Doug Mataconis · · 4 comments

Call this the understatement of the year:

During this weekend’s celebration of President Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday, former Vice-President Dick Cheney participated in an interview where he was asked whether the Bush administration did enough to control government spending, and he admitted “I think we could have done a better job on spending.”

Cheney seemed willing to accept the fact that the Republican brand may have been tarnished because of so much federal spending; however, he attempted to justify it by suggesting that the war on terror required a lot of expensive activity to make sure the nation was kept safe. He also delivered a veiled jab at congressional Republicans of the time, seeming to suggest that when Republicans controlled Congress, it was hard for the Bush administration to veto a spending bill that came from his own party.