Thursday, April 08, 2004

Work in Progress: I like The New York Times blurb underneath its Web headline about Kerry promising to limit federal spending as president.

On the newspaper's Web front, the blurb said, "John Kerry said he would impose spending caps except in the areas of security, education, health care and Social Security."

Gee, is that all. Those are the most expensive areas of the federal government.

However, I'm glad Kerry is pushing fiscal responsibility, even though he hasn't figured out how to implement it. That's much better than his previous criticisms of Bush, such as the economy being in the toilet and America being out of work -- both of which are flat-out wrong. The economy is growing and the unemployment rate is 5.7 percent. Also, the president has very little control over those areas, as the business cycle generally runs its own course.

Now Kerry is harping on something that the president does have some control over and something that this president has done a horrible job managing -- the budget deficit.

Kerry wants to roll back some of Bush's tax cuts. I can support raising some taxes for the wealthiest people now that the economy is improving. But we need to make sure the tax increases don't hurt small businesses. However, the real budget responsibility starts with spending restraints.

And it's difficult to believe someone with such a liberal record like Kerry's will abide by fiscal discipline. Kerry is already promising to create new projects and expand other programs, like health care. After all, this is an election year, and much pandering will be involved.