Dispatch

Blogger vs. Blogger

Should we cut Bush a bit of slack for the deficit he ran up as president?

Megan McArdle: “Any president would have done about what Bush did—some combination of spending it, and cutting taxes. The American public was not going to happily pay an extra 6 percent of its income to Uncle Sam so that we could pile up some massive wad of cash.”

Andrew Sullivan: “Is she actually saying that any president would have cut taxes heavily and also increased domestic spending heavily and added a new (unfunded) crippling healthcare entitlement—as he launched a $3 trillion war on two countries? Is she saying that Al Gore was proposing this in 2000?”

Megan: “No, I didn't say that any president would have spent on the specific, often stupid things that Bush did. They would have found their own specific, often stupid things to spend on.”