December 20, 2024

"Mr. Romney didn’t accomplish everything he had hoped. He says his biggest regret is failing to stabilize the national debt..."

"... which grew from $22.7 trillion when he took office to $36.1 trillion. He blames 'the scourge of partisan politics' and warned in his farewell address that 'our national credit card is almost maxed out, and America risks becoming debt poor.'"

From "'What would Mitt Romney do?' His fight is still worth waging. Mitt Romney took courageous stands on principle, but he also passed a lot into law" by The Editorial Board of The Washington Post.

He "passed a lot into law," but the debt, in his one term, spiked from $22.7 trillion to $36.1 trillion. Well, how sad, then, to lose him. And look what's coming, as seen in The Washington Post:

95 comments:

Birches said...

Hogwash. The only chaos is Business as Usual is over. Shouldn't the press be championing the Freedom Caucus for not being Trump's rubber stamp? Could that be an angle a Real Journalist might take?

Todd said...

I believe the technical term for that headline is "wish casting"...

n.n said...

Chaos is a misunderstood, seemingly intractable order.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Democrats, MSM, Romney, & Cheney
Sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First came hate
Ceaseless disparage
Then holding hands for the resolution's carriage!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

LOL DNDC-Media hacks. Never change! Use the same old playbook!

Wait, aren't Biden and Harris in charge of the Federal government right now? Any comment from this dynamic duo? Is there really no alleged "reporter" willing to even ask the opinion of the sitting VP or President?

rehajm said...

If they were clever they would use this shyte as cover for five other things we want them to get done. They are not clever…

MadisonMan said...

Laughing at the "Trump Presidency is descending into chaos". The Walls Are Closing In!
Memo to WaPo: Biden is the President. Maybe ask him some questions if you can find him!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Rip Van Milbank seems stuck in a 2018 timewarp.

wendybar said...

Trump isn't the President yet. Joe Biden fucked us up, and left a mess for President Trump, Elon and Vivek to clean up. Where the hell is HE?? Oh, that's right. Obama has been fucking up America in his 3RD term...and just lost his 4th...so the left is going to do whatever they can to destroy what is left in his wake.

Whiskeybum said...

Run for your lives! CHAOS!!

gilbar said...

isn't it NEAT? how past Republican Presidential Candidates are held up as Icons?
I wonder how the WaPoo referred to Mitt back in the day?

Big Mike said...

If Romney wanted to impact our runaway national debt he needed to be willing to work a lot harder to win in 2012. Losers like him need to stay home in a back room and sulk, not run for the Senate.

Aggie said...

It's Mitt, the Elder Statesman, the Voice of Reason, the Steady Republican Hand, here to tell us he stands ready to give advice on what's going wrong over the next 4 years. In other industries, it's called 'fluffing'.

tommyesq said...

Pretty pompous for Romney, who is one of 100 senators and one of 535 members of 1/3rd of the federal government, to be talking about the "accomplishments" of "his term."

n.n said...

FDR had the good fortune of resetting his novel deal with a world war, Obama in Springs, Biden at the border, etc. We still have Obamacares as the primary first-order forcing of catastrophic anthropogenic progressive prices, the not so novel Green deal in an environmental blight, CAIR, planned parenthood, etc.

Michael said...

What's really amazing is that Biden and Harris are the current Prez/VP and they have publicly disappeared during this debate.

RideSpaceMountain said...

The fluffers make less than the billed talent but hey, maybe presstitutes like Mitt just like the job.

narciso said...

Dana milbank oh never mind

robother said...

Romney: wasn't he the one that promoted foot binders for women and chains for Blacks?

Bob Boyd said...

Stabilize the national debt? What does that even mean? Make sure it doesn't go into decline?

n.n said...

Book binders and jeweled bling, respectively, in a read and show.

Aggie said...

My point was, Mitt is being 'fluffed' to make him ready to be a regular feature, the new 'talking head'.

n.n said...

Progress.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Enter Maxwell Smart

Bob Boyd said...

