Obama's Tall Fiscal Tales

The Foundation

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Editorial Exegesis

"Mitt Romney 'warned about a "prairie fire of debt." That's what he said,' Mr. Obama said on the Des Moines fairgrounds on Thursday, as if he couldn't believe it either. ... 'What my opponent didn't tell you was that federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any President in almost 60 years.' ... [P]ress secretary Jay Carney chimed in [saying] ... to White House reporters that they should not 'buy into the B.S. that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this Administration....' Mr. Carney the media critic deeply sourced his view to someone named Rex Nutting, who wrote an 856-word column for MarketWatch that argued 'There has been no huge increase in spending under the current President, despite what you hear.' ... His accounting methods are, er, unusual. Mr. Nutting claims that Mr. Obama is only responsible for $140 billion worth of spending in his hyperactivist first year in office because ... the fiscal year technically begins on October 1, 2009. Therefore he says Mr. Obama had no control over the budget, though in February 2009 he did famously manage to pass an $800 billion stimulus that was supposed to be a one-time deal. Mr. Nutting then measures Mr. Obama's spending growth rate against an inflated 2009 baseline that includes the spending Mr. Obama caused but which he attributes to Mr. Bush. ... The larger conceptual error of the Nutting-Obama-Carney troika is neglecting to compare the budget to the size of the economy. The best perspective on how outlays, tax receipts and deficits change over time is as a share of GDP. ... Prior to Mr. Obama, the U.S. had not spent more than 23.5% of GDP ... since the end of World War II. Yet Mr. Obama has managed to exceed that four years in a row: 25.2% in 2009, 24.1% in 2010 and 2011, and an estimated 24.3% in 2012, up from a range between 18%-21% from 1994-2008. ... As for that prairie fire of debt, Mr. Obama can fairly blame $1 trillion or so of the $5 trillion debt increase of the last four years on Mr. Bush. But what about the other $4 trillion? Debt held by the public now stands at 74.2% of the economy, up from 40.5% at the end of 2008 -- and rising rapidly." --The Wall Street Journal

Essential Liberty

"The Origination Clause in Article I, Section 7 states: 'All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.' ... The Founding Fathers required revenue measures to originate in the House because they wanted this authority to belong to the legislative body closest to the people. ... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has taken to thumbing his nose at this clear mandate. Recently, he publicly dismissed the Origination Clause as a 'hyper-technical budget issue,' raised by his Republican opponents as 'a fig leaf to hide their blatant obstruction.' ... One unnamed Senate staffer even speculated that the House's fealty to the Constitution 'may be part of some Republican plan.' ... Liberal Senate leaders, it seems, are determined to do what they want when they want to do it, Constitution or no Constitution. ... One of the chief operational principles of the current Senate seems to be, to paraphrase that famous line from Treasure of the Sierra Madre: 'Constitution? We don't need no stinking Constitution!' That's one more reason why the tea-party movement remains politically relevant more than three years after its birth." --Heritage Foundation's Michael G. Franc

Upright

"Barack Obama and his friends in the mainstream media, so called, can't believe that anyone could vote against someone as wonderful as he is (and they are). Only a bigot would vote against such a wonderful president. ... Sixteen states have offered Democratic voters an alternative to Barack Obama, either an actual candidate, 'Uncommitted,' or an opportunity to write in someone's name. So far 15 percent of those Democratic voters have done so. In five states where there has been an actual opponent, 27 percent voted against the president. In New Hampshire, 1 Democrat in 10 wrote in an alternative. Twenty percent of North Carolina Democrats voted for 'Uncommitted.' That's a lot of 'bigots.'" --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"What do you get when you cross 3 pediatricians, 4 internists, 3 family doctors, 2 epidemiologists, 2 nurses, a PhD, an obstetrician, a perinatologist and an occupational medicine doctor? Unfortunately, this is not a joke. ... This would be the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), an ad hoc committee charged with making recommendations about clinical preventative services. They have just issued their findings that there is no role for routine PSA screening in men to detect prostate cancer.... You would not go to a pediatrician or obstetrician if you had this disease, so how does it make sense to aggregate 16 such people and have them opine on a subject that they know about only from a book? ... Someone in Washington has decided what the value of a human life is, and what would be the acceptable cost associated with saving it. This is called 'comparative effectiveness' and is what happens in a socialized healthcare system, like in England, where resources need to be allocated prudently, and healthcare is rationed. This is the essence of Obamacare." --columnist Hal C. Scherz, M.D.

