GayPatriot

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Sorry, Mr. President I don’t believe you

by

Say, a guy takes all his friends and business contacts out for drinks, opening bar tabs for his most favored clients. Say that at the same time, he asks liquor stores and drinking establishments to keep those clients supplied with booze at various times over the next few years.

Now imagine that a week later, he holds a meeting and vows to promote sobriety. But, he keeps the tabs open at the liquor stores and bars.

Are you going to believe his new-found commitment to sobriety?

Of course not.

So now you see why I didnt believe the president at his “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” yesterday he pledged “to cut the nation’s $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term.” Amazing that, after increasing federal spending by record amounts, he could, with a straight face, talk about cutting government waste and ending duplicative programs as he did during the campaign.

A week after signing legislation which, according to one estimate, dded thirty-two new government programs, the president pledged to eliminate “programs that don’t work to make room for ones that do.“  But, I couldn’t find any evidence that the “stimulus” eliminated thirty-two failing programs?

No sooner does the preisdent sign legislation spending hundreds of millions of dollars the federal government doesn’t have, than he announces his “pay-go approach,” claiming it

. . . is based on a very simple concept: You don’t spend what you don’t have. So if we want to spend, we’ll need to find somewhere else to cut. This is the rule that families across this country follow every single day — and there’s no reason why their government shouldn’t do the same.

Mr. President, will all due respect, in the signature legislation of your first month in office, you didn’t find any spending to cut.

No wonder even the AP finds that your deficit goals count on rosy assumptions.

UPDATE:  This is not a headline from a conservative newspaper or webpage:  “Is Obama Serious About Fiscal Responsibility?“  (H/t:  Jennifer Rubin).

Comments

  1. One has to wonder how he can possibly stand with a straight face and deliver these lines.

    While, even as he talks of “fiscal responsibility” (only one short week after signing the hugest spending bill in the history of EVER), his stooges in Congress are pushing through another spending bill.

    But, this one’s only 1/2 a trillion. What a bargain.

  2. Obama is trying to keep the Treasury bond market happy – including the Chinese, Arabs and Japanese who make up an important part of that market. How stupid are they? We’re about to find out, one way or the other.

  3. jana, it reminds me of the scene in Orwell’s _1984_ where Winston knows that the Party is about to announce a reduction of the chocolate ration. The Party announces it as an increase in the chocolate ration (even though it isn’t). Winston wonders if the people around him will be stupid and craven enough to buy such an unbelievably bald-faced lie. They are.

    Such is life in the brave new world of Hope and Change. The most massive deficit increases in U.S. history, now being spun as deficit reduction. Don’t think. Feel. Feel the Hope… the Change. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

  5. Amazing that, after increasing federal spending by record amounts, he could, with a straight face, talk about cutting government waste and ending duplicative programs as he did during the campign.

    You speak as though the campaign were over. Completely unqualified to do anything else, Obama has made clear he intends to campaign his way through the presidency.

  6. It’s pretty astounding how wrong you and most conservatives have this whole thing. You just ignore the fact that the US (and much of the world) are in a serious economic meltdown. While this whole spending bill is not the most perfect thing in the world, it’s at least going to stave off the country going into a whirlpool of absolute collapse. FDR knew this and even though many of his policies didn’t completely bring the country back from insolvency on its own, it at least kept people going. (sadly, it took the business of war that actually brought the country out of its slump)

    Our government doesn’t have the job have taking care of everyone, but it does have the job of assisting in keeping us somewhat stable. Would you prefer to see us drift into the abject poverty that brought about starvation and eventually revolution in other countries throughout the years? I would certainly hope not.

    This whole economic crisis is very different from what we’ve seen in modern times. Conservatives in this country seem to want to ignore this fact and just keep returning to the failed policies that, frankly, helped bring us to this point.

  7. Yes the failed policies of tightening regulations on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. No wait…

    The failed policies of cutting taxes to promote investment. No, wait…

    The failed policies of welfare reform. No, wait…

    *yawn* Kevin try something more the boiler plate rhetoric. When even -I- can knock down your straw men, you’re not trying very hard.

  10. Of course, you’re right, The Livewire. Liberals like Kevin simply refuse to acknowledge that government meddling do-gooderism is what brought us here in the first place and the “stealfromus” package is designed to “stabilize us” enough so they can reset the clock and start the whole process over again with no change in policy. In fact, the “stimulus” is structured to ensure that this cycle keeps repeating so that government can come to “rescue” us again and again, each time leaving more bureaucracy and government dependency in its wake. Liberals wouldn’t get half as much opposition to the bailouts if they were legitimately enacted with a commitment to avoiding the mistakes of the past, but liberals have the opposite agenda–the bailouts are designed to make even bigger mistakes with more money and livelihoods on the line than the previous cycle.

