Today the President proposed:
1.a negotiating process;
2.deficit and debt targets;
3.a new budget process trigger mechanism;
4.and new spending cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, other entitlements, and defense.
Compared to the budget he proposed in February, he offers no new proposals in non-security discretionary spending (I think), taxes, or Social Security.
Hennesey then goes into detail about each of these issues and concludes:
Here are four broad reactions to the new proposal.
First, this is a short-term budget, not a long-term budget. There are three forces driving our long-run government spending and deficit problem:
1.demographics;
2.unsustainable growth in per capita health spending; and
3.unsustainable promises made by past elected officials, enshrined in entitlement benefit formulas.
The President’s proposal addresses none of these forces. It instead spends most of its effort on everything but those factors. His proposed Medicare and Medicaid savings, while large in aggregate dollars, are quite small relative to the total amount to be spent on those programs, and he lets the largest program in the federal budget (Social Security) grow unchecked. While Bowles and Simpson focused their efforts on the major entitlements and also addressed other spending areas and taxes, the President’s proposal does the reverse, focusing on other mandatory spending, taxes, and defense. That’s a short-term focus.
Second, this proposal “feels” to me like the recently concluded discretionary spending deal. It’s the size of a typical deficit reduction bill that Congress usually does every five or so years. I’m sure the affected interest groups are even now preparing to invade Washington to explain how a 3-5% cut will devastate them. The problem is that our fiscal problems are now so big that they require much larger policy changes.
Third, while framed as a centrist proposal, the substance leans pretty far left. It’s deficit reduction through (triggered) tax increases on the rich, plus defense cuts, plus unspecified other mandatory cuts and process mechanisms that might cut Medicare provider payments. Centrist Democrat proposals do all of these things, but they also reform Social Security and Medicare, usually through a combination of raising the eligibility age, means-testing, and raising taxes.
Fourth, the President’s speech was campaign-like in its characterization of and attacks on the Ryan plan.
Whatever you might argue about the Ryan plan, it is a serious, substantive effort to cut federal spending and get a handle on the enormous debt that the Obama White House has done more than "inherit". Granted that debt and deficit spending was already an issue when Obamessiah came to power; but the fact remains that he has done nothing serious to address it; and on the contrary has added record levels of debt and entitlement spending with complete and utter disregard for the impact that this will have on ordinary Americans and future generations--all the time sounding as if he meant to deal with it, when in fact he doesn't.
He is, quite simply, beggaring America's future, not "winning" it.
And if you combine his frantic efforts to alienate allies and suck up to enemies (I believe he calls this "negotiation" and/or "resetting the button"); with his emphasis on American weakness and impotence; what we arrive at is a studied, deliberate policy to destroy once and for all, American leadership in the world--both in the national economic realm and in international policy realm.
This President is not only the worse American President in history, he is the first President who is deliberately and I believe consciously out to destroy American values and exceptionalism. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness mean nothing to this man except as a rhetorical springboard to forward his leftist and basically socialist agenda. I have a hard time imagining he even likes this country and what it has stood for for more than 200 years.
His real agenda can never prosper as long as America exists in the world.
Deliberate and conscious, you say?
There is no other conclusion that can be drawn from his rhetoric and watching his behavior (what he actually does). Hennessey's analysis is one important clue as to what's up.
He knows exactly what he is doing, His goal is to subsume America into an impotent international government; which I suspect he also intends to put himself forward to lead once this country is in ruins.
I dearly hope that the American public begins to really pay attention to the man behind the curtain--because he is all about putting on a magic show to impress and awe the gullible even as he is losing the future of this country.
Mark Steyn asks, "Question: How much do you have to invest in the future before you’ve spent it and no longer have one?"
Don't worry, we are on track to not having a future in somewhere between 2-6 years --however long the false wizard of hope and change remains in office.
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