Chris Coons Hits Castle on Deficit Hypocrisy

Or maybe we could call this another float in the Mike Castle hypocrisy parade. From a recent Chris Coons press release:

Recently, 18-year Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware told a reporter from Al-Jazeera: “People are beginning to grasp that the fiscal mismanagement in Washington which has caused a lot of indebtedness, a lot of borrowing, ultimately interest rate increases, and some great problems in the future needs to be managed.”

“Congressman Castle has been in Congress for 18 years, and voting for indebtedness, borrowing, supporting the Bush tax breaks for the rich and bailing out Wall Street banks and now he tells a reporter that Washington should be managed better? He had the opportunity to reject the failed ideas of the past and he didn’t – it is time for a new approach,” said Chris Coons campaign spokesperson Daniel F. McElhatton.

McElhatton further stated, “The open U.S. Senate seat in Delaware is drawing national and international attention and for the first time Congressman Castle is going to have to account for saying one thing in Delaware and doing another in Washington.”

This is the blog post where Castle is quoted.

I hope that Chris and his campaign will point out over and over again that Castle has been voting — especially for the Bush term — specifically to increase deficits via tax cuts, via Medicare Part D, via wars not paid for among other things. At no time was he ever concerned about paying for any of those things and the lack of fiscal discipline is one reason why we are struggling to get out of the Bush Recession. This effort to pretend to some fiscal responsibility should always be accompanied with a reminder that Castle never cared about that when a Republican was President. And now look where we are.

Part of this year’s election rhetoric from repubs is an effort to rewrite history — to make pretend that the deficits faced by the country are new and created under President Obama’s administration. That is, of course, a lie. The vast majority of these deficits were racked up by George W. Bush and Mike Castle. It is time — really — for someone in the press to start asking Castle why he voted for all of the old deficit-creating stuff if he is (now) such a deficit hawk.

More like this, please, Coons Campaign!