One has to wonder whether this trial balloon comes from the administration, or the Associated Press. Either way, if Obama gives the deficit the same attention he gave jobs creation, it’ll balloon even more
Preparing for political life after a bruising election, President Barack Obama will put greater emphasis on fiscal discipline, a nod to a nation sick of spending and to a Congress poised to become more Republican, conservative and determined to stop him.
He is already giving clues about how he will govern in the last two years of his term.
Obama will try to make gains on deficit reduction, education and energy. He will enforce his health care and financial overhauls and try to protect them from repeal should Republicans win control of Capitol Hill. He will use executive authority when blocked by Congress, and steel for scrutiny and investigations if the GOP is in charge.
Right, that deficit he and the Democrats took to record levels without regard to whether their programs would you know, actually work. So far, they haven’t, except in their own minds.
The president has signaled that at the start of the new year, he will speak more directly to the country about the financial choices ahead. “If we’re going to get serious about the deficit, then we’re going to have to look at everything: entitlements, defense spending, revenues. … And that’s going to be a tough conversation,” he said.
You can easily see the path he will lay out, then mostly ignore (except, the Republican House, and possibly a GOP Senate, and the American People won’t let him forget): he’ll make entitlement reform look very bad, and blame Republicans for wanting to take away your “life.” Meanwhile, he’ll offer up to do a Jimmy Carter to the defense of this nation, reducing and cutting, while pushing tax increases, and not just on the “rich.” Adding a value added tax program will probably be floated, along with many other ideas that GOP will not allow, ideas that would further mire the United States in economic stagnation.
Obama says the most frustrating part of his presidency is that he had to keep spending money and adding to the deficit in his first six months in office “to save the economy.” He has from the start called deficit reduction a goal, but one that had to get bumped in favor of sparking the economy.
How’s that worked out? If you’ve sliced your finger, and need stitches and medical attention, do you go see someone with a medical degree, or a holistic healer? Likewise, if you want the economy fixed, do you look towards people who have actually spent time in business, or people who have spent most of their lives in academia and/or whipping up agitation?
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So he’s going to ‘pivot onto deficits’, right?
Like he did a ‘hard pivot’ onto jobs in February.
If his ‘pivot on deficits’ is anything like his ‘pivot on jobs’, we can expect to have a deficit approaching 25tn by 2012.
“He will use executive authority when blocked by Congress, and steel for scrutiny and investigations if the GOP is in charge.”
This is all-telling. He’s going to do what he wants by fiat. We call that ‘dictatorship.’ Looks like Congress will have to control him by simply not passing budgets. I’ll bet that the workers in the executive branch won’t be too happy about working and not getting paid for it.
Focus on making it bigger than it already is?