Deconstructing Axelrod's prevarications

"Axelrod v. Rove on Deficits" [Stephen Spruiell via NRO]

Look, you're not going to get a robust defense of the Bush administration's spending record out of me, but I will make four points regarding David Axelrod's attempt to pin the country's rotten fiscal shape on Bush:

1. Axelrod stretches the truth to justify Obama's massive stimulus bill. He writes:

Economists across the political spectrum agreed that to deal with this crisis and avoid a second Great Depression, the government had to make significant investments to keep our economy going and shore up our financial system.

Not really. The Cato Institute published a letter signed by 200 economists stating that "we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance."...

That is why President Obama and Congress crafted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Despite Rove's assertion, it is widely accepted that the difficult but necessary steps Obama took have helped save our economy from an even deeper disaster.

Widely accepted? Really?

TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the economy?

March 2009: 57 percent approve, 33 percent disapprove.

January 2010: 41 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove

The stimulus is Obama's signature economic achievement, and public approval of his handling of the economy reaches a new low every month.

2. Axelrod claims that the Obama administration heroically prevented TARP from bankrupting the country:

And while Rove conveniently ignores that it was President Bush — not Obama — who signed into law the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout for banks, the Obama administration's rigorous stewardship added transparency and accountability that have cut the expected cost of that program by two-thirds.

Not true. An unexpected rally in the stock market and unlimited support from the Federal Reserve helped the banks pay back their TARP money ahead of schedule...

Also, Axelrod leaves out the part where Obama plans to spend these "savings" on another stimulus package. As Keith Hennessey has noted, this is a gimmick that will unambiguously add hundreds of billions to the deficit.

3. Axelrod writes:

As a start, the president proposed billions of dollars in cuts, and he'll continue to fight for them and others in the upcoming budget. An analysis by the Washington Times concluded that in this first year, Obama had been more successful in getting his proposed cuts through Congress than his predecessor was in any of his eight years in office.

$6.9 billion is not a lot to brag about, especially when you immediately plow the "savings" into spending increases elsewhere.

4. Again, I'm not here to defend Bush's spending record. But I will say this: At least Bush tried to tackle the looming Social Security train wreck, which liberals at the time labeled a "fake crisis." By contrast, Obama is pushing a new hugely expensive new health-care entitlement in a mind-boggling display of obliviousness to the country's parlous fiscal shape...

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