Wednesday Chronicle: Obama's Budget Gimmickry

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Chronicle · February 16, 2011 The Foundation "He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing." --Benjamin Franklin Editorial Exegesis "[A]s you pore over Obama's new budget, beware the budgeters' tricky talk. When you hear liberal journalists in the mainstream media repeat the line that Obama's new budget 'reduces the deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years,' don't believe it for a second. Obama is not actually reducing the current $1.65 trillion deficit by $1.1 trillion. Rather, Obama plans to borrow $1.1 trillion less than he would have under earlier projections. Those projections, contained on page 174 of the document the White House released Monday, assumed vast expenditures -- trillion or near-trillion-dollar deficits every year through 2021 -- so Obama is clearing a very low bar. Here is a more accurate description of what Obama's 2012 budget plan does: It adds $8.8 trillion in new debt between today and October 2021. That number would be even larger, except that Obama's budget also raises taxes by $1.5 trillion on corporations and high-income earners, imposing higher marginal rates and new limits on charitable and mortgage deductions. In Obama's fiscal 2012 budget, no hard choices are made on the key issue of entitlements, but individuals, families and business owners will still see their taxes go up. And Obama's plan for next year actually includes more discretionary spending than last year at the height of stimulus expenditures. ... Three months after Americans expressed their deep anxiety over the unwarranted and dangerous explosion of federal spending and power under Obama by giving Republicans their biggest midterm congressional election victory since 1938, Obama is still demonstrating that he doesn't get it -- Americans want government spending cut, government debt eliminated and Washington politicians in both parties to wise up or be replaced." --The Washington Examiner Upright "The administration would have us believe that its enormous deficits are the new base line and that as long as we keep deficits at, say, $1 trillion, we are moving toward balancing the budget -- wholly ignoring that our national debt would be increasing by $1 trillion every year. You don't make progress toward balancing the budget by deliberately jacking up federal discretionary spending to unprecedented levels and then locking in those unsustainable figures with a spending freeze. You don't decrease deficits by first increasing them, and you can never make headway on reducing the national debt until you eliminate deficits altogether." --columnist David Limbaugh "On Monday morning, President Obama dropped the bloated corpse of a bizarre, $3.73 trillion budget on the steps of Capitol Hill. It is a remarkable document, in that it extends the wildly irresponsible spending and Big Government devotion of Obama's first two years almost without hesitation, despite the historic pounding his party took in the 2010 midterm elections." --columnist John Hayward "At last month's State of the Union, President Obama said America needs more passenger trains. How does he know? For years, politicians promised that more of us will want to commute by train, but it doesn't happen. People like their cars. Some subsidized trains cost so much per commuter that it would be cheaper to buy them taxi rides. The grand schemes of the politicians fail and fail again." --columnist John Stossel "Now, [Hosni] Mubarak is gone [in Egypt]. And with President Obama's penchant for both engaging Islamist organizations in the U.S. and indulging even the ruthless Islamist leaders in Tehran, the [Muslim] Brotherhood knows the current administration won't dare use the lush U.S. financial support of Egypt as leverage to deny the Brotherhood a powerful role in the new government. Nobody knows this better than James Clapper. He cannot possibly believe the Brotherhood is secular. He can believe only that you can be duped into thinking the Brotherhood is secular. The administration has to do something because, in Egypt, a Brotherhood-influenced government is now inevitable. And we've seen in Turkey how Brotherhood-influenced becomes Brotherhood-dominated in short order. The Obama administration is preparing the political ground for failure." --columnist Andrew McCarthy Insight "No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income." --Ronald Reagan "East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other." --Ronald Reagan The Demo-gogues The BIG Lie: "Just like every family in America, the federal government has to do two things at once: It has to live within its means while still investing in the future. If your family [is] trying to cut back, you might skip going out to dinner, you might put off a vacation, but you wouldn't want to sacrifice saving for your kids' college education or