At the G20 meeting in Toronto, Obama made a threat which is sliding under rug.
In a rambling, semi-coherent answer to a rare question from the media, Obama had this to say on controlling the debt:
“Somehow people say, why are you doing that, I’m not sure that’s good politics. I’m doing it because I said I was going to do it and I think it’s the right thing to do. People should learn that lesson about me because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step-up because I’m calling their bluff.”
The egocentrism is evident in this peculiar statement (“people should learn that lesson about me”), wow, but the question for FA readers here is – what is he threatening?
. . . A massive increase in taxes perhaps? What is the overwhelming difficult choice this inexperienced and indecisive President possibly capable of?
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
Whether political or business or social or economic or personal, is it not all political? It is a privilege to write, and an even greater privilege to be read by anyone, and sometimes with the wind at my back the writing may occasionally be legible. I do not write to invite scorn, nor to invite respect, but if I get really lucky the writing can stimulate thinking. I also write for the very selfish purpose of animating my own processes, and engaging the best of what life offers. Above all, whether biting fire or swatting shadows, I am grateful to be gifted the freedom to write and publish whatever flows down to the keyboard. To all those who enabled this freedom, and to all those standing guard to preserve it, I am indebted.
After running up a gigantic deficit, Obowma thinks we will fall for the gigantic taxes? I say we cut federal spending to below what it was BO. Or let’s just take 25% off the top.
No new taxes, stop spending now.
Higher taxes, James. There’s two ways to reduce the deficit… reduce the spending, or increase the taxes. Obviously Obama will be choosing the latter, and attempting to portray himself as “a fiscal conservative” in doing so.
This idiocy is the reason I do not support a “balance the budget” argument. Most do not realize the folly in being that vague. You can balance the budget by continuing to spend, but increasing taxes (until no one can pay them, or the income goes down so far there is less revenue, of course).
I’ll only agree to a mandate to balance a budget if that budget is tied annually to the nation’s GDP growth.
You can bet he isn’t talking about cutting spending or government living within its means, or cutting taxes in any way shape or form. Obviously he isn’t planning to listen to the people, or force the government to enforce its own laws in Arizona…
No, it’s gonna be more Chicago Annenberg Challenge – use the American people’s money to encourage celebrating “Juneteenth” and not algebra scores. His record was very clear. Just no one got to see it.
JR, semi-coherent and rambling is a complement:
“Somehow people say, why are you doing that, I’m not sure that’s good politics. I’m doing it because I said I was going to do it and I think it’s the right thing to do. People should learn that lesson about me because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step-up because I’m calling their bluff.”
Somehow people say, why are you doing that, I’m not sure that’s good politics. (What the
Hell does this sentence mean?)
I’m doing it because I said I was going to do it and I think it’s the right thing to do. (The “I” word is obviously one of his favorite words: it is easy to spell and the verbs are easier to conjugate.)
People should learn that lesson about me (again he spouts meaningless drivel) because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step-up because I’m calling their bluff. (One of the biggest challenges people will face with Obama is trying to understand what he is saying and if he even has a coherent message to deliver.)
If Obama is an example of Affirmative Action, the program needs to be reevaluated.
Some think he was addressing the other leaders who dared say they were going to cut spending and try to reduce their deficits that way, because he wanted everyone to keep spending. In this speech he also talks about the unfair tax system. Throw on that VAT for those darn rich spenders? Another possibility might relate to social security, I can imagine him using it as a stick for more taxes.
He’s always rambling and incoherent but these statements seem belligerent and irritated. I think he’s having a more generalized hissy fit. Too much work, not enough adoration.
Obama on War: ‘I Don’t Have a Crystal Ball’
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/28/obama-war-dont-crystal-ball/?test=latestnews
Gen. McChrystal to Quit Army After Controversy
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/28/gen-mcchrystal-tells-army-retire/?test=latestnews
But of course Obama doesn’t have a McChrystal ball anymore — Stanley (Obama’s mother’s name, too) quit Obama. Can’t have the crumber-in-cheif telling the generals not to win the war — with rules of engagement that keep them from winning. Proof: As soon as Patraeus was selected as a replacement, he said there would be immediate changes to the rules of engagement. Now why was Obama trying to keep soldiers from doing their job?
