With the help of a complicit media, along with former Senators (and former Republicans) Russ Potts and John Chichester, Governor Mark Warner, and later Governor Tim Kaine were able to spin the web of deceit that said that Jim Gilmore left the state budget in shambles.
Warner so craftily told that story that after four tries he finally ushered through and signed the largest tax increase in the history of the Commonwealth to deal with the massive budget “deficit.” Barely two weeks after Warner signed the bill, his Secretary of Finance announced that the Commonwealth would end the year with a budget surplus, roughly equivalent to the amount of the tax increase. To add insult to injury we later found out that Warner’s administration also made a slight $137 million accounting “error.” Oops.
The fact that the Republicans couldn’t counter this pile of Warner’s fertilizer, partly because squishy members of their own party were helping to spread it, is a different story for a different day.
But fast forward to today where the story is how the Barack Obama Administration is applying the same mathmatic principles.
Dick Morris tells us:
President Obama was disingenuous when he said that the budget deficit he faced “when I walked in the door” of the White House was $1.3 trillion. He went on to say that he only increased it to $1.4 trillion in 2009 and was raising it to $1.6 trillion in 2010.
As Joe Wilson said, “You lie.”
Morris says:
So what was the real deficit Obama inherited? The $600 billion deficit Bush was running plus the $200 billion of TARP money that probably won’t be repaid (mainly AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). That totals $800 billion. That was the real deficit Obama inherited.
Read more to get the whole picture: Behind Obama’s Phony Deficit Numbers
Spinning the deficit, as well as the rest of his woes, as his “inheritence” from George W. Bush has become President Obama’s favorite pastime.
Charles Krauthammer puts it best:
There is a statute of limitations on laying it all at the feet of your predecessor. It’s about one year. Time is up. At this point, it’s all whining.
H/T The Corner
