It may be a con. But when Stephen Moore and the Cato Institute can be wowed by Howard Dean’s claims to fiscal conservatism, you know that Bush is vulnerable. Rove doesn’t care about deficits and doesn’t care about debt. Voters should, do and will. Money quote:
The word Vermonters use most often to describe Dean is “frugal.” Coming into office amidst the early 1990s recession, he cut formerly sacrosanct welfare spending to keep the state out of debt. The Cato analysis shows that during Dean’s first four years in office, Vermont’s budget grew much more slowly than other states’. He cut income tax rates across the board (much as President Bush did). Although he raised overall business taxes, he approved millions of dollars’ worth of incentives to lure smoke stacks back into the Green Mountain State. It was during these early years that the head of the state’s powerful Progressive party called him “a very right-wing Democrat.” And during a time when President Bush has been piling up mountains of debt in Washington and 47 governors face record budget deficits of their own, Dean admirably left Vermont with a $10.4 million surplus when he left office this past January–which would certainly be one of his trump cards against Bush. If Dean were ever elected president, I’m convinced he would be monomaniacal about balancing the budget–though certainly not in ways that would please conservatives.
Moore is right. But how does Bush begin to rein in his profilgacy now?
The Dish 