These days, Obama is so lost he can’t stand it. We understand; 5-year olds, mental patients, drunks, and imbeciles; all are as inexperienced as Obama is.
@ Mata,
The challenge with “I’ll only agree to a mandate to balance a budget if that budget is tied annually to the nation’s GDP growth” is that to do so would obviously require at starting point of “balanced” budget, from which you would then you grow from, using GDP increases as a guide.
We have also become lulled into believing that inflation is good for the nation, good for the poor, good for the rich, good for business, good for banks, good for the value of our homes – none of which is true. The last fifty years are crystal clear evidence of this. That, and love of debt, has slid America into a recession that will at best be felt until at least 2020.
@ Skook,
Unfortunately he isn’t being called on these lies. Prior to the election, other than getting out of Iraq and closing Gitmo neither of which he has done, he was afraid to make any claims or serious, emphatic commitments to action. That’s why a majority of voters blindly went to the altar. NOW he claims, “I told you I’d do this.” ? ? No he didn’t.
. . . And you’re right about the O. and the “I” word. Narcissism is so wonderful, . . . it allows living in an alternate universe.
When you keep in mind that King Obama wants to take over the USA, whatever he has planned isn’t going to be good for the country. Remember when he said he wanted a civilian police force that was as strong and funded equally as the military? What did Hitler call his civilian police force? Could this be his next step?
@ Patter,
Obama is definitely planning more spending. Krugman and Roubini are cheering him on. “Spend you way out of a recession” is a brilliant mantra, and obviously it’s working so well for the millions of unemployed now at 16-17%.
Grandchildren and great-grandchildren not yet here, must be observing their future grandparents from somewhere out there in the deep universe and they are shaking their heads in both pity, and amazement. It’s a deep, prolonged, WTF?
Are a majority in the developed world’s population so self-centered and in so much need to feed the ego’s desires, that the debt has reached levels that it cannot be repaid, and . . . who cares? . . . That very same debt few of us, and NO economist, seems to comprehend?
It’s good see that most readers of FA have their eyes open, maybe the common sense will grow to a majority.
Hello James,
I was surprised to see you site Roubini as one cheering on Obama.
I see him on CNBC frequently and he is always very negative about the course of this bonehead’s economy.
@ Tom,
Roubini attempts to be a “current and relevant” ever-present talking head who enjoys calling himself Dr. Doom, who has been supportive of Keynesian style stimulus spending.
He pretends to be pragmatic and eclectic while, also glibly writing that crises are hardwired into the capitalism genome, and that capitalism is fundamentally unstable. . . . No point getting into an argument here with Roubini about the wealth and creativity spawned by capitalism. He supports government spending and intervention. Good for him. His ego must be pleased.
Of course, wait a few years, and Roubini will cheer on whatever winds will provide him Airtime, plunk him in the middle of an economic debate, and sell his latest grand view of the world’s economic maelstrom. It seems every time he opens his mouth, he forecasts the globe’s future. He’s dangerous because as an economic talking head, he’s claims to see the future. This past year, it was Keynesian. . . . Genius.
Yup, James Raider… Roubini… always with his
azz… er… finger in the political wind.So what’s Obama going to do to “call the bluff”?
Maybe a repeat of the hearings when Reagan slowed the “rate of annual increase” in entitlements claiming budget reductions when the budget was still slated to grow? We’ll have mothers with children crying, don’t take the food from my baby’s mouth.
You can bet we are going to be treated to sob stories of unemployed people who are now beyond the 26 weeks.
Millions of college students were added to the food stamp rolls, so now we are going to hear are you going to take the food out the mouths of starving students who have no income?
Since Obama plans to nationalize all student loans instead of guarantee them, are we to be called cheap skates for denying kids going to college?
Give me some more time and I’ll think of a dozen more. My prediction is we will be treated to a pagent of victimization where we the normal people will be accused of being cheap skates and villains for being insensitive and uncaring. 😈 Get your pitch forks out, if you are going to be accused, you might as well look guilty.
Get serious, dscott. Obama’s not going to cut entitlement spending. It’s totally against his “social justice” grain. His threat is quite genuine, and it will be a call for higher taxation to support his, Pelosi and Reid’s spending. I’d bet my “Obama senior citizen welfare baby” life on it.
@MataHarley: If Obama and the other libs get their way, your “Obama senior citizen welfare baby” isn’t going to be much to bet with.