making key repairs in your house. So you cut back on what you can't afford to focus on what you can't do without, and that's what we've done with this year's budget." --Barack Obama Redefining terms: "What we're cutting here is not just waste, we have to actually cut some muscle. ... [Republicans] believe that we cannot afford these investments at this moment, and we believe we cannot afford not to invest at this moment." --Joe Biden using the trick word "investments" to describe outrageous federal spending Mr. Centrist: "I recognize that there are gonna be plenty of arguments in the months to come and everybody's gonna have to give a little bit. But when it comes to difficult choices about our budget and our priorities, we have found common ground before. Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill came together to save Social Security. Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress eventually found a way to settle their differences and balance the budget, and many Democrats and Republicans in Congress today came together in December to pass a tax cut that has made Americans' paychecks a little bigger this year and will spur on additional economic growth this year. So I believe we can find this common ground. --Barack Obama More Obama-as-Reagan claptrap: "The most challenging problem [at the 2004 Democrat National Convention] was what tie to wear. And this went up to the very last minute. ... And then somebody -- I don't remember who it was -- turned and said, 'You know what? What about Gibbs' tie? What about Gibbs' tie? That might look good.' And, frankly, Robert didn't want to give it up because he thought he looked really good in the tie. But eventually he was willing to take one for the gipper, and so he took off his tie, and I put it on. And that's the tie that I wore at the national convention." --Barack Obama alluding to himself as The Gipper Click Here New! George Washington's Rules of Civility Copied out by hand as a young man aspiring to the status of Gentleman, the 110 precepts which make up this work were based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. The first English edition of these rules was available in Francis Hawkins' Youths Behavior, or Decency in Conversation Amongst Men, which appeared in 1640, and it is from this work that George Washington seems to have copied. These precepts had a strong influence on Washington,who aimed to always live by them. Hardback, 30 pages. Dezinformatsia Upside down and backwards: "On Friday, House Republicans unveiled their proposal for immediate cuts in federal spending. Uncharacteristically, they failed to accompany the release with a catchy slogan. So I'd like to propose one: Eat the Future." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman Life, liberty, etc.: "You know, freedom to make your own decisions and right to life don't always go together." --CNN's Kiran Chetry Belly laugh of the week: "[Barack Obama is] a pragmatic centrist, I mean that's who he is. ... So I think, you know, they're trying to make inroads, but that's a specific community, the business community. But other than that tonal switch, he's still the same centrist he's always been." --NBC/MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell Speaking truth to power: "Obama is ... rebooting his operation to what he knows best: wizard of all things to all people and master of warm healing. He is acting as a multi-hued, but blank, canvas upon which a swath of Americans can project its diverse hopes and dreams. President Barack Tabla Rasa." --USA Today's Rich Benjamin Mockery journalism: "Whenever you think progressives need to calm down and get real you should head over to something called CPAC. It's the right-wing jamboree that puts the zany in the same room as the zanier." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews Newspulper Headlines: Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Never Mind Egypt. What Would We Do Without the UN?" --PajamasMedia.com Then They'll Annihilate April, and Mutilate May!: "Iranian Leaders Vow to Crush March" --The New York Times We Blame Global Warming: "Why Do Women Feel Colder Than Men?" --CBSNews.com Bottom Story of the Day: "Bristol Palin to Release Memoir This Summer" --DailyCaller.com (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto) Village Idiots R.E.S.P.E.C.T.: "I feel that everybody has a learning curve, and I feel that the reason why I was willing to step out for him was because I believed in his integrity and I believed in his heart. I think everybody complaining ought to try it for once. [The presidency is a position that] holds a sense of authority and governance over us all. Even if you're not in support of his policies, there needs to be a certain level of respect." --Oprah Winfrey calling on Barack Obama critics to show respect Non Compos Mentis: "The term Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, it is a largely secular