Thursday, August 15, 2013

The President Calls For An End To Deficit Reduction

     The forked-tongued President is at the same time touting a reduction in the federal budget deficit he had nothing to with, and calling for an end to the sequester cuts which in part have been responsible for that very reduction. The federal deficit has been cut in half, from 1.2 trillion dollars to only 600 billion dollars. It is good to know that our federal government is only spending 600 thousand million more dollars than it takes in, and this is being touted by the Spendthrift In Chief as a positive achievement. That slimmer budget deficit represents what the entire federal budget was just thirty years ago.
     So President Obama receives credit from the mainstream media and low-information voters for halving the deficit, but no blame for increasing it four times the amount it ever reached under most of the Bush administration. And one of the few things that has led to a reduction in the budget deficit, i.e., the sequester, Barack Obama wants to eliminate. President Obama fought the commencement of the sequester cuts this past January after having hood-winked Republicants into voting for them in August of 2011 as part of the debt ceiling negotiations.
     The President thought the sequester cuts would never go into affect, and that he could use the threat of the cuts to hold political sway over Republicants. But when he was unable to do so, he chose to cut expenditures that would hurt the American people the most. Remember the air traffic controllers, cancellation of White House tours and shuttering of national parks? But maybe the President has once again gotten the better of Republicants. Many on the right have been positively giddy over the reduction in the deficit, which may make their case for further cuts, especially in entitlements, a moot point. The fact that anyone on the Right would be happy about cutting a deficit in half that was bloated beyond the point of good governance, is sort of like a man on a sinking ship with a twelve foot hole in its side being happy about having a thimble with which to bail out the flood of water.
     The fact that this government needs to be cut, not by measly single digit percentage points, but by double digits, has not stopped President Obama from rattling the cage of the sequester beast. He is not promoting the removal of the sequester cuts because they have had a negative effect on the programs and agencies he favors, nor because they have had a negative effect on the economy at large. No, the reason the President is bringing up the issue of the sequester now, when it is totally off the radar screens of most Americans, is so that he can blame it for the negative and pathetic economy that has resulted because of his policies.  
     President Obama knows that there is not much chance that the economy is going to improve before next year's mid-term elections, it is the reason he has engaged in the illegal activity of delaying large parts of ObamaCare. But it is also why he is now trying to characterize the sequester as the Republicants fault and the reason for high unemployment and low Gross Domestic Product growth. And Mr. Obama may just succeed because once again the Republicants are being trumped in the PR war, choosing not to even have a dog in the fight. The Republicants need to get out in front of the President's latest scheme to blame them and explain to the American people that after five years of this recession, the policies of the man in the White House have continued the economic hardship for Americans that should have been a distant memory by now.
    
    

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