The War and the Economy (AWOL's LBJ moment coming)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15918-2003Sep15.html

In 1966, with spending in Vietnam on the rise, social programs growing and interest rates edging dangerously higher, Georgia's venerable Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. asked "whether this nation, for all its wealth and resources, can fight a war . . . and carry on a broad range of domestic spending -- without a tax increase or a dangerous deficit."

"The president apparently believes that we can," the Democrat told his state's legislature. "For the sake of the country, . . . I hope and pray that he is right."

Within two years, inflation was galloping, the federal deficit was climbing , and Lyndon Baines Johnson was forced to slam on the breaks with an unpopular tax hike to finance the war and slow the economy.

In Johnson's experience, some see a cautionary tale for President Bush. Again, a president is pursuing his domestic priorities -- in this case, tax cuts -- even as he tries to finance a war that he insists will be limited and affordable. Administration officials say neither the amount of war spending nor the size of the budget deficit is enough to damage an economy they are still trying to push into high gear. But some economists and historians see enough of a parallel between the "guns and butter" debate of the 1960s and the nascent "guns and tax cuts" debate of today to raise the question of whether the administration is right.

[Boom_cha]

1. The Bush version of "Guns and Butter"

He uses the butter a la Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris--i.e., to F$#@ the vast majority of American people up the arse with his tax cuts