The American Spectator : Obama's Primrose Path

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Obama's Primrose Path

By Philip Klein on 3.26.09 @ 6:09AM

The President speaks of "hard choices," but his budget promises the moon and the stars.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
--Hamlet, I, iii, 51-55

Standing before millions of cheering admirers on January 20, the newly christened President Obama decried "our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age." This idea -- that our nation has suffered because we have punted for too long on difficult decisions -- was a key theme during Obama's campaign, and it has been repeated with the frequency of a corporate ad jingle in the early days of his presidency.

At last month's White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit, Obama declared that, "In the coming years, we'll be forced to make more tough choices, and do much more to address our long-term challenges." He reiterated this point during Tuesday night's primetime press conference.

"What I've said here in Washington is that we've got to make some tough choices," Obama said. "We got to make some tough budgetary choices."

Obama is correct in his diagnosis. The central failure of the Bush era was the belief that we can do everything we want -- cut taxes, expand military and homeland security spending, fight two wars, give prescription drugs to senior citizens, increase federal funding for education and energy -- and do it all without facing any long-term costs. It was a philosophy that was also reflected in Americans who bought houses that they couldn't afford and financial institutions that issued loans on borrowed money at an unsustainable pace.

The $1.3 trillion deficit and the weakened economy that Obama is all too eager to remind us he inherited has been the direct result of a stubborn refusal to accept necessary tradeoffs and face the reality that we can't have everything that we want.

Unfortunately, while he fancies himself a courageous leader, Obama's budget does not reflect hard choices. He is telling the American people that we can spend trillions of dollars on an economic stimulus package, a housing bailout, and multiple financial bailouts without experiencing inflation or requiring broad tax increases. He is insisting that we can save money by providing health care for every American, that we can accomplish this without rationing care, and that the quality of medical treatment will improve. He is promising that we can save money by throwing more federal dollars into energy and that we can increase federal spending on education while cutting taxes on 95 percent of Americans.

The White House has not offered actual numbers to back up Obama's claims about this utopian fiscal future, and the only numbers we do have undercut his points entirely.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of his budget, and it found that his policies would more than double the public debt to $17.3 trillion by 2019, equal to a staggering 82.4 percent of the economy.

While Obama's budget is named, "A New Era of Responsibility," when questioned about his deficit claims, his first instinct is to point fingers. During Tuesday's press conference, he snapped, "as I recall I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit." This may be true, but since taking over, Obama has already increased the projected 2009 deficit to $1.8 trillion, according to the CBO. As comedian Jackie Mason quipped recently, "If I inherited a fire, does that mean I have to make the fire bigger and worse?"

Obama also reiterated his claim that he will cut the deficit in half within five years. It's true that according to projections, the deficit will drop during that time period, but this argument is a red herring.

Given that the annual deficit will be jacked up to $1.8 trillion in 2009, cutting it in half within five years is no landmark achievement, because the deficits are expected to shrink naturally assuming the economy recovers. In fact, if we were simply to follow current laws, the CBO estimates that the cumulative deficits for 2010 to 2019 would be $4.4 trillion, or less than half the $9.3 trillion that would result from Obama's budget. Also, while the deficit does decrease in 2011 and 2012, it starts to grow again the following year.

On the campaign trail last June, Obama declared that the Bush administration was "the most fiscally irresponsible administration in history." At the time he made that statement, Bush's record deficit was $413 billion in 2004. Yet according to the CBO, if Obama's budget gets passed, the deficit will never be lower than $658 billion during his time in office should he serve two terms.

During Tuesday's press conference, Obama argued that part of the reason that the CBO's data is worse than the White House projections is that the CBO assumes a lower rate of economic growth. But even looking at the rosier estimates, the Obama administration still projects the public debt exploding from $8.4 trillion in 2009 to $15.4 trillion by 2019.

For all of Obama's talk about the savings generated by his health care proposals (such as computerized medical records and better preventative care), his budget document only claims $316 billion in savings over 10 years. Yet the cost of adopting a health care plan similar to the one he proposed during the campaign is projected at $1.5 trillion over that time period.

