President Obama may repeat his mantra about making “tough choices” in his budgeting decisions, but House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan exposed just how specious that claim is when he questioned the Treasury Secretary about the president’s latest budget.
He just doesn’t his “rhetoric matching the results” (at 0:54 below).
Just watch the whole video; it provides an insight in the utter failure of the administration to make the tough choices necessary to keep the president’s campaign pledge and not “go back to our profligate ways.”
There are three key points to bear in mind about this budget, two that Geithner himself acknowledged, a third related to a question the Treasury Secretary failed to answer:
- The budget fails to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Medicaid. As Geithner himself said, “Even if Congress were to enact this budget we would still be left with–in the outer decades as millions of Americans retire–what are still unsustainable commitments in Medicare and Medicaid.”
- The administration doesn’t like the Ryan plan, but has no plan of its own to deal with the nation’s long-term debt problem. Geithner again, “We’re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is we don’t like yours.”
- “President Obama’s FY 2013 budget does increase federal spending, not only above current levels (from $3.796 trillion in FY 2012 to $5.537 trillion in FY 2021, a 46% increase) but also above the levels approved by current law” (i.e., the August 2011 debt deal). Geithner could not answer with “Yes” or “No” when asked whether the budget increased federal spending above those levels set by that deal.
Leaders, Ryan pointed out at 3:07 in the video above, are supposed to fix problems, not kick the can down the road, as Geithner all must acknowledges this budget does when he said that we still have some work to do. Must be that hope and change about which we’ve heard tell.
As I see it, the Obama administration’s failure to propose a budget that includes a solution to the long term fiscal problems and resistance to Paul Ryan’s budget proposal is telling. The Obama administration refuses to use fiscal discipline or the free market to solve the problem, but they can’t find anything in the Keynesian playbook that could theoretically solve it either. If they did, then they would be saying so. Paul Ryan is cornering them; they can’t obfuscate the issue forever. Eventually, people are going to realize that the Obama administration refuses to solve anything with anything other than Keynesian policies. Paul Ryan just has to keep the pressure on. It would be nice if more Republicans, like Mitt Romney, did as well.
This is campaign ad gold.
Kudos to Geithner. He does doublespeak, newspeak, doublethink, paraconsistent logic, cognitive dissonance, and relativism without blushing, stammering or losing track of the threads of lies he is weaving for the whole cloth of the the mantle of authority he aspires to wear.
He is a perfect foil for the Obama regime. A regular Baghdad Bob of a spokesman for the borrow and spend deficit follies. Turbo Timmy has come to save Obama’s day; let’s hope that Turbo Timmy is on his way.
The budget proposed by Obama is immaterial. The House will write the budget, and Senator Reid will prevent the budget from going to Obama for signature.
This isn’t even good theater. Geithner is so cynical that he’s not even playing the game, but you’ll never see this on the news.
In summary..Geitner is saying….’we have to postpone the REAL tough solutions till much later or at least until my man Obama gets re-elected..’
Rattlesnake, DaveO and benj, exactly.
In all fairness, the fire was out of control long before Geithner assumed office.
Ryan is correct that leaders are suppose to fix problems but that presupposes that the leaders agree on what the problem is and, more importantly, that the “led” will accept the solutions.
I don’t see that happening. The Dems see the problem as not yet enough spending and insufficient tax revenue; the GOP sees the problem as too much spending on some things, not enough on others and too much revenue now.
The boomers wrote checks on their children that their children can’t cash. But you try to reduce just the increase in benefits and seniors will be in the streets.
We’ve also got an enormous demographic problem with increasing populations of people competing for fewer jobs (plus the problem of the bell curve that we absolutely refuse to acknowledge even exists).
We desperately need some truth-telling… and the character needed to hear it.
I can’t make sense of this. To lead is to say what you think the problem is, then use valid points to inspire people (need not be everybody) to go along with the constructive, genuine solution that you propose. Initially you stand does not command a majority; you might even be unpopular.
So Obama doesn’t have to lead, until Republicans and Democrats can agree on certain things? Wait. Shouldn’t it be Obama’s job, as a leader, to reach out and bring fresh logical thinking (I know it’s ridiculous to think Obama can do it; just bear with me) to get them to? Your comment subtly makes Republicans to blame for Obama’s failure. Tell me – did Democratic opposition, obfuscation, shenanigans, etc. ever stop Ronald Reagan from leading? Or Chris Christie?
We do. It starts with actual leaders deciding to tell the actual fiscal truth, no matter what the consequences. A la Christie.
… and Ryan, and (on fiscal issues) Ron Paul. The tragedy of this year’s political cycle is that Willard Mittens, Newt and Sweater Vest aren’t doing it.
ILC – I agree with you in principle but, again, with a nation split down the middle, the “leadership” doesn’t agree that 1) there really are problems and 2) if there are problem, the halves don’t agree on what those problems are.
We, the led, either don’t want to hear about the problems and, if we do, we don’t believe what our leaders tell us (with good reason) and/or we insist the the blame for said problems is somewhere else.
The biggest driver in all of this is entitlements: exponential growth into the far future. Couple this with aforementioned demographic trends and the declining need for workers and the numbers will not add up and they won’t add up soon, not in Geithner’s year 3000 or 4000.
I got an email blast from my local congress-critter just this weekend (Yoder, R-KS3) – a Tea Party freshman and it contained the usual boilerplate about “protecting our seniors…” as if there are proposals on the table to push granny over the cliff. We’ve conceded the point already.
Given the dust-up over rubbers and the Pill, it appears that we’ve yet to see reality. (I’m referring to contraception as a debate issue, not the pissing on the First Amendment that Obama & Co are engaged in).
Dittos on Mitt, Newt, and the Vest.