What's needed, he claimed, is "a serious plan" that will "require tough choices." He then outlined a four-step "approach"--it wasn't detailed enough to achieve planhood--that showed his promise of honesty to be an utter fraud.
The first step is "to keep annual domestic spending low." Wait, it's low? He then adds this qualification:I will not sacrifice the core investments that we need to grow and create jobs. We will invest in medical research. We will invest in clean energy technology. We will invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education. We will invest in job training. We will do what we need to do to compete, and we will win the future.So when he said of government spending that Americans "like the stuff that it buys," he was referring to himself. He seems less than determined to "keep" spending low, much less actually to reduce it considerably, which is what will be required.
President Boring - Roger Simon
What is it about Barack Obama that caused his vice president Joe Biden to fall asleep during the president’s speech Tuesday?
Did Biden, getting on in years, just need his afternoon nap? Well, maybe, but the television cameras showed a woman quite near the veep nodding out as well.
No, I think it was a natural response. Biden and the woman were bored stiff. Barack Obama has become the most tedious president in my lifetime. He is like those college professors whose classes you did everything you could to avoid but, if you had to go, sat as far back as possible in order to get a little shut-eye yourself.
But what is it about Obama that makes him so boring? I submit it is something quite simple — he has nothing to say. He is a boring person, the quintessential “hollow man” in the T.S. Eliot sense. He is kind of a socialist, kind of a liberal, kind of a multi-culturalist, kind of an environmentalist, kind of globalist, kind of a budget cutter — but none of them with any real commitment. Basically, he’s a vague and uncommitted person pretending to be otherwise. He is the man that voted “present,” now in the presidency. The fact that he never specified the targets of “hope” and “change” during his election was far from a campaign ploy and more typical than we ever dreamed. There never was a there there. And now, I strongly suspect, there never will be.
Obama, Spending Three Times as Fast as Bush, Blames Bush - Jim Geraghty
There is a lot of blaming Bush in this speech. Quick perspective: Using numbers from the U.S. Treasury, we see that the debt during Bush’s eight years in office increased from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, or $4.9 trillion over eight years. That’s bad; that’s basically $610 billion per year. But in the less than three years Obama has been in office, the debt has increased from $10.6 trillion to $14.2 trillion, a $3.6 trillion increase in about 27 months. In other words, Obama is increasing the debt by $1.6 trillion per year, three times as fast as Bush.Also, follow the link for video of the McCain/Obama Presidential debate, where candidate Obama promises to cut more than he would spend, resulting in a net spending cut.
Krauthammer’s take on Obama’s budget address: ‘I thought it was a disgrace’ - Jeff Poor
“I’m going to give you one example of how dishonest it was – he went on and on how the Republicans want to steal from your grandma to lower taxes on the rich,” Krauthammer continued. “And he talked about the Bush tax cuts and how much he is going to stand on the bridge and oppose any extension which is what he knows how to do. He has done it over and over for the last six years. The Ryan plan is not about the Bush tax cuts. It transcends them. It’s what the deficit — what Obama’s own commission recommended, strip out loopholes and lower rates for everyone. It’s not about whether it’s the Bush rates or Clinton rates. It’s a whole new approach by which the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended itself. In fact, Bowles had recommended in one of its scenarios of a high rate of 23 percent. Ryan is at 25 percent. Obama did this knowing that this is a way to play to his base. It was a speech that was quite remarkable in how demagogic it was and I say that with all due respect.”With video.
About Those Medicare Savings - Kevin D. Williamson
Our current unfunded entitlement liabilities run about $100 trillion.
President Obama proposes to “strengthen” Medicare through a price-fixing panel called the Independent Payments Advisory Board (IPAB).
CBO took a look at IPAB and estimated that it might save us $28 billion over the next ten years, i.e., next to nothing.
And then it took another look and lowered its estimate from next to nothing to nothing:For 2015 and subsequent years, the IPAB is obligated to make changes to the Medicare program that will reduce spending if the rate of growth in spending per beneficiary is projected to exceed a target rate of growth linked to the consumer price index and per capita changes in nominal gross domestic product. CBO’s projections of the rates of growth in spending per beneficiary in the March 2011 baseline are below the target rates of growth for fiscal years 2015 through 2021. As a result, CBO projects that, under current law, the IPAB mechanism will not affect Medicare spending during the 2011-2021 period.You have to admire the president: To go out and give a morally preening speech like that, with IPAB front and center, on the assumption that nobody’s reading the footnotes.
Obama’s Tax Increase Trigger: Punishing Taxpayers with Automatic Tax Hikes When Politicians Overspend - Dan Mitchell
Called a “debt failsafe trigger,” Obama’s scheme would automatically raise taxes if politicians spend too much. According to the talking points distributed by the White House, the automatic tax increase would take effect “if, by 2014, the projected ratio of debt-to-GDP is not stabilized and declining toward the end of the decade.”
Let’s ponder what this means. If politicians in Washington spend too much and cause more red ink, which happens on a routine basis, Obama wants a provision that automatically would raise taxes on the American people.
