GOOD LINE, BUT NOT HIS LINE

WASHINGTON - President Bush and congressional Republicans continue to increase budget deficits while jobs disappear, Rep. Charlie Stenholm, D-Texas, said Saturday.

"When you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging," he said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "Yet the Republican leadership in Washington continues to advocate policies that would put us further in the red."

The administration recently projected deficits of more than $450 billion this year and $475 billion next year — numbers that don't even factor in money borrowed from Social Security and other trust funds, Stenholm said.

"Budget deficits place a drag on the economy and our living standards now and in the future," Stenholm said. "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has repeatedly warned that deficits undercut the ability of the economy to grow in a way that reduces unemployment and increases the wages of American workers." (full story)

It's good to see House Democrats standing up and saying things like this. But... I could swear that President Clinton used the "digging" line, worded almost exactly like that, a few months ago.

And here it is! (ok he said it more concisely):

Clinton accused the Republicans of digging themselves into a hole on the economic front by squandering a $5.8 trillion federal budget surplus he helped build and creating a projected $2 trillion deficit.

"When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging," Clinton said, noting that the Republicans just passed legislation to rebuild Iraq potentially at the cost of laying off U.S. teachers and cutting after-school programs. He said he supports rebuilding Iraq but not at that cost.

Regardless,both Rep. Stenholm and the Big Dog know one thing about President Bush: "[he] will not deny, [he] will not ignore, [he] will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations,"

Heh.