Bill Clinton declared more than a decade ago “the era of big government is over.” With his new budget, President Barack Obama has brought it back.
Obama’s $3.55 trillion budget proposal represents a gamble that Americans are ready for the sort of change they embraced by electing him in November, including a tax increase on Americans making more than $250,000 a year.
He proposes expansion of spending on the U.S. healthcare system, on greater energy independence and on education, hoping Americans weary of paying for a raft of expensive bailouts for banks and the car industry will go along.
Obama is making George W. Bush look like a fiscal conservative.
Yes, and proposing to significantly curtail deductions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions will certainly encourage homeownership and giving to charities.
Change you can count on.
The last paragraph sums it all up. It is hard to believe that over 50% of this country can’t see what is going on. “There will always be poor among you†apparently socialist as well.
I am undecided which description best fits this new administration; “The Max Sennett Administration,” or “Jimmy Carter on Speed?” If the latter, then then Attorney General Holder seems to be the designated “Andy Young.”
Though I didn’t vote for him, I was honestly supportive and was genuinely going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I was encouraged at the smooth transition period, and the apparent bipartisanship. For me, the honeymoon is over. Now, I’m afraid that if I live through the coming Greater Depression, I will never be able to retire, and will probably die waiting for some government-run medical services.
I hate to sound gloomy, and I know the Father can meet all of my needs; but that’s my mood this week. The health insurer I work for lost about 20% of its stock price in two days following the President’s address. It’s almost enough to turn me into a “progressive”, because I’m now more likely to need every government assistance program I can find!
Elections have consequences. Keep that in mind in 2010 and 2012.
Nations receive the government which they deserve.
Heedless and careless citizens have lapsed in their judgment.
I have searched in vain. I have looked without result. I can find no example of permanent creation of jobs by government spending (except for government bureaucracies). And government bureaucracies impede jobs, as any person who has tangled with the EPA, the IRS, HHS, or any of hundreds of other bureaus can attest.
Taxing the wealth creators (small business owners) will discourage them from producing jobs in the private sector.
All prior Socialist governments have injured the majority of their citizenry, most notably in Cambodia, but certainly in the other Socialist realms of history.
Socialized Education has brought about mass ignorance.
Socialized Health Care in the VA Hospitals has provided an appalling level of non-care.
Medicare, promised (by Sen Humphrey) never to cost more than $100 million, consumes a steadily increasing amount of our tax money.
Follow a demagogue, and what you get is demagoguery.
[i]Nations receive the government which they deserve.
Heedless and careless citizens have lapsed in their judgment.[/i]
That may be true, but there are a lot of people who did NOT vote for Obama (was it 48 – 52%?) who are still going to be hurt by all this. Of course, the alternative was not much better.
One of the main problems is that only the most popular person gets the nomination, the qualified are eliminated early or are shut out altogether. So who can the ‘innocent’ who believe in a Constitutionally limited government vote for and still hope for their voice to be heard?
I have no answer.
Jim Elliott
Mathman, what are you talking about? Corporations don’t produce “permanent” jobs. If they did, why are so many laying people off?
The point of government spending is to jumpstart the economy and do what corporations are NOT doing right now. Which is spending. They are cutting back, as are banks.
Although I’m sure you’ve had bad experiences with bureaucracies, nobody praises a bureaucracy when it’s just doing its job.
Socialist governments have hurt their citizenry? Like, uh, Norway and Finland? Spain? Brazil?
Socialized education? the University of Virginia? Chapel Hill? Government spending at MIT? Libraries?
As far as veterans hospitals: if you don’t fund hospitals, yes you will get poor care. But the veterans I know are a bit more happy than you are, Walter Read notwithstanding.
perhaps you can add up how much we currently spend on health care vs what a universal health care would cost.
Jim, Obama won by 7.3% by 9.5 million votes, the sixth largest in history by a non-incumbent.