President Obama, there you go again. Barack Obama giving a speech about the importance of fiscal restraint is like Bill Clinton talking about the importance of telling the truth. It just doesn’t pass the smell test.
Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view more cartoons)
The national debt has increased by $3.6 trillion on President Obama’s watch, exploding from $10.6 trillion to $14.2 trillion during the first 27 months of his presidency. Our federal budget deficit is at a record high, largely because of Obama’s trillion dollar “stimulus” plan and trillion dollar healthcare takeover. So when the President, a big government liberal from Chicago, stands up and says he’s now a budget hawk and proposes to cut $4 trillion dollars over 12 years, why should anyone believe that he’s actually going to follow through on this new plan?
President Obama’s core political strategy revolves around spending a lot of taxpayer funds on a lot of government programs. That is his ideology – that government is the answer to society’s problems. But what does President Obama, running for reelection, do when the public rebels against his big government ideology and tells him we need to make unprecedented cuts and reforms to government, for the sake of our children and grandchildren? He pulls a 180. He makes another speech that contradicts his record in the hope that a $1 billion campaign war chest can convince the American people that this time he’s being sincere.
This unprincipled change of direction is not only disingenuous, but it’s also indicative of a politician willing to say and do anything to get re-elected. Let’s look at his record. In 2008, candidate Obama campaigned on deficit reduction. As President, he has done nothing. At this year’s State of the Union address, he could have made entitlement reform and spending cuts a priority. He did not. When the President’s own bi-partisan debt commission came back with serious recommendations to curb the debt he could have embraced them. He chose not to. When he released his budget for fiscal year 2012 in February, the President could have changed direction from the failing status quo to chart a new direction to put us on the path to fiscal solvency. He couldn’t find the political courage to do so.
But Congressman Paul Ryan’s bold budget blueprint changed the political calculus for Obama and his brain trust. The truth is that President Obama finally focused on our fiscal crisis and budget cuts in a speech yesterday only because his political advisers and pollsters told him he was being left behind on one of the most critical issues of our time. Unfortunately, despite being $14 trillion in debt, the President’s speech was not at all urgent in tone. It was defensively partisan, which has become a curious trademark for someone who campaigned on creating a “post-partisan” atmosphere inside the beltway. Courageous cuts and drastic reforms were nowhere to be found. In fact, the main thrust of the speech seemed to be centered on what programs Mr. Obama pledged to “protect” along with the normal Democrat tax increases, defense cuts, and class warfare.
This is a dangerous time for America. We have an unabashed liberal at the helm who doesn’t have the guts to tell the people that America needs to change its ways and junk the failed status quo. It appears that from here on in, it’s going to be all about the President and his prospects for a second term – which means not rocking the boat and only telling the people what they want to hear. This is exactly the opposite mindset the country needs right now from its Commander-in-Chief.
It must be a scary time to be a big spending liberal like Obama. The American people have caught on to the fact that the big government utopia they’ve been promised has only made the situation worse. Now they are fully engaged on the debt and deficit issue and are demanding action. President Obama may try to put one past them with dazzling speeches making big promises like he did in 2008 but this time the Americans know Obama’s record and will see right through that. Hardworking taxpayers are tired of the out-of-control spending, business-as-usual operations, and a sluggish economy; their patience for freewheeling big government liberalism is at last coming to an end. Now that’s hope and change we can believe in.
