Now that bipartisan commission has reported, but Mr. Obama didn’t fully endorse any of its recommendations. To the contrary, he promised more jobs for teachers and construction workers. He warned against “slashing” Social Security benefits. Corporate tax reform is fine, but if it’s revenue-neutral, it only postpones – and makes more politically difficult – the task of narrowing the nation’s deficit.
So what happens now? Maybe some members of Congress will display the courage the president has lacked. Maybe Mr. Obama, in the budget he proposes next month, will grapple more realistically with the hard choices than he did Tuesday night. But even if he does, how can he expect public support if he hasn’t made the case? From the man who promised to change Washington, it seemed all too drearily familiar.
And , of course, if the Republicans actually propose real spending cuts or reductions in entitlements, they will be demagogued shamelessly. We have all seen it before: Throw granny out on the streets, starving children etc. Bottom line is don’t expect anything to happen until the system actually collapses.
Cut spending, cut spending, cut spending, cut spending. Do it now!!!!
#1, the last person to grapple realistically with a government program in crisis was Bob Dole. He is a hero of mine; the Republican party today bears precious little resemblance to him. Here’s hoping for John Boehner.
[blockquote]And the president’s refusal to call for the adjustments to entitlement programs that his deficit commission recently embraced suggests a familiar strategy: He will let Republicans propose controversial cuts, and suffer the political consequences.[/blockquote] http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/budget-obama-gop-state/2011/01/26/id/383989
and from the same article:
[blockquote]A report Wednesday from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which the administration has relied on so often to provide rosy projections about the flood of federal red ink, supported the dire GOP view, delivering a rat-tat-tat of ominous findings:
* The budget deficit expanded from a record $1.3 trillion last fiscal year to a record $1.5 trillion in the current budget year.
* At current spending levels, the national debt that represented 40 percent of GDP in 2008 will rise to 70 percent by the end of 2011, according to TheHill.com. That figure does not include state and local debt and obligations, however.
* The CBO director, Douglas Elmendorf, wrote that Congress must raise taxes or cut spending “to prevent debt from becoming unsupportable.â€
* The CBO projects continued chronic high unemployment. The jobless rate would drop to 9.2 percent by September and still would be over 8 percent by the fall of 2012.
If any of that was particularly alarming to the president or Democrats on Tuesday night, however, there was little evidence of it.[/blockquote]
As the Democrats posture and the President spends money he does not have it is hard not to feel the stirrings of panic.
[blockquote]If any of that was particularly alarming to the president or Democrats on Tuesday night, however, there was little evidence of it.[/blockquote]
I’m deeply alarmed.