Obama the Born-Again Budget Cutter?!?
by Dan MitchellChalk up another victory – at least on the rhetorical level – for the Tea Party.
President Obama will release his fiscal year 2012 budget Monday and he’s apparently become a born-again fiscal conservative. Here are some excerpts from a Washington Post story.
President Obama will respond to a Republican push for a drastic reduction in government spending by proposing sharp cuts of his own in a fiscal 2012 budget blueprint that aims to trim record federal deficits by $1.1 trillion over the next decade. …two-thirds of the savings would come from spending cuts that are draconian by Democratic standards… When it lands Monday on Capitol Hill, Obama’s plan will launch a bidding war with Republicans over how deeply and swiftly to cut, as the two parties seek a path to fiscal stability for a nation awash in red ink.
I’m skeptical of battlefield conversions, particularly when politicians utilize the dishonest Washington definition of a budget cut – increasing spending by less than previously planned. So the first thing I’ll do when the budget is released Monday is to visit the Historical Tables of the Budget website and see what spending is projected to be in 2011 and what Obama is asking for in 2012.
Those numbers probably won’t be accurate since the Obama Administration (like previous ones) will use best-case assumptions, but at least we’ll get a sense of whether:
a) spending actually is being cut (I’m not holding my breath for this miracle), or
b) spending is frozen at current levels (this approach would balance the budget by 2017, but it’s almost as unlikely at the first option), or
c) spending is being restrained (perhaps 2 percent growth, enough to keep pace with inflation), or
d) spending is growing far too fast (say 4 percent growth, pushing America quickly in the wrong direction), or
e) spending is continuing to explode (5 percent growth, 6 percent growth, or even more, meaning we’ll be Greece sooner than we think).
My guess, for what it’s worth, is that the Obama Administration will claim (d) but will actually be proposing (e) if more realistic assumptions are used.
Needless to say, I hope I’m wrong. But other parts of the Washington Post story give me little reason for hope. The White House apparently is ignoring entitlements. Heck, the Administration apparently isn’t even planning on meeting the President’s own deficit goal.
The blueprint ducks the harder task of tackling the biggest drivers of future deficits: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid… Obama’s blueprint does not even hit the short-term goal he set for his commission – reducing deficits to 3 percent of the economy by 2015.
The White House also plans to play a shell game with certain parts of the budget. Supposed spending cuts in health care won’t generate taxpayer savings. Instead, they’ll be used to finance more spending on Medicare, enabling the President to cancel savings that were promised as part of Obamacare. The interest groups win and the taxpayers lose.
The Obama blueprint also seeks to eliminate two budget gimmicks that Congress has long used to mask the true depth of the red ink: His proposal would offset higher Medicare payments to doctors by cutting $62 billion from other areas of federal health spending. And it would adjust the alternative minimum tax through 2014 to prevent it from hitting middle-class taxpayers, covering the cost by limiting the value of itemized deductions such as charitable contributions and mortgage interest for wealthy households.
The same shell game takes place on the tax side of the fiscal ledger. The White House plans to cancel one future tax increase and “pay” for that change by imposing another future tax increase. Once again, taxpayers get the short end of the stick.
Unless the Washington Post story is completely inaccurate, the Obama Administration is not changing course. There may not be any major initiatives to expand the burden of government, like the failed stimulus or the budget busting government-run healthcare scheme, but it certainly does not seem like there are any plans to reverse direction and shrink the burden of government.
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98 Comments
Obama's proposed reductions have a less than 1% annual debt reduction. Sell that to a Bankruptcy Judge! Does he really think Americans are that stupid??? The POTUS plan is totally inadequate as taxpayers know.
Rugs lie less than Obozo.
Well, if congress is really serious about cuts, it will go after the estimated 1.5 trillion for year 2011. 100 billion is only 1/15 of the estimated excessive spending for this year. Get that under control and cut another 1.5 next year. Seek to return govt spending to 1986 levels. Now that is a good way to cut the deficit and pay down the national debt.
Next cut all subsidies to zero and let the farmer plant, baby, plant. Let the oil folks, drill, baby, drill. Finally let the coal folks mine, baby, mine to sell to China and whoever else might wish to buy our excess products.
Cut corp taxes to 15% to entice industry back home. Reign in the EPA, FCC, DOI, DOEnergy, DOEducation, etc, and start construction on those clean coal and nuclear energy plants, and petroleum cracking plants.
From there we go to infrastructure and begin to update and repair our bridges, highways, sewage systems, water supply systems, power lines, communication, national parks, etc. Yep, that will bring employment back to the people.
