Remember, when Republicans increase educational spending, the media says the opposite
What's the reasoning there? A left-leaning administration would never had spend the money the way GWB did. Yet, i fail to see in which left-leaning significant area he spent a single penny. Neither any old school liberal area... :dunno:
Ummm, welfare, unemployment benefits and, massively, educational increases were rampant in the first W. term, well before Iraq.
Some were due to the poor state of the economy when he took over, especially the layoffs in Q1 and Q2 of 2001 that were not his doing. Additional costs were after 9/11 in the economic aftershocks (easily measured in the trillions beyond the immediate $400B impact). So he really didn't have a choice in those. Gore would have done the same. It was the "leftovers" of the shitty state of the economy that Clinton left it in (despite the surplus of $200B in 2000, the predicted 2001 budget was a massive deficit increase) -- although it wasn't half has bad as Obama is getting, I'll fully admit.
But when it came to education, Africa and other, social programs, those were direct promises by W. which he committed to. The problem is that the US media and, therefore, the International media will
misreport the actual spending on education, among other things, when a Republican is in the White House. This only causes Republicans to capitulate and spend even more. As an American Libertarian-Capitalist, it drives me bonkers when Republicans do this. They often keep trying to "appease the left-leaning US media" by handing out more entitlements.
The Republican Congress and Clinton Presidency actually cut entitlements from 1995-1998. The only way the Republicans were able to do that is because a Democrat was President, especially Clinton. Clinton was great for saying one thing, but doing the right thing -- or better yet, saying what people wanted to hear, but knowing there was no chance in hell anything would pass in Congress. Kyoto was a perfect example, with
no Democrat Senators (his own party) voting for it (shot down 0-98-2). Clinton was not for Kyoto at all, but he signed it for PR, knowing full well it wouldn't pass. He didn't even bother to lobby one of his own Senators to vote for it (which is why demonizations of W. regarding Kyoto are rhetoric, not reality).
I just saw the sad reality that regardless of political ideologies, anyone can be an idiot with the State money.
It's pathetic to spin things around to ooze some anti-leftish propaganda. :1orglaugh
Unfortunately, because the Republicans are more right-leaning, and the US is already very right-leaning versus its own media, let alone the rest of the world, the Republicans tend to get "tugged" left. It's what pisses us Libertarian-Capitalists off the most about Republicans.
I really cannot stand "bleeding heart" media. Unfortunately, W. gave into it while not scoring any points. Now that was before the Iraq war. With the Iraq war, it became ultra-pork spending. America voted in a new Congress in 2006.
But when that new, Democrat Congress took over, they pulled the same "give me pork so I'll support the war" non-sense the Republicans did to their own W. As a result,
the approval ratings of the US Congress fell lower than W.! Ironically, the American public is far more in-touch with reality than the media and the politicians. They knew what was coming well before they would admit.
Sadly though, we still have a good 25% of the US population that listens to the out-of-touch, bleeding heart media and they "keep up with the Jones," which is costing us -- the middle class and small business owners -- for their mistakes. No one is to blame for that. In fact, a lot of this started in the '70s and only got progressively worse in the '80s, '90s and this decade. How people solely blame W. for SUVs and outsourcing is laughable. Hell, even Gore has major oil ties (and most of his wealth and standard of living is tied to it and his family, hence why he's always paid lip service, but no actual change in his living).