New full moon, same old wolf

The sequel to the massively popular movie "Twilight" hit theaters this weekend, mixing werewolves with vampires to the thrill of teenagers everywhere.

I'm too old to be a Twilighter all atwitter about werewolves. But I'm young enough to remember when late-night, black-and-white television replayed Lon Chaney Jr. doing his thing in the classic movie "The Wolf Man."

One of the most memorable scenes came when Larry Talbot (way overplayed by Chaney) pleaded with his friend to lock him in his room and to not open the door no matter what he may say or do.

Of course, that plan never worked. Chaney always turned into the wolf man, escaped and terrorized the villagers.

When it comes to deficit spending, we're living through a similar scene.

On his recent trip to Asia, President Barack Obama told Fox News that if America doesn't get its deficit spending under control, we may see a double-dip recession.

That's a remarkable statement, given the fact that the guy telling us to be careful is the leader of the pack that tripled our deficit in only 300 days. Essentially, he tells us that, as in "The Wolf Man," it's best to lock him and his buddies up in a room to stop them from terrorizing the countryside and spending us into a double-dip recession.

Too late for that. Besides, where would we lock them up? Gitmo is closing and Democrats control all the rooms, locks and keys in Washington, D.C.

Now comes Sen. Harry Reid's version of the health care "reform" bill, which he says will expand government services to 31 million people and reduce federal spending.

Imagine that. Government doing more for less. Wolfsbane, anyone?

The first tip that a monster is on the loose and the numbers may be cooked comes in understanding that both the Senate and the House bills are front-loaded, meaning the government will collect taxes for several years without offering services, thus giving the illusion that the bill is fiscally responsible.

The second big "tell" that something's scary in the woods comes when Sen. Reid claims his bill will reduce the deficit by $127 billion over 10 years. Even if that were true, which I sincerely doubt, woo-frickity-hoo! $127 billion over 10 years is $50 billion less than the deficit ... last month.

Truth is, all this shaking and baking of the numbers counts for little at this point. What does speak volumes about the financial fix we're in as a country is the simple fact that in the 11 months Democrats have been behind the wheel in Washington, D.C., the federal deficit has tripled.

It is such a big number that our president now warns we must reduce the deficit or risk a double-dip recession.

The idea that all we have to do to fix the financial carnage is restrain big-spending monsters until the full moon passes doesn't strike me as a particularly good plan.

I've seen that movie. It didn't work. A silver-tipped cane, however ...

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@ reviewjournal.com) is publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.