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About the Author

Philip Klein is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Philipaklein

Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.26.09 @ 6:33AM

Barack is nothing but the consummate politician. While smiling in your face and picking your pocket, he tells you it's for your own good, while in reality, it's all for his own aggrandizement.

Yvelaine Colas| 3.26.09 @ 6:47AM

The greatest contributors to the federal debt are entitlement programs like social security, medicare and medicaid. Previous administrations failed to reserve adequate funds to support an aging population and Bush's senior prescription plan (Medicare part D) alone will bankrupt this country.

Obama's current budget does not confront these challenges because it will take several months or years for Congress to bite the bullet and increase payroll taxes, raise the retirement age and cut benefits for younger Americans. The senior prescription plan also needs to be modified which is politically unpalatable because seniors vote en masse.
Obama is simply trying to lay down markers for long-term economic growth this year - education, efficient health care and a green economy in order to create the stronger workforce needed to support aging Baby Boomers.

He can't accomplish everything at once. Forcing Congress to invest in his priorities this year will force them to make needed reforms within the next 2 years; otherwise, they will simply kick the can down the road to the next administration.

drudge ette obama| 3.26.09 @ 7:07AM

Can someone please rent Daniel Hannan from the British Parliament and bring him over here?

Hannan is the shot heard 'round the world. He has started the next revolution. Watch him on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs

JJ JR| 3.26.09 @ 8:52AM

To Yvelaine Colas, and for the general enterainment of Y'all:

Yvelaine, what planet are you living on and does the weather offer four seasons there?? It's hard to figure out where to start in terms of unraveling the false premises and outright kool-aid drinking assumptions that underlie your post. Clicking your heels and wishing doesn't work on this planet. But, what the hell, it's raining outside, we're on the Road to Serfdom, so I might as well launch on you.

Your statements on entitlements in terms of their financial effect is true. Your prescription for the fix is typical libearl tripe.

Why I believe you inhabit another planet is because of this statement: "Obama is simply trying to lay down markers for long-term economic growth this year - education, efficient health care and a green economy in order to create the stronger workforce needed to support aging Baby Boomers. "

Summarily taken in total, Obamanation's proposed policies in all of these areas guarantee probably a decade-long stagflation.

Let's take education first--it's true that a key economic input for an entreprenuerial, capitalist economy is an educated workforce; but you are a fool to believe that Obama, a complete captive of the Stalinist education unions, will make our schools better.

Then there's your "efficient healthcare"--hee, hee, hee. What you really mean is instituting command and control Stalinist mandates for withholding care and medicines from certain populations as a way to reduce cost. Yvelaine, really--open your eyes. The empirical evidence is all around us from our good Canadian and British friends on the deleterious impact of socialized medicine. The reason our healthcare costs are annually outpacing inflation is two-fold: 1) third party payer which removes all competitive forces at the point of delivery and provides the false perception that "someone else is paying"; and 2) we Americans have defaulted to EFFECTIVE (vice efficient) healthcare i.e., we are willing to spend more for breakthrough drugs, healthcare procedures, and devices to live LONGER! In that environment, that is someone else is paying and I'll demand anything to live longer, prices go up. I won't go into a proposed solution since this is only the Reality 101 course for you.

Now to your "green economy"--your construct seems to allude to green economy as a big job producer. How's the marijuana your smoking? Obama's green economy prescription is the following: 1) put a punitive "cap and trade" (really cap and tax) mechanism is place to extract upwards of $2 trillion (that's trillion with a "T" Yvelaine) out of the economy. That happens children when business pass on the cost to consumers--you and I Yvelaine; 2) use a massive, corrupt, gov't buearacracy [let's let Barney (ballpark) Frank and Chris ("lying weasel" per the New Haven Register) Dodd run this buearacracy] to pick winners and loser in the green industry by heavily subsidizing them; and 3) heavily punish via regulation of oil, coal, and gas producers so their costs rise making the heavily subsidzized green energy "competitive. Some late-breaking evidence: DOE yesterday announced the suspension of all recently issue coal mining permits for "environmental review."

