Selective Deficit Outrage

Sen. Mark Udall made the national news today with his excoriation of the Senate bill for not raising taxes. "A ticking time bomb," he said:

"Just over one week ago, the Democratic and Republican chairmen of President Obama's deficit commission called our national debt a 'cancer' that is threatening our country from within.  They are right.  A massive budget deficit and a crippling national debt are perhaps the most difficult challenges our government faces.  As Coloradans know, our national security depends on our economic security - and each is threatened by skyrocketing debt and irresponsible budgeting," Udall said.

"Days after the most substantive national conversation we've had about addressing the debt, the debate suddenly has turned to extending tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that - alone - will cost $700 billion over the next decade.  That's $700 billion in additional debt that the United States will owe to China and our other creditors around the world - debt that our children and grandchildren will be forced to pay.  It's a ticking time-bomb that needs to be defused."

Senator Udall has apparently had a Road to Damascus experience on the national debt. After all, he voted for the $787 billion stimulus bill. He voted for the incalculably expensive health care overhaul. He gets an F from the National Taxpayers Union every year, voting only 8 percent of the time in the last session for fiscal restraint. He sponsored bills during the 110th Congress to raise spending by $75 billion a year.

Either he's only just discovered the national debt problem in the past few weeks, or he thinks spending is not the problem -- only a bill to not raise taxes is a "cancer" and "a ticking time-bomb."