Here’s the Problem
John Harwood’s NY Times article inadvertantly exposes the shortcomings in President Obama’s budget. Here’s what Mr. Harwood said that illustrates the absence of balance in President Obama’s budget:
To each constituency, Mr. Obama has delivered a multilayered message that makes his challenge steeper. For average Americans, he has offered short-term relief from the pain of joblessness, home foreclosures and dwindling retirement savings. But he has also called for a long-term shift, away from familiar levels of consumption, and toward more rigorous emphases on education, savings and investments.
Saying that President Obama is putting a “rigorous emphases on education, savings and investments” is code for saying that President Obama’s emphasis is on spending trillions of dollars on the Democrats’ political allies. It doesn’t encourage small business hiring. It doesn’t put us on a path to prosperity. Mostly, it just pays off then-candidate Obama’s GOTV machine.
President Obama undoubtedly wants to keep spending at unprecedented and unsustainable rates. The stimulus just kickstarted President Obama’s spending spree. It had nothing to do with getting the U.S. economy jumpstarted.
Here’s another myth Mr. Harwood attempts to peddle:
For bankers, he has coupled support for bailouts with calls for tougher regulation and changes in the high-rolling habits of executive compensation. He aims to supplant a business culture of financial wizardry with one of entrepreneurial innovation.
President Obama has put a gun to the banking industry’s head and told healthy banks that they can’t repay their TARP money unless they pass a rigged stress test. With the banking industry apprehensive about making loans, it’ll be almost impossible to increase entrepreneurial activity.
Increasing taxes, whether they’re income taxes or cap and trade taxes, will cause already cautious entrepreneurs to sit on the sidelines until President Obama changes policies. No amount of his talking will change that.
For China, his pledge to maintain fiscal responsibility, which would preserve the dollar as a haven for foreign cash, comes with a warning: do not count on “voracious” American consumerism to power your future growth.
It’s laughable that Mr. Harwood would highlight President Obama’s “pledge to maintain fiscal responsibility”, especially after going on the biggest spending spree in the history of mankind and after he’s submitted budget that are fiscally irresponsible for the next decade.
Only an idiot would try spinning going on a spending spree of that magnitude as remotely similar to maintaining fiscal responsibility. People won’t buy that schtick. They aren’t as stupid as President Obama needs them to be.
The more President Obama and his media allies try spinning his policies, the more they’ll reject President Obama’s policies. People simply won’t accept the Obama administration’s habit of insulting their intelligence by saying they’re for fiscal responsibility minutes after submitting a budget that’s one of the most irresponsible budgets in history.
That’s what’s wrong with President Obama’s budget.
Technorati Tags: Budget, President Obama, Banking, TARP, Tax Increases, Entrepreneurship, Spending, Political Allies, Unemployment
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog