Looking backward

Things don't bode well for tonight, but I hope I'm wrong. I'm listening to President Barack Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, preview tonight's State of the Union address, and was just baffled to hear him say that the middle class in America has been ignored for the past 10 years and that President Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression.

This sophomoric "Blame Bush" approach is going nowhere for the administration other than to reinforce the impression it knows how to campaign and point fingers but is utterly inept at the difficult task of governing. This "we inherited" nonsense has to stop. The facts have an inconvenient way of painting a narrative they have clung to like a life preserver rather than actually putting forward policies that will stimulate the economy.

The facts: When he assumed office in 2001, the national debt before President George W. Bush and the nation stood at $3.3 trillion. When he left office, that figure stood at $6.3 trillion — a $3 trillion increase. With the "stimulus" package priced at $787 billion, $30 billion for SCHIP, $410 trillion for a supplemental appropriations bill and a host of other measures, President Obama and HIS policies will have added $3 trillion to the federal debt when the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 this year — and will have done so in 20 MONTHS.

What it took Bush and the Republican Congress to amass in eight years, President Obama and his Democratic majority will have done in 20 months. They increased discretionary spending for FY 2009 by 10 percent and then increased discretionary spending for 2010 by an additional 12 percent, and they have the nerve to blame President Bush for the hole they themselves have dug for the country?

I hope the president received the message that the American people want less government spending, not more. But I'm not going to hold my breath: If Mr. Axelrod's commentary this evening is any indication, the president will continue to look backward, seeking to blame others rather than chart a bipartisan path forward to change the tone and course set by Washington that he promised the American people in 2008. How's that hope and change working out for you?