LOL! Hence it is was one EZ bet, Smorgasbord.
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/06/27/oh-its-on-now-part-uh-three-four-obama-is-telling-us-we-are-going-to-follow-his-choices-next-year/
He is going to push VAT or higher taxes on everyone, without a real constriction of government. He’ll claim we are cowards for not giving him more of our money.
I offer another solution in my post.
@ Skookum4 —Exactly!
But who’s bluff is he calling and WHHHHHHHHYYYYYYY? Bluff? What does that mean? “call your bluff” Does he think he’s playing a card game.. oh a political game??? with real people’s lives..
Is this just more nonsense? ❓ He is dangerous and insane.
“Very difficult choices” comes down to a simple reality that no politician wants to openly state or have to deal with: If you really want to get the deficit under control, you’ve got to cut spending AND raise taxes. Any other option is purely imaginary–nothing more than a product of wishful thinking.
Why the big push to get health care reform legislation in place when this was obviously coming? Because he considered universal access to health care a simple matter of social justice, and understood that it was now or never situation. Now it becomes one of a host of programs that will be subject to budgetary modification as hard choices are made, rather than something that never was and never will be.
People have been howling about skyrocketing deficits and debt for a long time now. Democrats criticize the Reagan and Bush administrations. Republicans lay all the blame on the Obama administration and democrats. Mostly it’s all been political posturing on both sides. Nobody really ever intends to get around around to actually doing something about it. It’s just been a sales pitch, and one that republicans are presently exploiting to the greatest advantage.
What if Obama does call everybody’s bluff and slaps all the cards face up on the table, dead serious about hard choices? What happens then? How would the all-talk-and-no-action set respond to that?
#15, MataHarley, were you around to see the spectacle put on by the Dems with their tear jerker hearings when Reagan was President? Most memorable. I expect no less from Obama and his bunch of spendthrift cronies.
He does understand that by the middle of next year he is going to be a Lame Duck president? Doesn’t he? He actually thinks he will have half the power he has next year when his term is coming to an end with no hope of getting reelected? His cronies are going to start stepping away from him faster than a criminal being approached by the cops.
It’s also a stretch of epic proprotions to say that Obama delivers on promises. An easy example is his claim that he would lower taxes for 95% of Americans. I know my bill went up this year, and it will be climbing again in the near future.
How about we take 50% off the top of federal spending?
I think part of his plan will be to slash defense spending and “ask” for significant tax increases, including VAT. He’ll wait for the lame duck session to give Congress marching orders.
Greg,
I disagree about the raising taxes part. The issue is more basic. What is the job of the government?
Let’s say that the role of government is NOT to provide retirement or healthcare or welfare. It is to simply protect our borders and our foreign interests and allow for the even trade across state lines.
If that were the position we took, we would eliminate 600 billion or more a year immediately.
We have gotten used to starting the argument at a false point and because of that we restrict our options. Art Laffer pointed out with his theory that at some point taxes kill growth and worse any attempts to restart growth. Those with money will hide it. Those without will end up with lives like those in Europe- small apartments, poor healthcare (how many elderly die every year in France due to heatstroke!), and no chance of economic mobility.
Somewhere between being a nanny state and abandoning the people we have already promised to take care of is the sweet spot we need to find.
Where is a question, but we do know it is not in the direction we are headed now, it is behind us, probably quite a ways. Let’s turn around. Stop spending. freeze government, freeze taxes, stabilize the marketplace so the trillions sitting on the sideline will come back into play.
@Greg
There are, of course, numerous problems with your post on #20, first and foremost including anything about Obama willing to cut any spending. He has failed to show in the seventeen months and some odd days he has been in office any hint of willingness to do anything federal budget related EXCEPT raise spending.
As for raising taxes, that should be an obvious non-starter, but considering Obama’s way of thinking it certainly will not be.
As for what archer52 has said, I agree. The federal government has certain jobs they are required to do for the states, and under Obama, they are not being done, while at the same time, Obama is adding to the list of things NOT required by the feds that they are spending money on. His actions have nothing to do with helping the economy and raising our standard of living, but they are, in fact, nothing more than payoffs to supporters and efforts to gain more control away from the individual states themselves.
