Thursday, November 18, 2004

Off to a Great Start: Republicans are already heading the wrong direction. Instead of using this time right after the election to cut spending, they raised the debt ceiling again. This would be an ideal opportunity to rein in excess appropriations, considering that anybody they upset in the process will have calmed down by the next election. If the GOP keeps this up, the Democrats will soon grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility.

But so far the Democrats don't know how to react. In his first appearance since losing the presidential election, Sen. Kerry was stuck in campaign mode, blaming Bush for turning budget surpluses into deficits. This is such an inane argument, because everybody knows we lost the surpluses because of the recession, not because of what Bush did. Instead of looking backwards, the Democrats should be the party that looks into the future and say that, despite the past budget problems, we have no excuse now but to balance our budget. Otherwise we could find ourselves in serious financial trouble in the years to come.