group." --Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Left-theology: "I'm of the belief that had G0d appeared in front of President Obama in 2009 and said if he could do one thing on the face of the planet, and one thing only, to make the world a better place and give people more hope and opportunity for the future, I would venture that it would have something to do with finding the two-state solution to the Middle East. Time is not on our side, and a failure to act [in establishing a Palestinian state] may trigger other Egypt-like demonstrations in other countries in the region." --recently retired national security adviser Gen. James Jones Victimitis: "The House leadership is clearly out of touch with the American people, as they are continuing to focus on legislation that takes away health care women currently have instead of focusing on jobs and the economy." --Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richard Click Here U.S. Air Force Nothing'll stop the U.S. Air Force! Strap in with the highest quality official Air Force insignia items: luggage, Bibles, hats, mugs, wristbands, pins and more! Short Cuts "The president has just unveiled his proposed budget and it's huge, even bigger than expected.The centerpiece of this new budget seems to be an urgent call for gargantuan federal investments in public education and high-speed rail. And I'm staring dumbstruck at my television screen, counting my remaining pennies and worrying over the inflation that hits more items every time I go to the grocery store. I can't help but wonder whether the president has lost his bearings. Did President Obama just ask out-of-work, given-up-looking-for-work, under mortgage-water, penny-pinching Americans: 'Brother, can you spare an investment?'" --columnist Kyle-Anne Shiver "Jaws dropped across the nation's capital at the audacious annihilation of the truth on the front page of the Feb. 15 Washington Post. The top headline read, 'Obama budget makes deep cuts, cautious trades.' It's another day at the Post, where every day is an April Fool's joke." --columnist L. Brent Bozell "[S]ay we have two brothers raised in the same household. What I want to know is why it is that one will grow up to be honest, decent and intelligent, while the other sibling, who has shared all the same advantages, will turn out to be a Democrat." --columnist Burt Prelutsky "President Obama addressed an Internet convention in Michigan on Thursday where he urged the computer and software industry to use their huge profits to hire more workers. His plea fell on deaf ears. Only the U.S. government hires more people than it needs." --comedian Argus Hamilton "Keith Olbermann has a new job on Al Gore's Current TV as an investigative reporter. His job will be to find anyone that watches Current TV." --comedian Jay Leno (To submit reader comments click here.) Opinion Walter E. Williams: Self-Inflicted Poverty Rebecca Hagelin: Lonely, Hurting Marriages Jacob Sullum: Got to Be Free: Did Bush's Foreign Policy Set the Stage for Middle Eastern Democracy? John Stossel: Is Seasteading the Future? Tony Blankley: It's the Deficits That Are Draconian, Not Their Cuts Michelle Malkin: Michelle Obama: First Lady of Junk Science L. Brent Bozell: The Media's Budget Fantasy Land Ben Shapiro: Shirley Sherrod's Unconstitutional Attack on Andrew Breitbart Terence Jeffrey: Socialism's Trajectory: Obama's HHS Bigger Than LBJ's Government Austin Bay: Pharaoh or Freedom: Is an Egyptian Democratic Front Emerging? William Murchison: The War on Profit Paul Greenberg: In Defense of Custom Cal Thomas: Egypt's Dim Future Mona Charen: Hold the Champagne Thomas Sowell: Rocky and Republicans More Opinion Headlines House Science Chairman Seeks to Block Funding for New 'Climate Service' Obama Warns That He Will Veto Republican Spending Cuts Republicans Put NPR, PBS on Chopping Block Obama on Critics Who Say Budget Doesn't Move Quickly Enough to Cut Federal Deficit: 'You Guys are Pretty Impatient' IRS Needs $359M to Amass Army of 1,000 to Implement First Phase of Obamacare; 81 Workers to Enforce Tanning Salon Tax Rhode Island Bill Would Grant Illegal Immigrants in-state Tuition Ron Paul: Tea Party Activists Similar to Egyptian Protesters Egypt's Protests Flare Despite Military Warning Anti-government Protests Spread to Libya California Governor Freezes Hiring, Drops Minimum Wage Suit John Boehner: Federal Job Losses? 'So Be It' Obama Drops 'S-Bomb' at Presser on Budget More Headlines Reader Commentary Why Government Cannot Be Reformed How Long Did the Limits Last? Is a Pledge Worth the Paper It's Written On? More Reader Commentary Policy The Heritage Foundation The Cato Institute Hoover Institution National Rifle Association Ludwig von Mises Institute National Center for Policy Analysis The Heartland Institute (Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.) Follow The Patriot Post:

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