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The Foundation

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” –Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

“How credible is President Obama on taxes and spending? … [O]bama’s smug White House chief of staff, Jack Lew … went on two different Sunday news shows to talk up the president’s new budget. Twice he claimed Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget in more than 1,000 days because ‘you can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes and you can’t get 60 votes without bipartisan support….’ In fact, Senate rules only require a simple majority of 51 votes to approve a budget. But wait, there’s more to the Obama record of double-talk and misrepresentation about federal taxes and spending. Take his claim that his budget cuts the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that most of Obama’s deficit ‘savings’ come either from spending cuts already enshrined in law or money that was never requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bottom line: Over the next decade, Obama’s budget raises taxes by $1.9 trillion, raises spending $2.7 trillion, and increases the debt $3.6 trillion. … Less than a month after Obama was sworn into office, he hosted a ‘fiscal responsibility’ summit at the White House where he pledged ‘to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office.’ … Obama’s $757 billion economic stimulus program failed to get the economy growing again. His Obamacare is driving health care costs ever higher, even before it is fully implemented. And he just ‘doubled down’ on throwing more tax dollars at failed green energy efforts like the Solyndra bankruptcy. The result? Now Obama asks Americans to accept a $1.33 trillion deficit in 2012 and deficits every year for the next decade averaging $1.4 trillion. What this country needs is an honest leader who will tell the truth about our entitlement spending crisis and identify real reforms.” –The Washington Examiner

Is there any hope for our fiscal future?

Upright

“Legend has it that prior to embarking on his mission to conquer the known world, Alexander the Great, who had not yet established his greatness, visited the oracle at Delphi seeking a good omen. … When he finally found her, he forced her to accompany him to the temple. Upon arriving at the temple, in his eagerness to receive the oracle, he was literally shoving her down the ramp toward the crypt when she turned abruptly toward him and exclaimed, ‘Boy, there’s no resisting you.’ With that, Alexander took his hands off her, stepped back and said, with great satisfaction, ‘That’s the only oracle I wanted to hear.’ This is precisely the attitude that possesses President Obama.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“The federal debt has increased by $4.47 trillion since President Barack Obama released his first federal budget on Feb. 26, 2009. That budget was entitled, ‘A New Era of Responsibility.’ On Feb. 26, 2009, as Obama released his budget for fiscal 2010, the national debt stood at $10.88 trillion…. At the close of business on Feb. 9, 2012, the national debt stood at $15.36 trillion…. The $4.47-trillion increase in the debt since Obama released his first budget is more than the national debt increased from President George Washington through President George H. W. Bush.” –columnist Terence Jeffrey

“Over the weekend it was revealed that MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the chief architect of ObamaCare, backtracked on the analysis he performed two years ago. He told officials in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado the price of insurance premiums will ‘dramatically increase’ under the reforms. … How far we have come since that day in 2009 when the president also said that ‘the Congressional Budget Office … says that as a consequence of this act, the deficit is going to be over a trillion dollars lower over the course of the next two decades than it would be if this wasn’t passed.’ … Yet it is quite understandable why so many progressives, whose ideology is based on the the triumph of hope over experience, cannot understand the growing unaffordability of the misnamed Affordable Care Act. Chances are, they never will.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

“The Obama administration’s ham-fisted attempt to require that contraceptives and abortifacients be offered to employees of Catholic and other religious institutions is a serious threat to our civil liberties. … This issue was always about more than contraceptives and who pays for them. It is about individual liberty and whether the government under ‘Obamacare’ has the constitutional right to dictate to private businesses and church-related entities when such orders violate conscience and religious beliefs. … If the administration can get away with this, there will be no stopping it.” –columnist Cal Thomas

“Obama did not make a mistake in this mandate. It’s a deliberately calculated move on his part. The Democrats realize that abortion is no longer a winner for them. … So what they’re trying to do now is replace it with contraception. … [I]t’s no coincidence, that he came out with it after Minnesota and Colorado which [were] Santorum’s victories. They want to create the impression that the Republicans will ban contraception, which is totally insane, but they’re floating it out and they’re bringing it out there.” –columnist Dick Morris

Insight

“The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.” –American statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

“Well, it’s fine for candidates to run their campaigns on a high plane, but it would be like me wanting to conduct this column on a strictly grammatical basis. I would like to, but I just ain’t equipped for it, and that’s the way they are. With politicians as the tools, you just ain’t equipped to conduct anything on a high plane.” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

The Demo-gogues

Twisted logic: “Right now, we’re scheduled to spend more than $1 trillion more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. We’ve already spent about that much. Now we’re expected to spend another $1 trillion.” –Barack Obama, who thinks that letting people keep their own money is a form of government spending

We don’t need no budget: “The budget does one thing and really only one thing: It sets the parameters of spending and discretionary caps. Other than that, the Appropriations Committee [is] not bound by the Budget Committee’s priorities.The fact is, you don’t need a budget. We can adopt appropriations bills.” –House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Blame Bush: “[I]f you look back at what their estimates were in terms of how many jobs had been lost, how bad the economy had contracted when I took office, everybody underestimated it. People thought that the economy contracted 3 percent – it turns out it contracted close to 9 percent. … So, the die had been cast but a lot of us didn’t understand at that point how bad it was gonna get. That increases the deficit because less tax revenues come in and it means that more people are getting unemployment insurance, we’re helping states more so they don’t lay off teachers, etc. The key though is we’re setting ourselves on a path where we can get our debt under control.” –Barack Obama