    It reminds me of the shamnesty fiasco–liberals (AND many Republicans) wanted to respond to the mistake of poor border enforcement by just sucking it up and making the law-breakers US citizens by acclimation. But conservatives were clear–no path to citizenship without FIRST closing the border so we wouldn’t find ourselves in the same mess 20 years later. Well, shamnesty was defeated, but did policies change? Was any progress on building the fence made? Of course not.

    If we can’t rely on government to change its policies even where American citizens have stood up to government and refused to give in, then why on Earth would the government change its policies where it got what it wanted anyway? Saying NO to shamnesty changed nothing. So, why would saying YES to the stimulus change anything?

  11. I left the sham of the Republican Party two years ago. Right now they are trying to reclaim the image of fiscal conservatives, but sorry, I judge you by how you act, not by what you say, especially now that you’re out of power. You had six years in power, holding the House and Presidency, and you showed that a chick with a dead brain is more important than the financial health of the country. And yes, it also means cutting defense spending. Democrats, you suck too!!!!! If you could find it in your hearts to streamline the system, get Government to run much more efficiently – that means firing administrators, getting rid of redundant programs, means testing for safety net benefits, and eliminating onerous federal regulations that the states and local governments could do better (education anyone) – you could have many of the social programs you want, for a fraction of the cost. But instead you force that odoriferous pork package you call the stimulus package down our throats, a bill you didn’t even bother to read, full of crap you haven’t been able to get in the last thirty years, now admit that it might not work, and tell us we may need to pass another 1.2 trillion dollar worth of debt. And what is the result? The Secretary of State is forced to BEG CHINA to keep buying our debt, as if they don’t own enough already! Pathetic!!!!

    I am sick of both major political parties. I don’t care about all the social / religious crap on either side of the isle. I just want a party or leaders that be fiscally responsible – Period!

    PS. I Joined The American Tea Party!. It won’t amount to anything, but, I figure, what the hey.

  12. By the way, the smoking gun in this mess is ACORN. Obama having the right to be seen as anything more than a shameless, corrupt, lying charlatan can be measured by the barometer of ACORN. If the organization (and others like it) is permitted to continue disregarding American laws with impunity, and to continue pursuing its agenda of race-baiting thuggery and shake-downs against banks and lenders (now with increased taxpayer funding from the stimulus package), then it will be clear that Obama is the willing chief architect of the destruction of our nation. His statements about fiscal accountability are meaningless without unequivocal condemnation of ACORN’s practices of intimidating lenders into relaxing their credit standards and then refusing to comply with foreclosure laws when the recipients of the loans default. If this continues unchecked, Obama deserves nothing but our contempt and derision.

  14. It’s just a little bit difficult for Obama to condemn ACORN, since he trained them in their tactics, aided them in their goals by suing banks to force them to issue toxic loans, and benefitted from all their thuggery during the campaign.

    He could still do it; he’s not unused to throwing friends and family under the bus. But since he’s in total agreement with their goals and embraces their tactics, it would be a bit difficult.

  16. Kevin, is THIS economy really so much worse than the one Reagan inherited from Carter? With 10% unemployment, inflation much higher than that and the economy languishing (remember “stagflation” and the “misery index”?), Reagan remained upbeat and cheered–rather than flogged–us out of that mess. In the process, he reversed Carter’s policy of Consider America Ugly so that Americans could hold their heads up again.

    Still, Obama does have a big, toothy smile and reads from a tele-prompter much better than most. That must count for something.

  17. It’s all cynical, all for show. Those running the show and the true believers (in socialist theory) know that public consumption demands statements re. fiscal responsibility, but that a change in diet is a gradual process. Just as several generations ago people had too much pride not to accept government assistance, people now heap scorn on those who don’t such as Governor Schwarzenegger implying that the seriousness with which he takes his job demands that he willingly accept the stimulus money that Governor Sanford is rejecting — his constituents are worthy of it.

    I don’t buy that Obama is applying worn out, disproven theories because he’s well-meaning, but misguided. If I’m wrong, there are plenty who will use his ignorance to achieve the same result.

  18. Kevin, the Obama Party “plan” is to raise taxes on people who work, save, and bought homes they could afford so that people who don’t work, didn’t save, and bought homes that they couldn’t afford get free money from the guv’ment.

    That’s not getting us out of the “crisis”. That’s punishing people who did the right thing and rewarding the people who did exactly what caused the “crisis” in the first place.

