Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

February 15, 2012

Obama’s Budget: It’s My Money, America

On Monday, President Obama released his budget to the world. As per his usual Orwellian arrangement, Obama called this budget his attempt to implement “fiscal responsibility.” Obama’s attempt at “fiscal responsibility” works about as well as Madonna’s attempts at virginity.

Underlying his massive $3.8 trillion proposal, which also calls for tax increases amounting to nearly $2 trillion, is the overwhelming sense that President Obama thinks this is his money to spend. How else to explain his blithe assurances that his budget will ensure that everyone “gets a fair share … does their fair share … plays by the same rules”? Did we suddenly elect him third-grade teacher of the United States? Or does a dictator determine what a “fair share” means?

On Monday, President Obama released his budget to the world. As per his usual Orwellian arrangement, Obama called this budget his attempt to implement “fiscal responsibility.” Obama’s attempt at “fiscal responsibility” works about as well as Madonna’s attempts at virginity.

Underlying his massive $3.8 trillion proposal, which also calls for tax increases amounting to nearly $2 trillion, is the overwhelming sense that President Obama thinks this is his money to spend. How else to explain his blithe assurances that his budget will ensure that everyone “gets a fair share … does their fair share … plays by the same rules”? Did we suddenly elect him third-grade teacher of the United States? Or does a dictator determine what a “fair share” means?

Here’s what Obama really means by fair: He gets re-elected, and you get shafted. His budget cuts virtually nothing and increases the budget in a variety of eye-opening ways. Obama’s team requests $1 billion for the Social Security Administration, for example, just to “ensure benefits are paid to the right person and in the right amount.” Apparently, the SSA has been sending checks to people who aren’t disabled – and now it wants to spend money to stop that practice. The Dewey Decimal System was invented a century ago to stop confusion with regard to books. Now it takes us $1 billion to stop the government from sending checks to the wrong people.

Obama insists that this $1 billion investment will result in $47.9 billion in savings. Somehow, I doubt that math. When my wife goes to Macy’s and then calls, telling me how she’s saved several hundred dollars, I know to get ready for a big hit on the monthly credit card. The same holds true with government “savings.” When they’re saving us money, they’re really just spending it.

It’s not just Obama’s money-wasting ideas embedded in this plan. It’s blatant class warfare and campaign rhetoric. Take, for instance, his Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee: a 10-year, $61 billion excise from financial firms “to compensate the American people for the extraordinary assistance they provided to Wall Street, as well as to discourage excessive risk-taking.”

First, you have to love it when the president of the United States names proposals after whoever he’s going to blame. Next time, he should propose the It’s Bush’s Fault Fee, directed against wealthy people across the country. The very title of the initiative shows Obama’s motive: He wants Wall Street to take it on the chin for their bad behavior, ignoring the role of government in pushing and promoting that behavior.

Second, Obama has no constitutional authority for anything like this. In the budget, Obama contends that the Troubled Assets Relief Program provided for measures taking money back from the banks – but his proposal itself does not even stipulate that those being taxed have to have been recipients of TARP money to begin with.

Finally, the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee is predicated on the notion that the banks owe everybody a lot of money. They do. But not according to Obama, whose administration has been claiming for years that the TARP money was paid back, and actually turned a profit for the taxpayer (So where’s my check?). If they have, why does Obama now claim that he needs the banks to pony up to the table I order at to make taxpayers whole?

Obama packed his budget with such idiosyncratic idiocies. He cut a weather satellite system for the Pentagon but funded one for the Department of Commerce. He says he’s going to cut subsidies for the oil and gas companies, but he’s raising them for more non-existent green energy production, which will presumably fuel our unicorns. He wants to provide $800 million to our terrorist friends in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia but wants to cut our defense budget.

What makes him think he can do all this? Well, it’s his money, stupid. You’re just working for him. So work harder. His palms are itchy.

The American people are not nearly as stupid as Obama seems to believe. Just because he says that $3.8 trillion worth of mostly useless spending is vital doesn’t mean it is. Just because he says it’s fiscally responsible to continue revving up spending doesn’t mean it is. And just because he says he respects our money doesn’t mean he does.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.