NoBama wants to cut $78 B from defense spending. Another reason he isn't like Reagan.
Along with defense cuts he wants to raise taxes. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/13/us-usa-...
All this to make the USA poorer and weaker…..I wish he would go play golf with his buddy in NK. Maybe he could inspect reactor fuel rods up close and personal.
I don't trust him. Even when he does cut the budgets, that doesn't mean he's going to quit spending. I want him out in 2012. No ifs, buts about it.
Obama lies, deceives, and is determined to punish America for being America. He's using TAQIYYA!
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words- in this case a pie, which should be directed right in BHO's face. . . . . . . http://www.theblaze.com/stories/shock-graphics-sh...
How dare Obama spew his venom regarding budget when his marxist Administration robbed U.S. and "Redistributed our Wealth" when he began "Fundamentally Transforming America" these last 2 years, like a savage!
. He inflated all of our Government Programs, destroyed jobs for most Americans, he's stopped our use of fossil fuel, and even cutting down trees. He and his Socialist Marxist team went on a tear and did major damage to US.
Remember that a Ttrillion dollars is still left that the Obama Admin is still holding aside. Keep track of that.
Any talk about cutting spending from Obama is lip service, designed to save his hide from Impeachment!
Are you kidding – they are going to claim A all the way, while not only trying to actually do E, they will try to do E on steroids all the while "claiming" they are doing A on a diet.
In our backwards age, the guy who blurted out the truth got castigated.
Thank you for clarifying the coming Obama budget obfuscation. I can hardly wait for the next 15 minute Obama-O'Reilly softball toss where the POTUS claims to have slashed billions from the budget and O'Reilly just sits there accepting it as the truth.
Sounds like a guy who plans to lose weight by cutting back from 15,000 calories a day to 14,000 calories a day.
If NoBama was born again, would he have a birth certificate this time?
You are absolutely correct.
It used to be, that telling the truth was admirable.
Not so in Brazen Boy Barry's Bizzaro World.
Obama will claim (d) and propose (e), but encase it in meaningless but patriotic-sounding verbiage. That's the Obama version of moving to the center.
Yeah, O's moved to the center….spending has become investment, control of us becomes 'security', Reagan, rather than fighting against everything Obama stands for, becomes O's best friend. The media can scream it, but we don't have to believe it.
If his lips are moving then we know he is lying.
Works every time……
You mean going from a 15,000 calorie binge to 14,000 calorie "cut", while not even counting and listing the 4,000k they are snacking on at night.
Or the fact that they cut the cardio from 1 hour to 2 minutes and now will increase it by 50% to 3 minutes.
Black/White man speak with forked tongue….
Joe Wilson was right.
Hey Obama – YOU LIE!
Obama has proposed $78 billion in cuts to the defense budget….
Obama cutting defense = Circumcision performed by near-sighted surgeon with palsy
His budget has a false baseline, rip Barrycare out by the roots, save $2.2trillion, 800,000 jobs, before the monstrosity begins to kill the country. Cut, cut, cut, and when in doubt cut more.
Ask Soros or Kissenger
They know where it's being "aged"
O/T
Over on drudge ….
UPDATE 1-Gaddafi tells Palestinians: revolt against Israel | News by Country | Reuters
http://af.reuters.com/article/tunisiaNews/idAFLDE...
BIG. EFFING. DEAL. Three paragraphs later, we read:
In other words: It's not quite 9.2 percent of the projected deficit over the decade!
Meanwhile, Ba-roke Owe-bama is letting the TSA screeners form their first union. Goodness knows how much that's going to add to costs down the road. Makes one wonder just what ELSE That One is doing quietly, out of the bright glare of the Klieg lights…
But, hey, let's give credit where credit is due: Unlike so many other lame-stream media propagandists for Dear Leader, at least Murray and Montgomery gave us the news straight up instead of whitewashing these less-than-overwhelming numbers.
Obama can't spell Balanced Budget.
Yep.
Going to the drive-up and ordering a:
"Wendy's Triple, Super-size Fries and a diet Coke."
"No Frosty please, I'm on a diet."
"$15.98, Please drive through."
! tril over 10 years is just 100 bil a year. That ain't much and pretty much I'm sure they will use creative account to get rid of that like use social security money to purchase debt to cover up that $100 bil.
1 tril in a year and I'd vote Obama back in.
I wish these politicians would quit with this 10 year crap. When its spending they say "Only $100 bil a year" but when its cuts they say "$1 tril (over ten years with a whisper)".
And of course Obama will do his "I tried to do it" scam like he did with Gitmo. What is it with progressives and Kantian ethics. Who cares you TRIED to do something. That doesn't mean anything. All your stupid intentions mean nothing if you don't ACTUALLY DO IT.