  19. I will never forget that this mess started with liberal govenment officials threatening lending institutions with penalties if they didn’t find a way to grant mortgages to those not able to become home owners. My sister worked for a mortgage company 10 years ago and got the weekly threatening letters from those affiliated with the justice department. When a few years later, some in the government, primarily Republicans were smart enough to know how this was playing out, the dangers involved, it was Democrats who stopped regulations that would have prevented the sheer scale of what we are faced with now. This isn’t hard to understand. Democrats wanted their poor irresponsible constituents to become home owners. They figured the lenders would assume more risks. When it has all blown up….they give the typical refrain that there is blame to go around. BS. Now these same Democrats are spending like drunken sailores on every pet leftist project they can think of. And smart people are suppose to trust them? I’m not an idiot. The comparision to the movie 1984 is priceless. Dont’ believe what you see before your very eyes.

  20. When you have 35% of the people not paying federal taxes, this is the kind of non responsive, unfair govenment you end up with. Talk of punishing the producers with higher taxes….it’s no big deal to 35% of the country who don’t pay federal taxes. The losers.

  22. #16: “Kevin, is THIS economy really so much worse than the one Reagan inherited from Carter? With 10% unemployment, inflation much higher than that and the economy languishing (remember “stagflation” and the “misery index”?), Reagan remained upbeat and cheered–rather than flogged–us out of that mess.”

    Good point, polly. The economy was in much more dire straits when Carter listlessly released the Presidency from his impotent, malaise-soaked fingers. But liberals were unwilling to pass up this opportunity to seize more control based on their feigned outrage that even one foreclosure might take place. Plus, Pelosi is incapable of wrapping her botox-numbed brain around the repugnant idea that things actually change and fluctuate on their own, even without her banging that gavel to “make it so.” Her ego is so out of control that she might as well drop the gavel and from now on just fold her arms and do a quick nod of her head, saying to Obama, “Yes, Master!” It would also be heaven if someone could just jam that cork in with superglue and keep her in that bottle forever.

  23. Yes, it is so much worse. This isn’t simply high inflation, stagnation, etc. We’ve seen a major collapse of what used to be solvent, established institutions that were part of what helped in weathering the storms. Now, mainly due to the removal of controls and oversights, it has all collapsed. Saint Ronny helped establish the ground work for all of this, at least Clinton helped stave it off for a few years, but under 8 years of Bush, coupled with 6 years of a Republican congress, all of who were clearly contemptuous or of ordinary Americans. They sucked out of this country everything they could get, can’t seem to come up with any ideas to put it back on track, but boy can they complain loudly about what’s wrong the plans that have been put forth.

    At this point, I desperately and truly hope that those governors out there will refuse to accept federal money as they’ve threatened. Nothing like telling the populace in dire straits that that they can’t get assistance. Good to see the Republicans are making great decisions that’s going to help them win more seats in 2 years, n. I think it’s pretty interesting that people like Governor Arnold have been very clear that CA will take any money that the other governors don’t want – of course he’ll then be vilified like Arianna Huffington and Michael Sullivan in very quick order. Maybe when Bobby Jindal replies to Obama’s speech tonight, he’ll actually have something to offer (interesting…he never uses his real first name Piyush, wonder what he’s hiding. hmmmmmm)

  25. Conservatives in this country seem to want to ignore this fact and just keep returning to the failed policies that, frankly, helped bring us to this point.

    I don’t recall any conservatives pushing for giving even more loans to people who can’t afford to pay it back. Which conservatives are you speaking of?

    While you’re at it, which conservatives are pushing for repealing the welfare reform?

    While this whole spending bill is not the most perfect thing in the world, it’s at least going to stave off the country going into a whirlpool of absolute collapse.

    So it doesn’t matter that what was done will sink us even further, it only matters that a liberal did SOMETHING. Have I got that right?

  26. Amazing that, after increasing federal spending by record amounts, he could, with a straight face, talk about cutting government waste and ending duplicative programs as he did during the campaign.

    And the Left calls itself the “Reality-Based Community.” Go figure. 😉

  27. So I take it that Kevin agrees that the failed attempts by Sen. McCain (of all people) to reign in Fannie and Freddie, led to the ‘collapse of previously stable institutions’.

    Glad we got that out of the way

  28. #24: I’m sorry, The Livewire. Try to picture a small, ornate, bejeweled bottle. Now imagine the cork being jammed into the neck so tight that not even the force of a black hole in outer space could unlodge it. Now imagine yourself on a desolate, sandy beach launching the bottle out to sea, far beyond the continental shelf, never to be seen again for millions and millions of years.

    There. All better.

  30. #29 – A Klingon?? I thought she was married for the longest time to Michael Ansara, one of the hottest hunks of the late 1960s (he did a bit part on “I Dream of Jeannie” as the Blue Djinn – with an open shirt!!).

    Nancy Botoxi looked like a freakin’ jack-in-the-box every time she popped up to lead the Dhimmicrat applause. I half-expected Biden to slip a whoopie cushion under her at one point.

    Regards,
    Peter H.