You gotta love sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, hypocritical Republicans like Pat Mullins. When his party was running up huge deficits (e.g., under Reagan and George W. Bush), it was perfectly fine with Pat Mullins. When his party was totally overestimating future revenues - as the Bush Administration did when it came into office and argued for its $1 trillion+ tax cut (mostly for rich people) on assumptions of surpluses as far as the eye could see - we didn't hear a peep of protest from Pat Mullins. When the economy was collapsing in large part due to the "trickle down"/deregulate Wall Street of Pat Mullins' party, it apparently was fine with Mullins as well (he certainly didn't ever take any responsibility for it). When the combination of high spending (e.g., on the war in Iraq), tax cuts to rich people and corporations, wildly overestimated future (fictional) "surpluses" and a massive Republican Recession resulted in President Obama inheriting a $1.3 trillion annual deficit from the Bush Administration, that apparently was fine with Pat Mullins too. But oh no, when states across America get the tar kicked out of them by the punishing Bush Recession and are forced to slash spending and raise taxes to balance their budgets (as they legally must do), Pat Mullins suddenly says "oh my god, that's horrible!" For instance, see the following statement he released yesterday.
"This is a very serious hole that Virginia is in and it is not hard to see what the problem is. When the Kaine Administration consistently overestimates the amount of revenue it will have to spend, it inevitably causes gaping holes in a budget that was crafted counting on money that just isn't there.So, let's sum this up. First, Pat Mullins blames Virginia's budget problems not on the national economic recession we all inherited from the great George W. Bush Administration nor on the flat-earth Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates who time and again refuse to enact reasonable and/or pragmatic policies towards governing our Commonwealth, but on Governor Kaine and his former finance secretary, Jody Wagner. True, Kaine and Wagner didn't see the Republican Great Recession coming. Well, news flash for Pat Mullins: neither did pretty much any economists, politicians (of either party), or anyone else.
"Kaine and his acolyte, former Secretary of Finance Jody Wagner, have missed budget projections to the tune of about 20-percent and a total of over $6 billion. Now, Creigh Deeds and Wagner are running around saying that they want to continue the Kaine legacy. Well, I just don't think the Commonwealth can afford that.
"Government should learn to live within its means. Basing spending plans on revenue that may never materialize is not the way to gain the people's trust or conduct the taxpayers' business."
Here's a short list of people who didn't see this coming and make any plans (or call for any action) to deal with it: George W. Bush, Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling, Ken Cuccinelli, Bill Howell, Jeff Frederick, and Pat Mullins. But now that every single state in the country is getting nailed by this Republican Recession, and now that Democrats are forced - yet AGAIN - to clean up the mess Republicans made, Mullins blames Democrats for not foreseeing what his party caused and his party's leaders themselves didn't foresee. I'd say this is insufferable, but it's so common that I've almost become inured to it. Perhaps, henceforth, we should all simply ignore anything Pat Mullins has to say and save ourselves the wasted time involved in reading and refuting his ridiculous rantings.