We are living in some very serious times. Our deficits and debts are dangerously threatening the stability of our nation and promises a diminished way of life for our children and grandchildren. Serious adult leadership is required to make the tough choices now to advert a certain catastrophe tomorrow.
The speech Obama gave on his idea of deficit reduction was neither leadership, serious or adult. Instead Obama gave us typical Obama complete with empty rhetoric, contradictions and partisan campaign attacks. How anyone, left, right or center, can take this man seriously when it comes to this topic is beyond understanding.
From the moment Obama took the stage, his light and jovial manner seems so wildly inappropriate for the subject at hand. (See 0:00 - 0:30)
When Obama explains how we have reached these large deficits, he refuses to take any responsiblity for adding to it. Rather Obama paints his massive additions only in a positive light.
Of course, that’s not what happened. And so, by the time I took office, we once again found ourselves deeply in debt and unprepared for a Baby Boom retirement that is now starting to take place. When I took office, our projected deficit was more than $1 trillion. On top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession that, like most recessions, led us to temporarily borrow even more. In this case, we took a series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs, kept credit flowing, and provided working families extra money in their pockets. It was the right thing to do, but these steps were expensive, and added to our deficits in the short term.Really? No mention of the $1 trillion health care reform we could not afford. No mention of the $800 billion + failed stimulus. No mention of the $3 trillion + budgets he submitted. No mention of his failure to demand a budget from the last Congress, controlled by his own party no less.
I was really stunned by the blatant contradictions, that Obama delivered with a straight face. Here is an example:
Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.Are you kidding me? Didn't this guy extend the Bush tax cuts when his own party still had control of Congress? If Obama even remotely believed any of this he would have led his party to rescind the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but instead he did what was politically expedient. Do lefties really still trust this guy on this subject?
Obama's deficit plan to cut $4 trillion over 12 years is pure unicorn fantasy.
Today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years. It’s an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget. It’s an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle-class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future.How can he even project 12 years out when the CBO themselves admit that their best projections are iffy at 10 years? Half of the reductions about is talking about has already been shown that it will not materialize. The CBO has already said there will be no $1 trillion in savings from ObamaCare and Obama's 2012 budget clearly adds to deficits.
This budget plan of Obama seems best suited for campaign talking points rather than a serious attempt at cutting out debt or reducing deficit spending. Republicans's failure to educate the public on how dire our fiscal situation is, has allowed Obama the ability to put forth this silly plan. Despite the Republican's failure, the question remain, does Obama have any credibility on fiscal matters to actually sell this plan? The poll await.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Wall Street Journal