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Barney Frank: ‘The largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the war in Iraq.’

Today on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) criticized the economic recovery package currently before the chamber as “the largest spending bill in history.” Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) shot back that in reality, the largest spending bill in history “is going to turn out to be the war in Iraq.” Watch it:

The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes that while the Iraq was was financed with borrowed money and turned “a budget surplus into a record deficit and debt,” the economic recovery package will “boost consumer demand and put people back to work, while simultaneously investing in long-term strength through infrastructure, health care, and education.”

Update

Sam Stein adds, “The argument Frank makes is that in the context of chiding government spending, self-purported fiscal conservatives should not be entitled to selective memory.”

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