And now to your "stronger workforce to support aging baby-boomers": have you taken into account less people working from the combination of Obama's grotesque abortion policies (bound to reduce the population) and less folks around as well from the "efficient" healthcare program. Strike that--there actually will be less in the geezer population because of the government euthanasia program that this will entail so you may actually have a point there.

All in all, this is more than nuts! By your writing Yvelaine, I do detect an intellect. School yourself up girl.

P.S. I suppose you might be one of the voters who usually vote between the 40 yard lines (i.e., moderates) who voted for Obamanation based partly on his promise to "cut taxes for 95% of Americans." You may have seen the news that this vaunted tax cut ain't gonna happen. One word for all of you: SUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the "95% of taxpayers" aren't going to get a tax cut (to you voters who usually vote between the 40 yard lines (

Rick Josey| 3.26.09 @ 9:34AM

For many Americans the "hard" choice will be to vote the liberal lunatics out of office next year. A course reversal, an admittance that these guys do NOT know what they are doing.

That's the hard choice many will have to make. For some of us it's a no-brainer. When a leader consistently lies to his people, he needs to go. And when his fellow liberals lie to the people, they need to go. Throw them out of office. Vote them out.

That's the real "hard choice."

And a no-brainer.

www.PatriotHangout.com

Scott| 3.26.09 @ 10:47AM

I'm sorry, "Socialist" is sooo yesterday.

Marxist.

winston bennett| 3.26.09 @ 12:44PM

we've always been at war with oceania. war IS peace. i'm bho and i'm here to help you.

peter| 3.26.09 @ 1:04PM

Government employees get $1,600,000,000 in pay bonuses and AIG gets $165,000,000. Should we be driving by their houses and seeing our tax dollars at work?????? Hide the boats and RV's!!!!!

Bob| 3.26.09 @ 1:27PM

JJ -- while I don't like Obama's budget, your tripe is just as bad as Yvelaine's. You have absolutely no substance in your post. Only the Limbaugh/Hannity nonsense to the uneducated right wing whackos.

Within education, did you know that Obama supports merit pay, vouchers, and the ability to fire incompetent teachers? Probably not. Obama's biggest problem in education will be the teacher's unions. Furthermore, no Republicans or conservatives are talking about entitlement reform. The only person who has mentioned that is Obama. Please go back to school and learn something before you post. Geeezzz...

Specifically, I have a problem with the way Obama is handling the bailouts -- I would not do them -- and his health care plan. But again, Republicans and conservatives have no alternatives.

Philip -- this whole budget thing is an Axelrod lead strategy to weaken Republicans/conservatives. Don't you understand that? It is absolutely brilliant. They are forcing Republicans to be the party of "no". Obama can say he is just fulfilling his campaign promises. No average voter understands the budget. But they do understand obstructionists.

The right strategy for Republicans is to develop specific alternatives -- not what they did today which is a two page summary of complaints. They need to set overall goals and STOP complaining. Right now, they are playing right into Axelrod's hands. Aren't there any good strategists in the Republican party.

For those of us who are fiscal conservatives who do understand economics and budgeting, there is absolutely no leadership. Eric Kantor is a disaster along with the other "leadership" in Congress. Rush and Hannity don't know enough to reach beyond their limited audiences. The talking heads on the cable channels just regurgitate the talking points. Isn't there any competent fiscal conservative out there who's as good at strategy as Axelrod?

donnie| 3.26.09 @ 2:17PM

Hey barry hows that teleprompter thingy working out for you. Now there is education reform working for you our Muslim president knows how to read.

Bram| 3.26.09 @ 2:42PM

drudge ette obama:

Great speech! Not much different on this side of the Ocean.

OR| 3.26.09 @ 2:44PM

Rick Josey writes, "When a leader consistently lies to his people, he needs to go."

Then tell my, why'd you vote for W. twice, you dumber-than-bricks moron?

