It is Really Getting Old

Obama delivered another speech, this time about reducing our debt, and it was redundant like all his speeches. Obama hits on the same talking and fear mongering points in all his speeches. Obama is becoming very predictable.

First, Obama generally waits too long before he addresses a problem. The debt issue was no different. Obama finally came forward after the “Party of No” put forth a detailed plan, and after a budget compromise had already been met for the fiscal year of 2011. If Obama was serious about the debt, he should have had a detailed plan on the table prior to the 2011 budget deal.

If Obama was serious about tackling the debt, then why is his budget proposal for fiscal year 2011 (submitted a few months back) absent of the proposals he spoke about this past Wednesday? This is because he is not serious about the issue.

The Obama debt speech was loaded with “Obama speak” including the typical talking points of blaming Bush and demonizing opposition plans with fear mongering claims that they want the elderly, poor, and handicapped to “fend for themselves”.

As usual, the Obama plan to cut 4 trillion dollars over the next 12 years was vague and absent of any significant details to corroborate his budget numbers. For instance, Obama’s Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and corporate tax reform details in his budget plan were absent in his speech.

The Obama plan to cut spending includes spending increases in education, transportation, clean energy, and job training. Remember, the 862 billion dollar stimulus (Recovery Act) already poured hundreds of billions of dollars into these causes, but it failed to create jobs, save jobs, or fix our crumbling infrastructure. This is the flawed liberal philosophy suggesting we can spend our way out of debt and a recession. America already spends more money (per capita) in these areas than any other country in the world – we do not need more spending, we need to spend the money more wisely. The average U.S. classroom costs the American taxpayer over 250 thousand dollars a year and teachers receive less than 40% of that money (classroom teachers and special teachers [physical education, music, art, etc]). This means overhead and administration costs are over 60% of our education budget. And let’s not forget that school districts raise an additional 700 dollars per student through the sale of tickets to events, fund raising drives, concessions, and meal plans.

Obama claims he will reduce spending by reforming the tax code. The Obama tax code reform, by his own admission, is to raise more tax revenue (not reduce spending) on the top 2% of American wealth earners. First, these are the people that create jobs. Secondly, I will post mathematical models that will show that raising taxes on the wealthy not only hurts the economy (reduces consumer spending), but the government does not use the increased revenue to pay down the debt. Instead, the government spends more on entitlements.

Obama is delusional to think that ObamaCare legislation will cut healthcare costs and it will cut the deficit by 1 trillion dollars over the next 12 years. There is a reason that the approval for the legislation is at its lowest level – healthcare premiums skyrocketed last year. ObamaCare will fail to cut healthcare costs because it does not hold all the players in the healthcare industry accountable to make sacrifices. ObamaCare merely attacks health insurance companies but does nothing to hold big pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors, individuals, trial lawyers, or health industry providers accountable to lower costs.

Let’s face facts; Obama and his team of economic bureaucrats do not understand the first thing about simple math, money, how to create a job, or the economy in general. Most have not run a business and they are all prisoners to flawed progressive economic philosophies and special interest groups that want continued government spending to support their causes (ACORN, Planned Parenthood, environmental groups, etc.). No charity, business, group, or organization should receive any government compensation – they should raise their funding solely through private charitable contributions. If the cause is noble, people will donate to it.