"Musk forces a shutdown" means people are paying attention and contacting their senators and congressmen. The threat of being primaried by unhappy voters, otherwise known as chaos, is how the system is supposed to work.

Captain BillieBob said...

Slo Joe when asked about the impending gov shutdown
???????????????????????????????What kind of pudding?????????????What? Come on man!

Wince said...

"That's the ticket!"

Mitt Romney and Chris Christie

RideSpaceMountain said...

All talking heads are fluffers. Some like talking. All love giving.

narciso said...

One of those taranto questions no one was asking

planetgeo said...

Romney isn't just pompous, he's The Pompatus of self-love and imagined splendor.

RMc said...

isn't it NEAT? how past Republican Presidential Candidates are held up as Icons?

Only if they lose.

chuck said...

Oh, Dana, don't ever change ...

Bob Boyd said...

Mittens Little knows the sky is not going to fall because of a shutdown.

Romney might not be the best person to hold up as an example of an admirable politician at a time like this. It scares the shit out of the other office holders. When they look at Mitt going out the door and swallow hard. Their worst fear is winding up like him, out of power.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Pay is the same. Why change anything?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Missed it by that much?

mindnumbrobot said...

Milbank is a joke, of course, but he is giving his customers what they're paying for.

doctrev said...

While there are no shortage of Secret Democrat traitors ready to vote with the party whenever it suits them, it's just going to make the base readier to see President Trump wipe them all out. Aesop even had a fable about the company you keep. Enjoy the shutdown, it might be more permanent than you think.

Dude1394 said...

He should have voted AGAINST spending if he wanted to impact our runaway national debt. PERIOD. Everything else is cowardice.

Peachy said...

Dear Dana Millbank,
Go F*** yourself.
You are not needed.

Peachy said...

The collective corrupt left - and their loyal Soviet media trolls- will not fix America. They have already destroyed it.
Not enough hatred for the legacy media.
Real hope and change = Musk, Rand Paul, JD Vance and Vivek.

RCOCEAN II said...

Well, Mitt Romney got what he always wanted: Praise from the Washington Post. Of course, his "Regret" over the debt is absurd. In the same op-ed the WaPo praises Romney for supporting the Trillion dollar "Covid Relief Bill" and the "infastructure bill". Not mention that Romney supported every budget busting CR that came down the pike, and wanted billions for Israel and the Ukrainian war.

Mitt "I'm concerned about the Deficit" Romney was friends with Joe Biden, and was a-ok with Harris and Hillary being POTUS. They weren't concered about the deficit. And neither were the radical leftists in Biden's cabinet that Romney voted to confirm. In fact, its hard to think of a single thing Romney did in 6 years to bring down the deficit. Its just another Romney "I'll say crap, cause it makes me look good".

Lazarus said...

Mitt was never going to make a difference in the Senate (probably not as president either). He was always a show horse, not a work horse. He's a puppet or a figurehead or a non-player character. His personality kept him from being a very effective politician, and it certainly couldn't have made him an effective wheeler-dealer in the Senate. His colleagues must have thought of him as a childish innocent and ignored whatever he said.

*

I thought the Democrats would lay low for a while and let people forget just how bad the Biden years were, so that their attacks on Trump would be less ridiculous. I guess Milbank didn't get the memo. Columnists and bloggers ought to know the difference between analysis and fantasy, but for too many of them imposing their fantasy on events is the point, not dispassionately analyzing them. Impatience is a great fault with commentators. If Milbank is writing the obituary for the Trump era now, how is he going to justify taking a paycheck next years?

Randomizer said...

Mitt is usually your standard puppet dick-head, but he made sense when he was interviewed on CNN a few days ago.

"Donald Trump won. He won overwhelmingly. He said what he was going to do, and that's what he's doing. I mean, people are saying, oh, I don't like this appointment or this policy that he's talking about, but those are the things he said he was going to do when he ran. So you can't complain about someone who does what he said he was going to do. "

RCOCEAN II said...

We also get this howler from the Wapo Op-ed page: "He’s routinely described in the press as a centrist, but that’s incorrect. He’s deeply conservative — “severely,” as he once put it. He resisted the MAGA takeover of his party because he’s devoted to what he understands to be the first principles of conservatism: individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets and championing U.S. global leadership."

