From Eric Alterman:
“The era of big government is back.” Previous to this year, George W. Bush increased the size of the federal budget by 27 percent, if I’m not mistaken, busting a budget that had been in surplus when he inherited it and making him the biggest of big government spenders since Lyndon Johnson. Within that context, he has still managed to cut—or is trying to, almost all payments going to the most vulnerable members of society, children, students, the poor, the working poor and even (particularly) veterans (and here), while vastly increasing the amount given to the very rich and to the military. Five years ago Bush told us he was something different; a “compassionate conservative.” We now know he is neither compassionate, nor by any imaginable definition an economic conservative. Rather he is merely dishonest; effectively so, perhaps, but no less dishonest for being so.