El Wayne| 3.26.09 @ 2:44PM

BOB
"But again, Republicans and conservatives have no alternatives. "
"It is absolutely brilliant. They are forcing Republicans to be the party of "no"."
###############
Its lilly-livered pablum puking pukes like you who go a long way in weakening the greatness of this once great nation. What straw man arguments can you come up with next. I've seen your blogs for quite sometime and while you appear very articulate all your analysis comes down to nothing more than straw and cheerleading for Obama. Why don't you go hang out somewhere else for awhile. Being a party of no is infinitely better than what we have now....we're screwed in this country by fence sitters like you. There's one in the oval office now.

Anna Mac| 3.26.09 @ 4:00PM

Obamites, actions not words.

Osamas Pajamas| 3.27.09 @ 1:50AM

OhBummer's hijacker culture of greed-for-the-unearned is shining through the thicket of lies and deceptions that got him elected. At least the financial industry employees receiving bonuses are getting them as per their contracts.

OhBummer can show no signed contract wherein I hired him to make off with any of my money, whether by direct taxation or by his inflation or his costs imposed my regs or dumb-axx laws. He's just a thug --- so treat him the way you would any other thug. That'll be pretty, won't it?

Here's a clue---when he denounces the virtue of selfishness [read the book] and urges us to submit to "something larger than oneself," it means that his one hand is already reaching for your wallet, and the other is reaching for your throat, to throttle your protest. Throw this skunk from the train, boys.

Yvelaine Colas| 3.27.09 @ 3:50AM

Dear JJ JR.

You're clearly a very angry person with a profound belief in conspiracy theories, and I will pray for your emotional well being.

Most of your hysterical post isn't worth responding to but I will remind you that Brits and Canadians currently outlive Americans and somehow manage to pay less for the same meds that you take - and their doctors aren't controlled by some "Stalinist bureaucratic regime". Americans are also losing a lot of doctors because they're sick of malpractice insurance costs.

Life must be full of surprises for you, because clearly you are unable to see beyond your nose. If entrepreneurs were no more innovative and forward thinking in their attitude towards science and engineering, we'd still be riding horse carriages to to work.

Dai Alanye| 3.28.09 @ 11:29AM

So, if I understand some of the commenters here, Obama will raise expenditures to such a degree that Congress will be *forced* to reform the economy in order to save the nation from bankruptcy. It's an ingenious albeit indirect technique. The Obamanish brilliance of it astounds me.

Or is it , rather, merely an ingenious argument by those who are feeling some buyer's remorse about The One, but are not yet ready to admit they were mistaken about him and his teleprompter?

To speak seriously, however, my estimate of Obama's IQ (not to mention David Axelrod's) is steadily decreasing. Not a one of these people seems to know what he is doing in the economic realm. All their programs depend foremost upon wishful thinking, including the belief that you can continually bleed the productive among us with no negative consequences.

Whadaya think, can he pull it off through 2012?

danny| 3.28.09 @ 1:54PM

rick josey, i think the problem is that these guys do know exactly what they are doing.

Yvelaine| 3.28.09 @ 2:18PM

Obama Rules, duly noted - hope you have a pleasant Sunday service and happy hunting!

Alan Brooks| 3.28.09 @ 11:36PM

let's go on the 'record' (if there is such a thing) concerning Bush-- he was a failure, but is no longer to to be held accountable, as ex-presidents are protected; only Nixon was ever disgraced, however even he never lost pension or benefits. And, Ironically, being the son of Reagan's veep makes Dubya more protected in every way.
Besides, a president is not Commander in C. of the economy, POTUS is an economic figurehead, so neither Obama nor Bush can really be held responsible for the way the economy will or will not perform this year and into the next (only a total imbecile, a Gingrich, or a futurist [same thing as a Gingrich] would engage in economic projections for 2011 and beyond: factories haven't been retooled, wealth hasn't been created, etc).

and don't forget, the huge prescription drug program was instituted because you all have grandparents, too; which is why Medicare spending rose 51 percent under Bush and will certainly rise higher under Obama.