...]
"Homeland security spending also has soared, to about $31 billion last year, triple the pre-9/11 number."
This is where I get lost. It makes sense that homeland security spending would increase, but what the hell are they spending it on? Hurricane Katrina should have been a shining showcase of FEMA/homeland security capabilities, and that mess speaks for itself. With all the billions spent, that was the best they could do in an emergency? There's obviously a lot of money being made scammed by people who aren't actually doing anything for it. It makes things like FEMA's fake news briefing last week all the more aggravating.
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