Same goes for Republicans BTW.
He has never seen, read or thought those words. He is budget illiterate.
Yes……….
it will magically appear………
….photoshopped.
Like a serial killer, Obama has no feelings and thinks not of consequences. Just the orgasm of the moment of glory. The glory of the campaign speech full of lies.
obama plans to cut 100 trillion dollars from the budget over the next billion years.
Roger that.
Well, he is the "anointed' one. <sarc>
Thats the second time in a month you beat me to it and said exactly what I was going to say…..SPOOKY
Damn fools voted in an egotistical community organizer, and that's all they got.
Don't take your eyes off of the targets:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
http://i52.tinypic.com/148qhyw.jpg
Rand Paul's Plan To Immediately Slash Half A Trillion In Spending
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2011/0...
"The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves."
George Washington
Are Americans that stupid? How many voted for the man?
Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!
This poser is all smoke and mirrors.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most unqualified of them all?
Welcome to the club! I am not a member but have 2 young adults who are becoming very conservative with each passing day. They found the Kool-Aid hangover worse than any other beverage ever consumed.
Oh yeah, and did you hear that he quit smoking too? AS IF! Any ex-smoker knows you're not going to just up and quit just because 30 million people want you to… (Actually I don't care one way or the other, I just don't like getting lied to about it)
DON'T BUY IT! Obozo will say and do ANYTHING to get a second term, Then it''s Katy Bar the Door. And America will be doomed!
That was me in 93. As soon as I voted for Slick Willie, I regretted it. I started down the road to conservatism. It would be Easter 2000 before I changed party affiliation.
It was immaculate ejaculation. <sarc> but not really.
Obama is the American Mubarack and is a born again liar.
If quiting smoking is hard for Obama, how hard is it to quit a cocaine habit? After all he admitted that he used it.
syvyn11 asks: "Are Americans that stupid?" (– to vote for Obama.) Apparently they are, considering how many votes he got on just the promise of HOPE & CHANGE. These fools didn't even know what or who they were voting for.
Oh, I don't know, I had a rug once that tripped me up several times. But then again it was RED!
First you have to cut the Unions back to what average working people earn.
We all should have known this was coming. Glenn Beck probably predicted it 2 years ago.
Replying to EOD's "Obama can't spell Balanced Budget."
He probably can't produce one either.
When Obama tells America, "I tried to do it," he just proves that he didn't know what he was doing in the first place. It's too late for him to just appoint activist Czars and expect them to come up with answers. He has to do more than just vote "Present."
Let's face facts, baby: If Obama's awake, he's lying.
No surprise there.
And during the presidential debates, the opponent who hears that should say – "No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."
Yoda was a wise, wise puppet.
Hubby is betting that the Pell grant cuts are to help stir up college students a la Greece and Britain.
It depends on what the definition of ejaculation is……
is.
Mr. Clinton, would you care to enlighten us?
"ah huh….does she have cankles?"
Well,…….it was in the script.
Same as Odumbo.
It's a toss up- smoking I heard is harder that heroin, but my experiance to addiction is the tobacco. I'm sure the vetting process includes drug tests no? It would be interesting to know that Obalma is still addicted to cocaine. More interesting is how he'd get it smuggled into the White House? new book to write "My 14 trillion dollar habit" Where's Bill Ayres when you need him?
The vetting process does not include drug testing.
It ain't funny, but yesterday the progressive liberals were laughing their a**es off at the 112th Congress announcement of their 32 Billion dollar cut which was short of the 100 Billion dollar goal. Today, Obama announces his mere 775 Million dollar cut. Why aren't the liberals laughing? Ever notice how Obama is the King of Ironic…Barry chooses a tax dodger to be over the treasury, a sexual pervert over the drugs program in education, a global warming freak in energy , for Christmas he gave the American people "Obamacare" and for Valentine's Day he is going to give a mickey mouse budget cut of 775 million dollars. You would think the American people would say "thank-you" (not in this life-time)
I can be done but you really have to want to quit, I had my last cigarette Dec. 31st at 11:30 PM 1982 and it was not that easy but it can be done, I have a lot of will power, I guess that's why I am a Conservative. I doubt very much if Obama really quit, it takes at least six monthe to know if it can be done not a couple weeks, besides he is a liberal and we all know how much he lies.
The voters were pissed at Bush, that's the only reason Obozo got elected, I can't find anybody that admits that they voted for him even the same people that claimed they voted for him right after the election, more liberal liars.