"At Cannes, where anti-capitalist movies are always a hit, Brad Pitt's newest venture, 'Killing Them Softly,' is touted as a seething indictment of the American system. 'America isn't a country -- it's a business' is apparently the film's central insight. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis, the film was reportedly financed by Megan Ellison, daughter of billionaire businessman Larry Ellison. No wonder that when these kids grow up, some of them make documentaries about how vast conspiracies keep the electric car and, no doubt, the Everlasting Gobstopper off the market. Even more of them uncritically accept this stuff. After all, everyone knows big businessmen are evil." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

The Demo-gogues

Predictions: "This election will be closer than the last one. People don't remember the last election was close. We're gonna have to contend with even more negative ads, even more cynicism and nastiness and just plain foolishness." --Barack Obama

Fulfilling those predictions: "I'm running to pay down our debt in a way that's balanced and responsible. After inheriting a $1 trillion deficit, I signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law." --Barack Obama

"The challenge we've got is that too many folks aren't on the same page. We've got too many of my dear Republican friends in Congress that have been standing in the way of some steps that we could take that would make a difference at the moment." --Barack Obama

"Nobody wants a handout. Nobody wants to get something for nothing." --Barack Obama

Straw man: "We don't need another political fight about ending a woman's right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood or taking away affordable birth control." --Barack Obama turning an argument about government's role on its head

Poor taste: "Finally, I do want to acknowledge a man who has played a major role in diminishing inequality in Massachusetts and other spheres, and that's Hubie Jones. ... [I]'m particularly pleased that Hubie got an honorary degree today. You know, when you get an honorary degree they give you one of these and Hubie, I think you now got a hoodie you can wear and no one will shoot at you." --Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) with a "joke" referencing Trayvon Martin's hoodie

Dezinformatsia

Non Compos Mentis: "I feel ... uncomfortable about the word [hero being applied to fallen American soldiers] because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don't want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that's fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I'm wrong about that." --MSNBC's Chris Hayes (Hayes did, in fact, admit that he was wrong and apologized.)

Alien thought: "I actually have a serious proposal which is that we have to get a bunch of scientists to tell us that we're facing a threatened alien invasion, and in order to be prepared for that alien invasion we have to do things like build high-speed rail. And then, once we've recovered, we can say, 'Look, there were no aliens.' But look, I mean, whatever it takes because right now we need somebody to spend, and that somebody has to be the U.S. government." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

Drool on the chin: "There have been rumors -- if the president is not re-elected [dramatic 'God forbid!' face], or that in the future, that you might consider running for political office. Would you ever? You would be a very popular candidate." --Barbara Walters to Michelle Obama

Newspulper Headlines:

Out on a Limb: "Dickerson: Election Still About the Economy" --CBSNews.com

Longest Books Ever Written: "How the Recovery Went Wrong" --The Wall Street Journal

We Blame George W. Bush: "Still at It: Gore Blames 'Dirty Energy and Dirty Money' for 'Dirty Weather,' 'Extreme Climate Events'" --DailyCaller.com

We Blame Global Warming: "Fired for Being 'Too Hot,' New Jersey Woman Claims" --Reuters

News You Can Use: "A User's Guide to Smoking Pot With Barack Obama" --BuzzFeed.com

The Other 7,999,850,000 of Us Will Die of Other Causes: "Death Ray: Global Warming Will Kill Over 150,000 by 2099" --Washington Examiner website

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

Village Idiots

Ready, fire, aim: "Well, this is nothing to do with being anti-business. This is a criticism -- and a good criticism quite honestly -- of Mitt Romney's only thesis for being president of the United States, that he's some kind of economic savior. He's very good at making money for his partners. He's not so good at creating jobs. We've seen that time and time again and I think the American people and voters deserve to understand what Mitt Romney means when he says he has the keys to being an economic savior." --Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs

Derailed train of thought: "It seems like [Republicans] act as though, some wiping out of people, some of the right-wing, is all right. It's not all right to do to any innocent people. If you had war and people that's one thing, but to wipe out innocent people just because of who they are like what was done in Hitler's Germany or what was done to Native Americans is not justifiable." --race hustler Al Sharpton saying we're not sure what

Editor's Note: We honor those who have fallen to protect the freedoms that we enjoy. Ironically, free speech is one of those freedoms the Left is more than happy to abuse by throwing insults at those who have defended their rights. Here's what some leftists had to say on Twitter regarding Memorial Day:

"Why do people regard soldiers as heroes? They're paid murderers who kill on the orders of their government. Nothing heroic about that." --ConorFurlong

"Fighting for our freedom? Every other 1st world country doesn't fight, and they have more freedom than us. Get a clue, f--- the troops." --JoeyxParmenter

"Memorial Day only validates a sickness of human history called War. Soldiers are murderers no matter where they're from." --TezmanianMusic

"Every US solider [sic] that's died since the end of WWII died for NOTHING. Their lives were worthless. They were not patriots but MURDERERS." --restorereality

"[W]anted to make sure I threw out a heartfelt F--- THE TROOPS for this Memorial Day." --roastydog

"[A]ll soldiers are either rapists, murderers or enablers of the same. This is not a false statement." --moewytchdog

Short Cuts

"Facebook's price stabilized at thirty-two dollars a share [last] Wednesday, giving investors a realistic stock value at last. No one had any idea what it was really worth. The only reason Facebook went public is because they couldn't figure out the privacy settings either." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"A Washington, DC, elementary school declared last Friday to be Trayvon Martin Day. And in honor of Trayvon Martin, the school reclassified all the Latino students as White." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"First lady Michelle Obama said that if she could trade places with anyone in the world, it would be Beyoncé. Of course it got awkward when Barack was like, 'I'm game!'" --Jimmy Fallon

"Border Patrol agents in California discovered 13 illegal immigrants being smuggled in a phony UPS van. Eric Holder is furious, saying they should've been overnighted by FedEx." --Fred Thompson

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