In the past year, we’ve heard Democrats, including the president himself, fault Republicans in the 112th Congress for, attempting with their budgets to starve the poor and deprive others of needed social services, as if they insist the less fortunate alone and isolated in a cruel world and oppose all notions of charity and compassion in general and government assistance in particular.
But, as conservative bloggers and pundits (including yours truly) have noted, even the Ryan budget maintains federal domestic spending at or above (mostly above) levels experienced in the Clinton era.
John Hinderaker reminds us of the dishonest Democratic demagoguery in other arena, that of environmental protection, where some Democrats contend Republicans have become far more radical, departing from the traditions of past Republican presidents. John reminds us that it’s not Republicans who have changed, but the Democrats who have become more radical than they once were:
But is it Republicans who have changed on the environment, or Democrats? What Republicans are advocating repeal of the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act? None. What Republicans do object to is the extremism embodied in Barack Obama’s EPA, a senior official of which says that the agency’s “general philosophy” is to “crucify” oil and gas companies.
It’s important to bear in mind that even as Republican candidates and elected officials today talk about scaling back federal regulations and cutting government spending, they’re only talking about repealing legislation passed in the Obama and George W. Bush eras and keeping in place (often to the chagrin of the libertarian-minded among us) legislation enacted before the end of the last century or reducing spending to levels seen under Clinton, Nixon or Reagan.
