Crossposted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.
Last night, Barak Obama proved once again, do not underestimate his ability to be disingenuous. Never before have we had a President with such arrogance combined with such little actual accomplishment and such little ability. The A.P. ran a post speech fact check. Needless to say, it wasn’t very flattering to President Obama. It seems that the President failed in his basic math on every single major initiative presented during his speech. Contrast that with President Bush. He was accused of a single gaffe during his SOTU of 2003, and that one gaffe was brought up as a campaign issue during both the 2004 and 2008 elections. (For my liberal friends, watch your alphabet media newscasts tonight, and see if this gets more than a passing mention.) For my part though, it is the new found frugality of Barak Obama which has me feeling like Charlie Brown eyeballing Lucy Obama holding the football for another attempt to kick that ball to the moon. Perhaps because, he lost said frugality while still making the same speech, a new world record. President Obama highlighted his promise to cut the budget deficit by $500 Billion over the next 10 years by proposing more spending on the same old unnecessary stuff which failed to stimulate the economy 2 years ago. That’s right, he plans to cut the deficit by spending more. I was taught how to balance a check book as a part of my 6th grade math class. (Mr. Steckley would be so proud of me today!) Apparently, in the state of Hawaii, that skill is considered to be for the little people.
Don’t misunderstand me, Paul Ryan’s plan to cut $100 Billion this year is not nearly enough, but it at least has the virtue of being a step in the right direction. We will not, as a nation cut our deficit by starting out spending more of what we don’t have. Ryan’s plan would also have a deficit decrease over the next 10 years of $1.5 Trillion, roughly 3 times the savings offered up by the Obama Plan, if that were Obama’s intention. Perhaps a look at some of the problems with Obama’s math might be in order. Some examples from the link above:
OBAMA: Tackling the deficit “means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs, which is part of why nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the health care law would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to our deficit.”
THE FACTS: The idea that Obama’s health care law saves money for the government is based on some arguable assumptions.
To be sure, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the law will slightly reduce red ink over 10 years. But the office’s analysis assumes that steep cuts in Medicare spending, as called for in the law, will actually take place. Others in the government have concluded it is unrealistic to expect such savings from Medicare.
In recent years, for example, Congress has repeatedly overridden a law that would save the treasury billions by cutting deeply into Medicare pay for doctors. Just last month, the government once again put off the scheduled cuts for another year, at a cost of $19 billion. That money is being taken out of the health care overhaul. Congress has shown itself sensitive to pressure from seniors and their doctors, and there’s little reason to think that will change.
OBAMA: “The bipartisan Fiscal Commission I created last year made this crystal clear. I don’t agree with all their proposals, but they made important progress. And their conclusion is that the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it — in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes.”
THE FACTS: Obama’s fiscal commission did not simply recommend cutting excessive spending; it proposed that the deficit could only be tamed by cutting $3 for every $1 of new revenue raised — in other words, a painful mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Instead, Obama proposed an overhaul of the corporate tax system that would eliminate loopholes and tax breaks but also reduce tax rates. The net effect would be neutral; it would not reduce or raise any revenue. Obama has yet to sign on to any of the ideas, even though he promised when creating the panel that it would not be “one of those Washington gimmicks.”
OBAMA: “To put us on solid ground, we should also find a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for future generations.”
THE FACTS: With that comment, Obama missed another chance to embrace the tough medicine proposed by the commission for bringing down the deficit. For example, he ruled out slashing benefits or partially privatizing the program, and made no reference to raising the retirement age. That left listeners to guess how he plans to do anything to salvage the popular retirement program whose trust funds are expected to run out of money in 2037 without changes.
To prove that the Democrats remain nothing more than partisan hacks, we have this tidbit I found at Weazelzippers. The Democrat Leadership wasted no time in tearing apart Ryan’s aforementioned proposals. I have no problem with their disagreement, that is what vigorous political debate is about. But in this instance, it turns out, they didn’t bother to read the proposal prior to not liking it. Now, it was bad enough that they voted for the destruction of our health care system without bothering with trite little things like reading the bill before voting on it, but I would have thought that they learned their lesson on that one. America, we have bigger things to worry about than politics. Apparently our national leaders are among the laziest people on Earth. I used to say that the two laziest professions were journalist and professional psychic. I am being forced to amend that to being the three laziest professions and including Congressman in the mix.
In the end, I was right, the SOTU these days is nothing more than a pep-rally. Last night it was a campaign kickoff from the man admonishing all Republicans in Washington to avoid campaigning prior to his arbitrarily approved date. It was a waste of my time, an hour and a half I’ll never get back.
UPDATE: Walter Williams has written a brilliant column today appearing in Investor’s Business Daily.
UPDATE II: Rep. Eric Cantor (R) Virginia gets it.
Tags: State of the Union