LOL. Absolutely nothing Romney did indicates he believes in "Individual liberty or personal responsiblity". And "conservativism" has never been defined by conservative Republicans as "Free markets and Interventionism abroad"- thats Neo-conservatism and classical Liberalism!

Sebastian said...

"his biggest regret is failing to stabilize the national debt..." How phony can you get? But let's not be too harsh on Mittens: nobody cares about the debt. Everybody just cares about getting their $$.

Ampersand said...

Maybe Bezos will be able to see how unsustainable the direction of the WP is while controlled by Milbankoids.

Lazarus said...

He's too old, too rich, and too high up the status ladder to become a talking head. He doesn't need the money, doesn't want to mingle on an equal basis with people he hired and fired in the past, and if he wanted a network job, we'd have heard more from him last year. You'll hear from him from time to time, but he faded into the woodwork as a Senator, and he won't be more of a presence now.

RCOCEAN II said...

My main problem with Romney is that's he's a liar with a massive contempt for the voters. If he'd ran in 2018 for the Senate as what he truly is, a moderate/liberal New England Republican who hated Trump and wanted to help Democrats pass their agenda and wage war abroad, then I wouldn't have a problem with him.

But of course, he kept all that well hidden. Until he got seated, and then published a Op-ed in the WaPo stating he was now part of the "Trump resistance".

Tillis who is quoted in Op-ed as loving Mitt Romney did the same thing. He got elected by opposing Amnesty, illegal immigration, and being socially conservative. He was a liar. Just like Mittens.

GRW3 said...

"Lies, Conspiracy Theories and Midnight Rants" Hmmm? Seems like what really blew everything up was the AI driven extraction and summary of all the pork and special privileges (like protecting the Demo J6 panel from investigation) built into text.

Rusty said...

Chaos is Demspeak for; "Our graft is being threatened!"

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Reality check: Trump and the GOP win if the gov't is shut down until 1/20/25
Because right now the "chaos" is hitting the "Biden" Presidency, and that's good. What happens w/ a shutdown?
1: Dems can't finalize regulations
2: Dems can't give out $$$ from BBB / IRA
3: Dems can't hire more unfixable "civil service" employees, or promote the ones they have
4: Dems can't auction off parts of the Wall

Go, shutdown, go!

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

The Democrats know how to fix Social Security. The problem it would remove it from their political arsenal to combat republicans come every election.

The Bush Plan To Reform Social Security

If this plan had been implemented, retirees would not only be getting more money than they get now, but there would also be no "fiscal cliff" every year.

Hassayamper said...

Only if they lose.

The "Strange New Respect" phenomenon takes a little longer with those who won, but it does eventually develop.

Since 2016 both Presidents Bush were held up as models of civic-minded probity for their opposition to Trump, but I won't soon forget Rathergate and "Chimpy McHitler" and all that.

There are still a few pockets of Reagan hate in the farthest-left recesses of academia, but pretty much everyone else who lived through his administration remembers it as a golden age presided over by a kindly grandpa. (God, didn't he seem old at the time? There were people in both parties seriously arguing that men in their early 70's were too old for the job. He was 78 when he finished his second term.)

Even "Mr. Detente", Richard Nixon, came to be portrayed as a flawed but wise elder statesman when the press was taking shots at Reagan for being too aggressive with the Soviets.

Within a decade or two, Trump's brand of free-spending populism will be cited favorably when the press wants to undermine a future Republican president or presidential candidate trying in vain to steer us away from fiscal ruin.

DINKY DAU 45 said...

oh no the grift is stopping? What about the superman cards,and electric guitars and sneakers and gold coins and ..... will they stop? oh no...... not the grift stopping...please buy my sneakers! one is born every minute!

Peachy said...

The Debt ceiling limit and government shut downs are just a ploy and a mirage to allow more insider government lawless spending and pork.
Romney was just another cog.

Gusty Winds said...

The Washington Post just admitted they know Donald Trump is already President. So does everyone else.

