NEWSFLASH: The economy is run by 1 man

So thinks Maureen Dowd. Speaking about Hillary, she says

Her Democratic rivals had meekly gone along, accepting her self-portrait as a former co-president who gets to take credit for everything important Bill Clinton did in the ’90s. But she was not elected or appointed to a position that needed Senate confirmation. And the part of the Clinton administration that worked best — the economy, stupid — was run by Robert Rubin.

Putting aside whether or not Hillary is qualified, what the hell is Maureen Down smoking? The economy is not run by the Treasury Secretary. Hey Maureen, as much as you and your fellow New York Times leftists wish it to be, this is not he USSR just yet. Nobody runs the economy. The economy runs itself. The government pulls a few levers here and there in hopes of steering some economic decisions in one direction or another. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. But that is all at the margin.

As far as I can tell, neither Bill Clinton or Robert Rubin created or expanded AOL or ebay or amazon or Siebel or Cisco or Intel or Lucent or Microsoft. I know Al Gore created the Internet but that's a whole different issue. Those companies as well as thousands of others were the engine of the 90s economy. Clinton and Rubin had as much to do with it as I did. No I take that back, I had more to do with it since I actually worked for a tech startup back in the day.

What's a measly $10 BILLION in Washington?

More MSM lies and spin from a Time Magazine article on the SCHIP bill:

As with so many disputes in Washington, the actual difference is dollar terms is fairly small: Bush supports a $25 billion expansion of SCHIP, while Democrats insist on a $35 billion increase.

Fairly small? HUH? Since when did $10B (10 thousand million for those of you who gradumalated from publik skools) become fairly small? It is amazing that the same members of the liberal media who can tell you to the penny the cost of the war in Iraq, blow off $10B like it's pocket change. I wonder if they would be so non-chalant about a $10B increase in military spending or $10B increase in border security. I believe a border fence could be built for about $10B. But if I recall that was too much money for the editors of Time, NY Times, LA Times and the rest of the usual suspects. But when it comes to government insurance for children whose parents make $83,000 a year and already have insurance....well shit then no expense should be spared.

It is this kind of attitude that has led to the fiscal mess we're in. $10B here, $3B there, a bridge to nowhere here, a $700,000 study on cow farts there. Hey no biggie, it's all "fairly small". However when you add add thousands of "fairly small" things you end up with a very big thing.

And why is it that Bush only "supports" $25B yet the Democrats "insist" on $35B? Bush is a puppy eating meanie. He is in bed with the kitty eating CEOs of BC/BS and Aetna so his heart is not really into it. On the other hand the adorable, loving, Grandma of 5, Nancy "Sweet Sunshine" Pelosi, insists on insuring every child. I have an idea Nancy. After you're done insuring the kiddies, how about buying them a new Wii for Christmas (oops there I go again, I meant for the non-denominational Winter Festival)? At $300 a piece, all 10 million urchins could get a new Wii for fairly small sum of $3B. Think how many votes you can win with that bribe...err social program.

Ain't the Democrats just grand?