Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Obama to tax our way out of debt.

As we prepare tomorrow for President Obama's anticipated budget speech (even now, no doubt, a team of no less than a dozen must be curling each subtle nuance of every sentence to perfection) already the media and blogs are alight with cries to tax the rich, tax the rich.  As if running to the left will solve our staggering deficit.  As if taxes at all are at the base of our problems.

It seems we are being asked not only to ignore our crazy spending, but to pretend that the problem is so simple that a little bump in taxes will make it all go away so we can have more handouts from some new government agencies, comissions, and committees.

What will it take for us to get on the right track?  If Obama thinks he can walk away tomorrow night, after garnering support from the Left (i.e. wealthy tax increases), after ignoring our debt crisis, after ignoring our credit crisis, than he will be losing more that the support of the independents.  He will be losing re-election for sure.

A 40 Billion Dollar Stall.

There goes the 100 billion dollar promise. Out of Washington today we hear that a compromise has been made.  I should note, though, that I am hearing this out of decidedly left-leaning sources - that this weeks round of budget negotiations have increased the cut from last weeks 38.5 billion to a mere 40 billion.  So, in other words, the government nearly shut down for 1.5 billion dollars.

Absolutely unacceptable.  The cuts do nothing to give us our economy back within the next decade.  We still are spending more than ever, this year being our largest budget deficit in the history of our nation.  But still some media outlets paint the story in strictly "this will take the spoon out of a baby's mouth" terms, ignoring the devestating effects that leaving this debt to grow would cause. They don't see what a credit-less, bankrupt American would mean.

You can't run three wars, spend every dollar you have, use credit for every purchase you make, police the world, and provide universal healthcare without all of of that debt catching up to you.  The pain will only get worse.  If we ignore this, the pain will become excruciating.

The politicians have their heads in the clouds it seems.  It is probably not a coincidence that today is the 50th anniversary of the first man in space.