The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Obama’s ‘Preposterous’ Budget

Posted on | February 14, 2012 | 10 Comments

“The American people have spoken loudly for the past three years, demanding fiscal responsibility from our leaders and President Obama is either deaf or simply won’t listen. Today’s proposal of nearly $4 trillion in spending over the next year is preposterous, not only in overall funding but in priorities. If we do not get our spending under control, we will have turmoil in the streets — and that’s not a guess — all you have to do is look to Europe. America needs to lead, and America needs a leader prepared to make those tough choices. I am committed to balancing our budget and cutting $5 trillion in spending in five years. These are the measures necessary to not just put our nation’s fiscal house in order, but to spur on economic growth and confidence in our free-market system.”
– Rick Santorum, press release, Feb. 13

Among other things, Obama’s $4 trillion budget includes special economic aid to countries involved in the “Arab Spring”:

Most of the economic aid for the Arab Spring countries — $770 million — would go to establish a new “Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund,” the president said in his budget plan. . . .
The Middle East and North Africa Incentive fund “will provide incentives for long-term economic, political, and trade reforms to countries in transition — and to countries prepared to make reforms proactively,” the White House budget document said.

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute:

All in all, Obama has proposed some $1.6 trillion in new taxes over ten years, taking tax revenue as a share of GDP to 20.1 percent in 2022 vs. a historical average of 18 percent. And despite all those new taxes, Obama’s plan would still add $6.7 trillion in new debt and make no progress in lowering the nation’s total debt levels as a share of output. The debt-to-GDP ratio is predicted to be 74.2 percent this year and 76.5 percent in 2022.

Tina Korbe at Hot Air quotes Rep. Paul Ryan: “We have a debt crisis on our horizon. . . . For the fourth year in a row, he’s decided to do nothing about it and he’s actually created a budget to make it much, much worse.”

Did somebody say “worse”?

As Allahpundit observes, the president’s budget proposes to zero out the D.C. school-choice scholarship for poor children while simultaneously proposing $100 million in subsidies for electric cars.

Remember when Obama told Joe the Plumber he wanted to “spread the wealth”? Obama didn’t say that this would involve taking money from poor kids to give it to rich people who buy Chevy Volts.

If Democrats told the truth, nobody would ever vote for them.

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Category: Barack Obama, Budget

Comments

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

     Obama understands that anyone who gives a rat’s patootie about the deficit, spending, or entitlement reform is not a potential voter for him.  So he has more goodies for those who do not.

    If gas prices rise as expected, his reelection chances will become ever more problematic.

  • Anonymous

    How will we produce the additional electricity needed to power the electric cars? Via new breakthroughs in ”green energy,” silly.

    But how can we ensure that there will be breakthroughs in green energy? Reelect Obama.

    Okay, so what will Obama will do in his second term to hasten these green energy breakthroughs? Making such sensitive information public would harm our national security. You’ll just have to take our word for it . . .

  • Serfer62

    All the economic problems have been accelerated by the House. The House controlls the money & neither the Senate nor the TOTUS can do anything about it.

    The House is controlled by the GOP for votes only, the bills for voting are controlled by the Speaker. It is Speaker Boehner who is to blame for the excess borrowing & spending…the Establishment again strikes at America.

    In Palin’s speech at CPAC she alluded to this by saying that the Tea Party must have more leadership position in Congress.

  • Finrod Felagund

    Santorum would be in a much better position with his criticism of Obama if he had any kind of record of standing up against earmarks in the House and Senate.  Unfortunately, he defended them then.

  • Anonymous

    Earmarks are a drop in the bucket and, thus, attacks on politicians’ past votes on earmarks are usually red herrings.

  • Finrod Felagund

    On the contrary, earmarks are the canary in the fiscal coal mine.  Senators and Representatives that aren’t willing to make the small cuts that earmarks represent have shown themselves time and again unwilling to make the big cuts that the budget desperately needs.  If you disagree, show me one member of Congress that is pro-earmark that has also pushed for budget austerity.
     

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  • AnonymousDrivel

     I think you’re right. As a percentage due to the outrageous numbers our government over-collects and overspends, it is trivial; however, it does indicate a propensity to spend.

    And this is a corrupting proposition. Representatives at the federal level are hired by their constituents to bring home the bacon, so they do. In so doing, they have to agree to let their colleagues bring home their bacon too lest they starve themselves. Yeah, it’s OK if the numbers are small and there is some measurable benefit to a large population, but we’re waaay past that now. We’re in deep economic s***, but to cut back now is to “starve the children!”

    We need statesmen to block the feds completely for a while – which is to say years – and let the states fend among and between themselves without all the federal intervention except for national security and the like. Keep D.C. Congresscritters dysfunctional while electing a president who will excise budgets, departments, agencies, and regulatory burdens.

    The Federal government is “too big to succeed.” (h/t Sarahcuda)

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