There's a new sheriff in town. 'xcuse me while I whip this out.

Kakistocracy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kakistocracy said...

Steve Bannon addressing New York Young Republicans: “To make up that gap, I hate to say this, I know you got a bunch of still Republican orthodox folks out here. You're gonna have to raise taxes on the wealthy.”

When Steve Bannon sounds like the most sensible person in the room...

It’s almost as if the magic money tree on which Trump dreamed of was in fact a fantasy and he now faces reality.

hombre said...

Milbank is and has been detached from reality. Chaos? Okay. DemPimps like Milbank don’t get it. Trump, Musk, et al, thrive on chaos. Trump tried playing nice the first time. Romney and the Congressthings are addicted to spending our money. Chaos is the cure!

Big Mike said...

Romney's whines contrast with outgoing Senator Sinema:

“Honestly, I feel like we got 40 years worth of work done in one term,” Sinema said. “I do wish we had gotten immigration done. We tried really hard, but everything else was just pretty freaking amazing.”

RideSpaceMountain said...

"When Steve Bannon sounds like the most sensible person in the room."

Good point. He's not. Swing and a miss, but keep shining that flashlight up your butt. It's in there somewhere.

effinayright said...

Myself, I would prefer Maxwell Edison and his silver hammer.

Captain BillieBob said...

Did Mittens do anything of note during his term in office? Some legislation that benefited someone other than Mittens? Anything?

Temujin said...

Romney was always on board with the massive spending bills. Rep. Chip Roy and Sen. Mike Lee are consistently trying to stop the mad spending DC does. But Romney never stood tall on this. He was always of the Establishment GOP- and they love to keep on doing what has always been done.

Butkus51 said...

I cant imagine paying for the Wash Post.

Its like sending away for Sea-Monkeys and then opening the package.

Pianoman said...

Clearly, the "way to run a country" is to cheat your way to a dementia-ridden President and soused Vice President, and allow Obama to raid the Treasury in his third term.

I didn't know Elon Musk was a government employee. All along, I thought he was just trying to help bring some sanity to the swamp. Silly me.

Josephbleau said...

Rommny, like many corporate guys, has learned that the people who actually caused the crisis should snark and laugh at the new guy who has to clean up after them. They are blameless.

And is Trump president now? What we have is a 30 day race for democrats to screw up the country as much as possible to dick Trump. They are adolescent haters of the American public.

mccullough said...

Farewell Address. What a douchebag

Jupiter said...

And that poor dog!

pacwest said...

Is the chaos racist? I sure hope not. Sounds more like ordinary everyday chaos. What a relief!

Chaotic is the new racist. We'll be hearing a lot about it. Projection is the only tool Dems have left.

Kakistocracy said...

This is Trump without any guardrails and now he begs Biden to save the day. In any case, Trump's honeymoon died an early death.

narciso said...

https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1870138912754053447

Grandpa Publius said...

The original sin: I’ll vote for spending your voters like, if you vote for spending my voters like.

The original coverup: Let’s put your spending and my spending in the same bill to hide our agreement.

Solution: Single subject appropriation bills. Aka: Regular Order.

tcrosse said...

To Democrats it's chaos because everything has gotten out of (their) control.

Hassayamper said...

In any case, Trump's honeymoon died an early death.

He's a lame duck from the day he takes office for his second term. He was never going to get any honeymoon from anyone except his half of the American people. He's not crying himself to sleep about it, he's warming up the Millei chainsaw. It's going to be a full frontal attack on the government monster that will dwarf anything Reagan did, and it will be glorious.

I hope a million lazy government goldbrickers are put out of a job and entire Cabinet agencies are demolished, starting with Energy and Education. Musk sacked 80% of Twitter and it's better than it ever was. Our government would be the best in the world with 90% of its useless paper shufflers forced to seek honest work and 5 laws repealed for every new one passed.

Yancey Ward said...

Mitt Romney only ran for the Senate to do one thing- be the Senator who got to go to the Trump White House to tell him to resign before the Senate convicted him in an impeachment. What Romney didn't count on, however, was how ridiculous the Democrat impeachment articles were going to be.

