I believe him because the President is not a nice man. He is a bully when he wins and look out when he loses! He will not let Congress off the hook for allowing the sequester to take effect. He will see to it that the most vulnerable Americans among us “hurt” to make his point - the sequester was a mistake.
If unemployment goes up, or a massive layoff is imminent, or the stock market falls, it will be because of the sequester. If Iran (I should probably say when Iran) develops the bomb, it will be because of the sequester. When the next weather event occurs, you guessed it, it will be because those nasty Republicans allowed the sequester to occur. Any glitch in the next two years will be the fault of the sequester.
Over the course of his presidency, Obama has used his campaign skills, his cabinet, and even the press to effectively coerce Congress into passing legislation by scaring the bejeebers out of gullible citizens. This time Congress bulked, citizens slept, and the President didn’t get his way.
Saturday, after the sequester went into effect, the President said there was still time to find a smarter solution to the nation's debt problem. "I still believe we can and must replace these cuts with a balanced approach - one that combines smart spending cuts with entitlement reform and changes to our tax code that make it more fair for families and businesses without raising anyone's tax rates.” No one can argue with that, Mr President, but the trouble is none of that was part of your "balanced approach" before the sequester. You have never mentioned entitlement reforms.
Ben Hallman, Senior Financal Writer for the Huffington Post agrees, it wasn’t clear what Obama meant by “balanced approach.” He wrote, “So what perks, exactly, does Obama want to cut? The president has avoided going into much detail, but public statements and a recent White House policy paper suggest these likely priorities.” Hallman then speculates on what the President could have meant. You can read his article at the Huffington Post Web site for the details.
Interestingly, vague proposals, like the one above, is another tool the President has used while in office. He never offers his leadership to solve a problem. He leaves that to Congress, which has confounded Republican Speaker Boehner more than once. On spending cuts and entitlement reform, we can expect more of the same. The President will let the Congress propose cuts, which he will oppose - so he can appear the hero and Congress the villain.
As far as closing the loopholes in the tax code, both Speaker Beohner and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed with the President to close loopholes - just not as a trade-off for tax cuts. Good thinking gentlemen.
4 comments:
Much ado about nothing. The 300B in tax increases will be the sea anchor on the economy. You are correct when you say sequester will be the latest excuse for continued death spiral of the economy, since they already used Bush, the Japan tsunami, the euro crises etc. etc. I wonder if enough people will ever wake up to the fact that this regime's economic policies are designed to destroy, a la Cloward and Piven, Saul Alinsky. Out of the ashes they will build their Utopia.
Does a drop of clean water in a bucket of poison make a difference? Sure- about as much as this spending "cut" will make. With inflation rising as fast as they dare, and the fact that this "cut" is really only a "cut" in future spending, unfortunately the cut is not enough to bleed the dragon of irresponsible spending to death. The bucket of poison gets more potent with each day. I really don't think that drop of water is going to make a difference other than being lots of fodder for the news, and a bouquet of lies for the President to present to the people to appease them.
300B in tax increases. Are you referring to ending the temporary payroll FICA taxes? If so, those are, I believe, responsible taxes - meaning they had to be restored to pay for current Social Security spending. What lawmakers need to do this year is to reform SS and reduce spending. That is the big egg in the debt basket. If we can get that under control, then this Congress will have done exceedingly well. Unfortunately, reforms in that area, are going to be tough. They will be opposed by seniors and near seniors who believe Government “owes” them. SS recipients are the biggest pigs at the trough.
As far as Cloward and Piven and the likes, they didn’t invent policy, only recognized what has been going on and put a name to it. The rich aren’t afraid of the poor as much as they recognize the need to reduce the numbers of the poor somehow and bringing them into social and economic responsibility - albeit wrongly by increasing the size of the welfare safety net.
It’s a mistake to name the poor as the culprit and not policy makers (including lobbyist, special groups, and cronies of politicians as well as elected officials) who line their own pockets with our tax dollars. (Corruption)
Hard to say everything here, but there is much hope for the future as long as policymakers continue down the road of responsible gov. reductions. As citizens we have the responsible to encourage them to do so.
C.D. Thank you for your comment. There are a lot of people who are discouraged with our governments policy makers. I believe the sequester is much more than a drop in the bucket, it is a turning point where conservative lawmaker took a stand against government spending - and won. The President and administration now have a lot of egg on their face and it will be more difficult for them to oppose further reductions in spending. That is important because there will be many opportunities for our lawmakers to make some real reductions in spending this year. But as I said above, it is really going to be difficult.
Calling our Senators and Representatives and expressing our support for reductions is really a vitally important task for us right now. A good read is the CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023. (if the hyperlink didn't work, Google it to read.) Although there is a lot of unpredictability about the future, this document is a great baseline for where we are headed.
Keep the faith, all is not lost!
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