National Indebtedness

I recently cited an article on taxes in Forbes by Bruce Bartlett, economist and former Reagan administration official.  From a recent follow-up from Bartlett:

The truth is that the greatest addition to national indebtedness occurred in 2003 when Bush rammed through the Republican Congress a massive expansion of Medicare to provide drug benefits even though the system was already broke. According to the latest report from Medicare's trustees, the drug benefit added $7.9 trillion to the nation's indebtedness. This should have led to massive tax protests on April 15, 2004. But, of course, there weren't any. Those protesting this week were only protesting because it is a Democrat who has increased the deficit. When a Republican did worse, it's like Emily Litella used to say, "Never mind."

Of course, people are free to protest whatever they want whenever they want, and are also free to change their minds. Maybe this week's tax protesters would have been out protesting even if McCain were president, but I don't think so. I believe this was largely a partisan exercise designed to improve the fortunes of the Republican Party, not an expression of genuine concern about taxes or our nation's fiscal future.

People should remember that while they have the right to their opinion, they are not entitled to be taken seriously. That only comes from having credibility gained by the correct presentation of facts and analysis and a willingness to be even-handed--criticizing one's own side when it is wrong and not only speaking up when the other party does the same thing.

I'm sure many of the protesters were very concerned about Bush's spending and (hypothetically) feel like they would have reacted the same if McCain had been the one bailing out the banks and stimulating the economy.  Still, in the last ~ 30 years of ballooning deficits, there have only been 2 years when the Republicans controlled neither the White House or Congress, yet conservatives have picked such a period of relative impotence to take to the streets about taxes and debt?  That doesn't seem like good timing to me.