"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson

Monday, July 6, 2009

Duh'

If you did not see Colin Powell on CNN's State of the Union show yesterday, it was excellent. He is a very well thought out person and excellent to listen to, contrary to what the hard right wingers like Limbaugh say about him, he is a great leader.

Powell who speaks to President from time to time and suggests striving for a government that works, one that finds solutions when other entities cannot, but he cautions the President that Obama is taking on too much and that we can't pay for it all.

"I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president - and I've talked to some of his people about this - is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all. And we can't pay for it all," Powell said.
"And I never would have believed that we would have budgets that are running into the multi-trillions of dollars, and we are amassing a huge, huge national debt that, if we don't pay for in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids and great grandchildren will have to pay for it."
Powell has reason to be concerned this is Obama's deficit now and it will make W's spending spree pale in comparison. It will take years to recover from the Great One's spending.


4 comments:

Danny M. Francis (Eyepublius) said...

Colin Powell’s service in his military days as a 4-star General; as Chairman, JCS; and as the National Security Advisor was commendable. It all fell apart when he served as SOS under Geo. W. Bush and in particular his UN speech justifying our invading Iraq.

His case was weak, as many thought then, and we ALL now know to be true, practically point-by-point. What is worse, he suspected his remarks, based on CIA info and other non-factual data, were wrong and reports indicated said to aides, "I can't read this sh*t."

But, he did read it and that is that.

What he should have done then was to have resigned and spoken out against the invasion... he would have been a real national hero - he is not now, in my view based on the fact that he wanted to stay in power (SOS office) and didn't care how he prostituted himself to stay there. Then when he was no longer needed as being outspoken (after the fact), Cheney got him kicked out...

Powell lost then and now he is trying to re-market himself. I think that is too late.

The facts cannot be dismissed so easily as he apparently seeks: He should ask the families of the more than 5,000 KIA.

Of course his VN record on My Lai and the potential cover-up at that time has raised questions from time-to-time.

~ dmf

Danny M. Francis (Eyepublius) said...

+ Robert S. McNamara died today.

+ He was from the same Vietnam-era as Powell and me and heluva lot of other soldiers. My take:

Remembering McNamara

My book [now online], I mention McNamara

— dmf

Anonymous said...

dan francis is right. powell let his country down when he lied about iraq.
Scott, while I am deeply concerned about the deficit and Obama's attempts to be Santa Claus, that chart doesn't tell the whole story. Bush came into office with a cbo projected 10 year 5.6 trillion budget surplus. Also the deficit numbers don't take into account the raid on the social security trust surplus or how big the deficits are as % of GDP (which is the most meaningful measurement of how big the deficit is).

Anonymous said...

Wow. Bush really left him a mess with which to deal.

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