Does he drive? I thought we paid someone to drive his lazy butt around.
And signed by Rev. Wright.
Isn't that the same guy that gave up his arms to Bush after Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq? My, how things change once the liberal take over.
Trust me as someone who knows….if you polled a thousand alcoholics and a thousand drug addicts about which is the hardest substance to quit, next to oxygen….hands down the answer is nicotine….
Unions, you don't need a union if you do the job you were hired to do.
That's why he will never quit smoking.
Yeah, me too 11 years ago, but like you said- you have to really want to- and be willing to take responisibilty- IE… if you lived with my wife you'd find it hard too. The jobs got lots of pressure. Billy busted his head open with a baseball bat, or the good ol' I could just take one toke.
Needless to say- I don't see Obama stepping up and taking responsibility. You'd have problems quitting too if you knew what Bush left him with….
If Obama were admitted to a treatment center (PA- Power Anonymous), which step do you think Obama would have most trouble with?
Never tried heroin. As a smoker, I was fond of saying "I have been a smoker for two years. The rest of the time, I have been quitting." I did quit. Just put it down, and picked up a cigarette a couple of times, but found it just made me want to smoke a pack. So I don't smoke. Even had to give up cigars with my husband. Nic fiend. I am truly glad I was smart enough not to try heroin.
Well….. yeah. Unfortunately, they are. But there is hope! Slowly, ever so slowly the MSM is losing it hypnotic power of the masses. Al Gore's invention has become the institutionalized left's worse nightmare.
How much could we save by unplugging the teleprompter?
We all know that the 2012 election is around the corner. Bad, when majority of the Liberal voters have an attention span of 30 seconds and must depend on those Obama bumper stickers to get a thought going!
I believe smoking is more of a bad habit and / or psycholigical fix. I quit a 50 year smoking habit that in the end was1 1/2 to two packs a day. I did it cold turkey in three days and have never had another cigarette or desire to smoke again. Someone could light up right next to me and it didn't phase me a bit. That was 12 years ago.
Yeah, and I'm one stubborn hardass conservatrian — part conservative and part libertarian.
His main adiction is lying and he would probably fail at curing that.
For pure unadultered balderdash and chutzpah, nothing comes close to the daily Obama show, its a combination of Comedy, tradgedy and stupidity.
Stay vigilant. I smell a huge fake to the "right" again by PresBO– he's been known to do that before– everyone remember that "tax cut for everyone making less than 250K per year" line during the campaign? We're still waiting on that one…..
Lets see yearly spending has increased by a trillion dollars per year over the last couple of years. Lets take a look at what the budgets were in 2008 or 2007 adopt one of them today. See a budget doesn't have to be complex. Then make Obama come forward and justify why each one of the new dollars he needs is justified. Then lets see if he's a budget hawk.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
what vetting process?…..
Or if he's a foreigner…
What Hump?
80% of road, gasoline taxes, tolls and fees goes to government employees benefits, health and welfare and pension funds and political patronage jobs. Not much left to maintain infrastructure is there ?
Obumber won't even cut his fingernails, much less the deficit. His solution to every problem is to throw other people's money at it. What a disgrace this empty suit is. Hope those who voted for him are suffering severely from voter remorse – they deserve to.
Amen, Amen and Amen..Brings back memories of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.. Defense was cut so much Helicopters could not be maintained to safely fly and training curtailed, the Navy cancelled training under Bill Clinton because oil to fuel the ships was not available, Ammunition shortages were everywhere restricting training. The USS Cole was blown up re fueling in Yemen because an Admiral stated "We are short of oilers" to refuel at sea. Where do you think Clinton claimed a "Surplus"? I am witnessing the most EVIL of men as our politicians..It may be America is lost already….obama and his radicals are still in office and there is NOTHING we can do about it….They have used the ballot box against us…….
He could be out TODAY if anyone could prove where he really was born…..I refuse to have any foreigner as President of Our Country………..
Really spells it out doesn't it? What a farce.
Incompetence should be added to the" Impeachable Offences"
How about out in 2012 on his butt?
Like removing a mere pebble from a mountain…….
Make a wish.
Right. PhilaMike. ! Incompetence comes under the 25th Amendment .! Section 4. – - Unqualified to serve in Office! .Obama is certainly that .!
Come on Congress. Address his Impeachable Offenses .! Get rid of Obama and the rest of the dragon will wither .!
No, there's not much left to maintain the infrastructure — especially when the government pays 3 guys to watch a 4th guy toss a shovel full of asphalt into a pothole in the road.
God, please rid us of this burdensome leader!
Obumble isn't going to cut any federal spending.
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