Rabel said...

Every one of Milbank's bullet points is a distortion or an outright lie.

Kakistocracy said...

I thought Trump and Musk were trying to reduce government spending and debt?

Like Trump did in his last term of office….

Kai Akker said...

Thought it was a parody or a counter-factual fantasy.

Richard said...

Even though the “Wiley Coyote” Democrats lost decisively, they are still using the same ACME playbook. They are sure that this time it will work! I guess they haven’t looked down yet.

donald said...

FTG.

Kakistocracy said...

Trump wants a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling.

The voting public will rightly blame the GOP for the shutdown —everyone knows President Musk is to blame

It’s a good time to remember that Wharton and Goldman Sachs projected his campaign policies would produce $7.5 trillion in new US debt.

It’s also worth noting that past shutdowns resulted in a downgrade of America’s credit rating and caused higher borrowing costs to service our debt.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Elon Musk did NOT force a shut down. He did what the corrupt media won't do by informing the public of the contents of this Cramnibus Bill through social media. His postings (tweets) EXPOSED the corruption and the people themselves forced a shut down by letting their voices be heard.

Once exposed by the cover up being pulled back from the corruption...the vermin (politicians) are now scurrying to protect themselves and the media once again is exposed as not doing their job.

Musk did THEIR job and can't stand it that he does it better than they do.

Rick said...

So Trump and the DOGE odd couple show how little effort is necessary to improve things and Milbank characterizes it as "chaos" and the presidency "collapsing".

This is what winning feels like. I'm going to enjoy 4 more years of the left-media cratering its already meager credibility.

Richard said...

The Democrats are pathetic. They can’t get their stories straight. What happened to Donald Trump is Hitler. He is going to do away with democracy. There will be no more elections once he gains power. Now they are telling us that he is just a figurehead, and it is Elon Musk who is in charge.

Rick said...

"The voting public will rightly blame the GOP for the shutdown —everyone knows President Musk is to blame"

This person hasn't updated their understanding of politics to the new framework. In the old days everyone would accept this because Reps weren't savvy enough to combat it politically. But in our new world Reps put a new bill on the table which would have gotten those government employees paid except that every single Dem voted against it.

The Dems who aren't effected will claim to blame reps, but they blame reps for everything so that's no change. But the people who aren't getting paid have to choose priorities between political loyalty or getting paid. Once you remember the left's political loyalty is based on getting paid it's quite easy to predict most government employees are going to blame Dems.

stlcdr said...

Are Trump and Musk in charge now? When did that happen?

Rusty said...

Are you really that stupid? One of those people volutarily pay for the other they have no choice. See if you can figure which is which.

Rusty said...

No. There's another way, but you're not going to like it. Drastically cut spending to the point that federal employees are let go. You probaly aren't necessary anyway.

Deep State Reformer said...

Stuff like this is presented as bait for the political obsessives among the Wapo's readership in order to mine them for reads, clicks, and comments. Much sound and fury, but signifying nothing. There was nothing significant from him in his time under the political sun and any reasonable examination of Romney's record as governor or senator show that. About all you can commend him for is that he had no faux pas, screw-ups, or scandals.

Dr Weevil said...

If you're wondering why Trump would want to keep the debt ceiling suspended - it's already suspended through the end of the year - and how that could possibly be a good thing, read this tweet from 'unseen1': link.

Big Mike said...

@Dude, well, that too.

Quaestor said...

From the viewpoint of Hell, order IS chaos

rehajm said...

If you google ‘Senator Cinnamon’ up pops Sinema, without the ‘did you mean?’. Now that’s a legacy…

Quaestor said...

Rick rolls, "I'm going to enjoy 4 more years of the left-media cratering its already meager credibility."

Meager? Since when has it risen to even that pathetic standard? Dana Milbank would KILL for meager credibility. He'd put Cats numbers 4 through 17 in a blender and drink their liquified guts with relish for meager credibility.

Never gonna give you up,
Never gonna let you down,
Never gonna run around and desert you...