Blame Congress: “We’ve used the Internet more effectively to create more transparency so people know where their tax dollars are going. If they need a government service they don’t have to navigate through 50 websites, they can go to one website. So on those fronts we’ve done a lot – we’ve made a lot of progress. Where I have not been able to succeed so far – but I haven’t given up – is changing the tone in Congress.” –Barack Obama

Stamping out religious liberty: “The vast majority of Catholic women are on birth control, support birth control and think it should be part of their health care plan. So, it just seems striking to me that someone would say this is a risky decision because it’s the right thing to do and it’s mainstream.” –Rep. Michael Quigley (D-IL)

Hyperbole: “In 2012, I stand here in complete amazement that in a country known for its medical breakthroughs and advancements, Republicans would have us go back to the medical dark ages.” –Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

Dezinformatsia

Some question: “[I]n a sense you feel that some part of this Republican opposition to an additional stimulus is just cynical. They want the economy to stay weak in an election year.” –CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to billionaire leftist financier George Soros

Lost in translation: “If you listen carefully to Rick Santorum, he sounds more like [Soviet dictator Joseph] Stalin than Pope Innocent III.” –MSNBC’s Martin Bashir

Championing abortion: “The thinking inside the Beltway seems to be that religious voters will turn against Democrats unless the White House drops the basic idea that insurance should cover contraception. Time will tell on the political impact of this fight, but the relevant political context here is more than just a 2012 measure of Catholic bishops’ influence on moral issues. It’s also this year’s mainstream Republican embrace of an antiabortion movement that no longer just marches on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to criminalize abortion; it now marches on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, holding signs that say ‘The Pill Kills.’” –MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow

Feminism challenged: “I very rarely take a political position because I work for ABC News. … [T]here was a time when feminists made the woman who stayed home and had children feel inferior. I think we are finally changing so that we realize younger ones, you can make a choice.” –Barbara Walters of “The View”

Newspulper Headlines:

Mrs. Biden Is 60. What’s the Issue?: “Biden ‘Determined’ to Work Out Birth Control Issue” –Associated Press

Too Much Information: “Obama ‘Firm’ on Birth Control” –News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)

So Much for the War on Drugs: “President’s Convoy Stoned on Campaign Trail” –Associated Press

Or Wherever – Just Get Him Out of D.C.!: “53% Approve of Obama in Michigan” –RasmussenReports.com

Longest Books Ever Written: “Repulsive Progressive Hypocrisy” –Salon.com

Out on a Limb: “Election 2012: Republicans United on Goal – Beat Obama – Divided on How to Get There” –The Washington Post

Bottom Story of the Day: “Obama to Unveil Budget With Higher Taxes, More Deficits” –The Washington Times

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

The BIG Lie: “You can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes and you can’t get 60 votes without bipartisan support. So … unless Republicans are willing to work with Democrats in the Senate, [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid is not going to be able to get a budget passed.” –White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew

Shut up, he explained: “The American people should be pleased that we now have a recovery that’s taking root. The job growth is across all the sectors of the economy – it’s not the result of people leaving the workforce, it’s the result of private sector job creation. This is good.” –Jack Lew

More redistribution: “[A]s we have the Buffett Rule and the individual tax reform, we need a global minimum tax so that people have the assurance that nobody is escaping doing their fair share as part of a race to the bottom or having our tax code actually subsidized and facilitate people moving their funds to tax havens.” –White House economic adviser Gene Sperling

“The president’s vision for fulfilling the moral obligation to tackle the debt is contained within the budget he presented [this week]. He certainly did not mean last summer that we should contract spending in a way that threw the very fragile recovery at that point into reverse and caused further job loss and inflicted further economic pain on the American people.” –White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

Utilitarian argument: “Any morally acceptable pathway to prevent catastrophic global warming includes broad access to affordable birth control for the world’s women. … Researchers have found that empowering women to reduce unplanned pregnancies is one of the most cost-effective ways to combat greenhouse pollution…. The more world leaders focus on giving women and girls the tools of empowerment – access to family planning, education, and the political and economic system – the better future all of us will have.” –ThinkProgress’s Brad Johnson

Short Cuts

“The Obama administration will continue forcing Catholic institutions to provide contraceptive services which violate church doctrine. The next step? Requiring Kosher Meals on Wheels programs to deliver ham sandwiches.” –NewsBusted’s Jodi Miller

“It was a bad [week] for Newt Gingrich. In terms that Newt can understand, I think the voters told him they want to start seeing other candidates. … Have you noticed [Mitt] Romney doesn’t even blow dry his hair anymore? He dries naturally from Rick Santorum breathing down his neck.” –comedian Jay Leno

“President Obama’s former Chrysler was put up for auction on eBay Thursday by the Illinois woman who now owns the car. You can tell that the car once belonged to the president. It starts off fast and then it stalls and starts calling for rich people to help push it.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“I don’t want a lot from politics. I just don’t want people dumber than me telling me what to do. I guess that’s asking a lot, actually.” –humorist Frank J. Fleming

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team