A Trillion Dollars Here, A Trillion Dollars There...

Prediction #1: A short order we will start hearing Barack Obama mouthing platitudes about cutting the deficit, and disguised taxes and accounting tricks will become the order of the day. Unfortunately, reality will probably not go away:

Earlier this year when President Obama was selling his first budget blueprint, he promised to end years of "borrow and spend" budgeting. Yesterday, reality struck.

Mr. Obama's White House and the Congressional Budget Office told us that current U.S. fiscal policy is "borrow and spend" on a hyperlink. The good news is the deficit for 2009 will be "only" $1.58 trillion, about $250 billion lower than expected thanks to less need for TARP funds. But the Obama fiscal plan envisions $9 trillion in new borrowing over the next decade, which is $2 trillion more debt than the White House predicted earlier this year. The 2010 deficit also rises by about as much as the 2009 deficit falls from January, so even the TARP windfall gets spent.

And this is before any trillion dollar health care, er, insurance reform or Cap and Trade boondoggles. The Journal peers into the future and sees the obvious:

Obamanomics has turned into an unprecedented experiment in runaway government with no plan to pay for it, save, perhaps, for a big future toll on the middle class such as a value-added tax. White House budget director Peter Orszag promises that next year's budget will have a "plan to put the nation on a fiscally sustainable path." Hide the children.

What is left unsaid is this: These sort of deficits provide moderate Democrats that much more cover in opposing some of Obama's loonier legislative efforts (such as the two mentioned above), and they will begin to use it as soon as Obama gets around to rejoining the battle over health care, er, insurance reform. That's the sort of thing that will move him to action.

Prediction #2: Barack Obama starts laying the groundwork for selling a massive middle-class tax hike fairly soon. And being the super genius that he is, he will no doubt drop it in everybody's lap before the 2010 mid-term elections. At this point he's detached enough from everyday reality to be unable to anticipate the sort of fury such a proposal will generate.

It's somewhat amazing to note that Barack Obama has managed to make just about everyone forget how spendthrift the Republicans were under George W. Bush. Another issue giftwrapped and handed to the GOP.

And remember: Obama's one of the smart ones...

Comments

[markg8]

Well you've certainly tried to make everyone forget the $11 trillion dollar debt Republicans ran up over the last 28 years with nothing to show for it. A fucking 700 ship Navy with WW11 battleships bought ought out of mothballs, $700 toilet seats for the AF, billions wasted on Starwars, trillions we'll have to spend on VA care for soldiers maimed in Iraq, B2 bombers that don't fly missions in either Afghanistan or Iraq, the Medicare Part D drug plan with billions in taxpayer funded giveaways to drug and insurance companies, not to mention the prime cause of all the debt, your cake and eat it too trickle down tax cuts for the wealthy that have caused massive deficits every year except for Bill Clinton's last two in office.

When your guys couldn't get the American people to accept completely gutting the safety net and all government regulatory functions you tried to bankrupt the federal government to make it all a fait accompli.
You left us a 1950s energy policy and a health care system that's a cancer on the American people, business, and state & federal governments.

We're going to fix that. It's going to cost money. The difference is in the end we'll all have something to show for it: businesses that can compete with the rest of the world, new jobs, a health care system that works, a cleaner and cheaper energy sector and a solvent government.

[JeffS]

And it's nice to see that the Dhimmicrats in general -- and George W. Obama in particular -- have learned nothing from the mistakes of past Administrations and Congresses. Instead, they spend spend spend spend to solve the deficit problem.

Yeah, that'll work!

[markg8]

As opposed to the Hooverite solution of the conservatives, a 5 year federal spending freeze as the nation teetering on the brink of a depression last winter.

[JeffS]

Like I said, George W. Obama will lead the way in spending as a means to decrease the deficit.

[JeffS]

Uh-oh! When the WaPo wags its finger at Obama's budget projections, you know that things truly are tanking for The Won™.

But, hey, Obama's one of the smart ones...

[PeterUK]

JeffS,
Like the Bourbons,"They learned nothing and forgotten nothing".

[JeffS]

At least the Bourbons had good booze named after them (even if indirectly). But I shudder to think about slamming down some hooch with the brand name "Old Democrat".