We hold the office of the president with such high esteem that to question the honesty of the president is tantamount to treason. Several years ago when President Obama was giving a joint speech to Congress on his health care program South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelled out “You lie.” You would’ve thought he had threatened to kill the president. The outrage and sheer horror that anyone would challenge the honesty of the president was overwhelming. Even members of Wilson’s own party lambasted him and he later apologized; but did he mean it? Not likely.
Why must we twist around what we mean because we revere the office? Is he not a man? Is he not subject to the same rules of judgment as the rest of us? Apparently not. Today it seems that we must surrender to political correctness at every turn despite all evidence to the contrary.
As 2013 started we were told by Mr. Obama that only large tax increases on the “rich” would keep us from plunging off the “fiscal cliff.” The president told us that businesses would be forced to lay off hundreds of thousands of employees and the federal government would all but close down. Mr. Obama steadfastly refused to discuss any reductions in spending without a massive tax increase. He got what he wanted but it didn’t end there.
In earlier days President Obama preached that a “payroll tax cut,” paid for by raiding the Social Security piggy bank was needed to keep us from total economic collapse. The Obama administration requested that citizens send them their own stories about the devastation that would be caused by $60 in higher taxes from their paychecks. Suddenly, as 2012 came to an end, not only was tObama retreating from that assertion, but also reneging on his pledge that not a single penny of new taxes would fall on anyone making below $250 thousand a year.
During the presidential election of 2012 Mr. Obama chastised every proposal for economy-stimulating tax cuts or reform of the tax system. The president touted a fake study that “proved” that Romney’s tax plan didn’t “add up.” Obama argued that the nation cannot risk adding a single dollar to the deficit by reducing the tax burden on American consumers and businesses.
Suddenly, as Obama becomes comfortable in his second term he sees the risks in a different light. President Obama in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News said, “we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt.” Huh? Did he actually say that $16.5 trillion, on the way to $20 trillion by the end of his term, isn’t a crisis? How disconnected is this guy?
Obama went on to say, when questioned about producing a budget, “At some point, I think I take myself out of this. Right now, what I’m trying to do is create an atmosphere where Democrats and Republicans can go ahead, get together, and try to get something done. And, y– you know– I think what’s important to recognize is that– we’ve already cut– $2.5– $2.7 trillion out of the deficit. If the sequester stays in, you’ve got over $3.5 trillion of deficit reduction already.”
Obama artfully danced between debt and deficit, never mentioning to Stephanopoulos that all they’ve managed to do is to slow the rate at which the debt grows, never shrinking it by one dime.
Perhaps the most shocking statement Obama made in the interview was, “And, so, we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next ten years, it’s gonna be in a sustainable place. The question is, can we do it smarter, can we do it better? And– you know, what I’m saying to them is I am prepared to do some tough stuff. Neither side’s gonna get 100%. That’s what the American people are lookin’ for. That’s what’s gonna be good for jobs. That’s what’s gonna be good for growth.”
Either Mr. Obama is, and here comes that word, lying or he’s had some kind of serious brain damaging golfing accident. Suddenly all is good. There’s no damn debt crisis. It’s “managable.” Meanwhile he’s stepping out of the way of Congress, even though it is the law that the White House submits a budget to the Congress before they produce their own. The GOP has now submitted a budget from the House of Representatives and the Democrats will be releasing theirs from the Senate in the next few days.
The man who proclaimed that America would collapse in the face of sequestration is now suddenly unconcerned and is telling us all to just “calm down.”
If there was ever any question of where on the political scale Mr. Obama sits, it is clear that he is just as liberal, just as progressive and just as clueless as those on the far left fringes of his party.
When it’s time to pay back those political debts and cast more dollars to the wind, concerns over the debt and deficit vanish. While the credit rating services shake their heads in disbelief Mr. Obama says spend freely because it ain’t that bad. When the talks arrive at tax reduction and reform, oh my God, the “debt crisis” is an emergency and people will be thrown into the streets and stand in food lines.
Political correctness be damned. You may choose to call this just politics; I choose the term lies.
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