Obama’s Budget Can Be Seen As “Borderline Delusional”

13 Feb, 2012 by William Teach

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Those aren’t my words, but those of Politico writer David Rogers

He ran on hope, governed through despair and now, with his election-year budget, President Barack Obama is trying to light the old spark, fleshing out a political narrative for America that can inspire with its romance but also seem borderline delusional to his critics given the debt accumulated by Washington.

For those on the Right, I’d suggest we are think more in terms of “irresponsible”, “foolish”, and “a campaign statement, not a budget”, rather than “borderline delusional.” I’d also wonder how his budget can be seem as “romantic”

An $8 billion community college job-training initiative, which Obama will address at a Virginia campus Monday morning, is part of the picture, together with major investments in roads, energy and manufacturing – all part of the president’s promise to construct an economy “built to last.”

Blue collar jobs re-paving roads, painting bridges, and digging turtle tunnels (gee, if only we had spent almost a trillion dollars to do this early in the recession) is “romantic”? I suppose “erecting” windmills and “spreading” solar panels can be “romantic”, except to the wildlife killed and land that is ruined. And standing on an assembly line watching machines build Chevy Firestarters, er, Volts, which few will buy surely gives the workers time to think “romantic” thoughts.

But even as Obama is speaking, the budget rollout in Washington will show a fourth year of $1 trillion-plus deficits and a 2013 shortfall of $901 billion – nearly twice the share of GDP that Obama predicted four years ago.

All Obama promises have expiration dates. This one expired on January 21, 2009.

“The time for austerity is not today,” (White House Chief of Staff Jack) Lew told NBC News “Meet the Press.” “If we were to put in austerity measures right now, it would take the economy in the wrong way.”

Really? Spending obscene amounts of taxpayer money borrowed from China sure didn’t help. The recession officially ended in June, 2009, before the Stimulus truly kicked in. The economic conditions remained terrible, and, in some areas, got worse. Interestingly, now that the Stimulus has mostly ended, and Team Obama isn’t spreading tons of cash to campaign donors, the economy is slowly getting better. Dumping more money into building roads that people can’t afford to drive and training people for jobs that do not exist doesn’t help.

Don’t worry, though, because, even though Obama is pairing back funding for the EPA, NASA, and freezing biomedical research, he’s pumped to increase funding for the Food Police

…And all the real growth in the Food and Drug Administration’s $4.48 billion budget would be dependent on new industry user fees, including a proposed $220 million food establishment charge that could prove controversial.

But, no worries, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, has already stated that there is no reason to pass a budget, they already deemed one during the budget debates. Will the Senate even take up Obama’s budget, which also plays games with raising taxes on “the rich”? Doubtful. And, like so many Democrat budget offerings, this budget offers savings 5-10 years down the road for tax increases now. Said savings never appear.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.