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EDITORIAL
Obama's budget: He doesn't even try to hide it anymore
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Updated: Feb. 15, 2012 | 8:18 a.m.
When it comes to the administration's proposed budget, give the president credit for one thing. Traditional politics would have called for Barack Obama to run to the center in an election year. In the position in which Mr. Obama now finds himself -- economic stagnation, intransigent unemployment, business closures, a collapsed housing market, and a popular perception of gridlock in Washington -- a Bill Clinton might have been expected to recast himself as a "moderate," finding much on which he could agree with a Republican House.
Not Mr. Obama. No sheep's clothing for him.
Monday, the president proposed a budget that forecasts the deficit for fiscal year 2012 will top $1.3 trillion, before falling in 2013 to a still-whopping $901 billion, still 5.5 percent of gross domestic product.
Yes, by 2022 the deficit is forecast to fall to a "mere" $704 billion, a hypothetical 2.8 percent of GDP. But given that this budget is close to a work of fantasy even for 2012 -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won't expose the 14 Democratic senators now up for re-election to the political repercussions of voting on it -- making promises about 2022, long after Mr. Obama will be out of office, verges on the absurd.
The best thing about this spending draft is that Mr. Obama does not pretend that he and his fellow Democrats are anything but what they are -- big spenders on a scale never before seen in history.
Are Republicans perfect in resisting this siren song? Far from it. But instead of congratulating and joining with younger House Republicans who have come up with multiple proposals to reduce America's stifling tax and regulatory burdens, the game here, clearly, is to call for increased spending while blaming the loyal opposition in toto for their "intransigence" when they refuse to "tax the rich" to pay for it all.
This despite the fact that, at his "fiscal responsibility summit" in 2009, Mr. Obama pledged to "cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office" by making "difficult decisions ... that we've long neglected" -- specifically, by "getting our spending under control."
Consider this: Only five years ago, in fiscal 2007, the federal budget totaled $2.73 trillion, and the budget deficit was a paltry $161 billion, just 1.2 percent of GDP. Under the president's 2013 budget, federal spending will have increased 40 percent in just six years.
There is daring, here. President Obama appears to calculate that a majority of Americans favor tax hikes, since they see themselves not as the ones who will pay those taxes (nearly half of Americans pay no income taxes, already), but as the beneficiaries of any scheme to "loot the rich, and give all the goodies to us."
It can't work, of course. Greece and Italy and Portugal point the way to where endless borrowing to prop up a huge regulatory bureaucracy can lead. But the president figures that for nine more months, at least, he can demonize "the rich" and bamboozle a working majority of America voters into channeling that redistributionist spirit.
Time will tell.
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liberalslie...Let me take a stab at your question...If they did not lie; they would never get elected...Only extreme nut - balls would vote for an avowed;...community organizing-muslim wannabe-black panther supporting- illegal immigrant from Kenya!...Y'know the type; occupiers- envirowhacks-the gay/lesbian crowd-feminazis-la raza-illegal immigrants, etc...We have a few on this site who will vote dumbocrat because that is where they get their welfare check from!
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks on Thursday rose after jobless claims hit a near four-year low.
The indexes solidified their gains after the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s manufacturing index in February rose to 10.2, the highest level since October.
Bad news for the far, far, far right, is of course, good news for the country; whose side are they on anyway?
OMB director undercuts legal case for Obamacare
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/omb-director-undercuts-legal-case-obamacare/376561
"He doesn't even try to hide it anymore." What? He never did in the beginning either. It's the loons on the left and mentally challenged something for nothing crowd were all so 'glamored' they NEVER paid any attention to what he actually said. Power bills will skyrocket? Better funded than our own military? Tighten your belts...squeeze every last dime out of everybody? We are not a Christian Nation? All this for a damn flag? Wise to build a mosque at Ground Zero? Rebuild roads & bridges...yeh, but by the Chinese? Invest in alternative energy...your money in the pocket of bankrupt solar companies? And you take those birth control pills or else.
It's fun to watch the freak-left still trying to cover for their failure. Why do liberals lie?
LostinVegasLibrarian "thinks" as most "librarian/libertarian" "think"; that the world is full of jelly beans and pixie dust.
Oh, and that if we just leave people alone they will do the right thing by everyone (of the other 8 billion people in the world) on earth. Then, when one of those fine "individuals" acts out, and kills and murders his way across the world, like Mao, and Hitler, and Stalin, and Bush, they claim that those "individuals" weren't really individuals at all, they were...well, they were something with an "ist" at the end of their moniker.
Which is why no one ever pays any attention to them and just hope that they crawl back under their rocks, or back into their caves, or somewhere in a cabin with no windows while they build their letter bombs; i.e. like the Unibomber
Good job in your first term Maobama...Here are some of your 'accomplishments'.... Giving illegals amnesty by executive order? Allowing the Black Panthers to carry out voter intimidation by carrying weapons at Philadelphia voting stations? Running guns to Mexican drug cartels in order to further his anti-gun agenda? His ACORN voter fraud association, consorting with known terrorists....His affiliation with the 'reverend' Wright?...Apologizing for America to every two bit dictator around the globe but most of all; shoving a corrupt health care bill down the throat of the American people.... and last but not least, running up more debt in 3 years than all the previous Presidents in American history PUT TOGETHER!!!!...That should be a good record for Obummer to run on!
Obama worse than Hitler?.......Hitler was one of the three worst evils of the 20th Century, surpassed only by those heroes of the Internatioanl Left, Stalin and Mao. Hitler killed 12MM in the Holocaust (6MM Jews and 6MM politically incorrect), and another 30MM in WW2. Stalin killed 30MM of his own people in the purges and forced Ukraine famine, and another 20MM fighting his former ally, Hitler. Mao killed 80MM of his people. …but NONE of these men so ably and quickly began to destroy America as has Barack Obama - the greatest enemy America has ever faced. And one our military seems unwilling an uninterested in fighting - turning their collective back on the ONLY Constitutional duty they have - protecting our Constitution. It is time - past time, really - to realize that Obama / Pelosi / Reid / Rangle / Schumer / Dodd / Frank… are greater enemies of America, our Constitution, the Rule of Law and to our future than were Hitler or Imperial Japan… Go RON PAUL!!!!
mrs stup ed...Tell me what is the point to your ramblings?...Sounds like you and beentheredonedope are back on the crack pipe again! Obama a center - right President? Where do you come up with this malarky?...Only the far, far, far, left - wing kooks can be stupid enough to write this drivel....GET A GRIP!
Liberals/progressives and conservatives/neo-cons are the problem. The only one who tells the truth is Ron Paul (or any libertarian), but the truth is not popular and does not win elections. So who tells a lie the best? President Barack I-was-a-Constitutional-law-professor-but-don't-understand-the-Constitution Obama leaves all others in the dust, including the fake Mitt Whatever-you-want-me-to-be Romney, "conservative" Rick But-I-voted-for-Medicare-Part-D-and-No-Child-Left-Behind-and-voted-against-Right-To-Work-because-I-wouldn't-be-reelected Santorum, and revolting Newt I-know-how-to-work-the-system-for-me Gingrich. Welcome to the fourth term of GW Bush, guaranteed to wow you starting up again in January 2013, unless lightning strikes and saves us via the inauguration of President Paul. It will just be a reflection of our society and the mob-rule we now enjoy (democracy, as opposed to a Constitutional Republic).