If the federal government were to suddenly cease doing all of the things it does that weren’t specifically delineated in the original charter, I suspect the United States would collapse into a state of total chaos inside a couple of months. Refer to Kevin Kostner’s 1997 movie The Postman for one imaginative post-federal government scenario.
(Also change that second “K” up there to a “C”.)
@Greg
One, most people would agree with your suspicion.
Two, continuing as our government is doing will get us there as well. See Greece for example.
Three, taxing more to make up deficits has the exact opposite effect in that government revenues actually decrease with increased taxing.
Four, cutting spending, especially those programs the fed gov. has co-opted onto the federal dole, is the right thing to do. Nanny states, as socialist countries are referred as, eventually breakdown once the money dries up.
“He does understand that by the middle of next year he is going to be a Lame Duck president? Doesn’t he?”
Judo techniques frequently involve taking control of the momentum of your opponent’s attack and redirecting it so that he throws himself to the mat. There’s a tremendous amount of energy in the attack involving the deficit and national debt.
Greg…can you define “social justice” for me? What it is, what it looks like – _something_…
@28
Don’t think I’m going to refer to a Hollywood movie for any real life comparisons or potential scenarios.
“Greg…can you define “social justice” for me? What it is, what it looks like – _something_…”
It probably doesn’t look like a situation where an estimated 12 million American children are at risk of going to bed hungry on any given day, or 1.4 million unemployed Americans have their unemployment compensation defunded as an incentive to find currently non-existent jobs. I make that observation without assigning blame.
@JR.. comment #8…. You said:
Prior to the election, other than getting out of Iraq and closing Gitmo neither of which he has done, he was afraid to make any claims or serious, emphatic commitments to action…
He DID indeed make claims. One of them is when he spoke of his cap and trade raising electricity rates:
Source
Yes Obama knows exactly what he is doing. He cares not what it does to the economy or to the hard working Americans that skyrocketing energy prices will damage the most. As Rahm “Dead Fish” Emanuel is so fond of saying,
Source
@Greg:
The problem with your logic Greg, is that you need to turn actual justice on its ear in order to achieve it. Nobody wants to see children go hungry, but children are going hungry more often due to a lack of responsibility being taken by their parents. Un-employment isn’t being de-funded as you put it. Un-employment benefits are only supposed to last for 26 weeks to begin with. I personally know several individuals who are not looking for work because they are enjoying the free government provided ride. They are able bodied, and just plain taking the handout.
What you are advocating is nothing more than government sponsored thievery. You can dress it up as any compassionate thing you want to believe, but in the end, you are taking the rewards of productive people and redistributing those rewards to people whom you feel deserve it. The truly sad part of it is this. You are creating those very conditions which you feel are so unfair. Your style of governance and economic social justice has failed in every instance it has been tested.
I seem to remember if you made 250K or less, no new taxes…
I seem to remember we’d be out or Iraq..
I seem to remember Unemployment would be NEAR what we have now….
etc etc etc….
Hey OBUMMER.. you (I) said a LOT of stuff, that is nowhere to be seen!! So WHY are you so hard headed on this one thing you (I) said you’d do, when it’s so OBVIOUSLY wrong!!! Hell, when toe SOCIALISTS of Europe say “We Blew It”!!! You’d be WISE to listen!! OOOPS! NOW I understand!!!
YOU “ain’t no wise guy”…….. we’re screwed!
we need an EDIT feature!! That SHOULD have read… “would be NO WHERE NEAR what we have now!!!!!”
i figure pus nuts plans on gutting a major portion of the DOD, or, more accurately, trying to.
regardless of whatever stupidity he finally waffles into, i predict he won’t be ready for the pushback when it comes.
What’s with this administration? Are they willing to address anything to their fellow citizens directly? Hillary Clinton’s talking about suing Arizona over SB1070 was first heard through her interview in Paraguay. PARAGUAY! Now we hear this from The Lightbringer’s mouth via the G20 summit in Canada? Canada’s good for poutine, hockey, back bacon, pleasant people with an inherently good sense of humor, not good for political posturing by a head of state who’s avoiding tough questions by his country’s press.
Dude, srsly, who runs this joke of an operation? It’s a strange and heady mix of incompetence, buffoonery, lack of class, thuggery with a slight touch of moron, served on paper plates, with an aftertaste of ass.
@Monkey King:
You just described our “ilovebeezwarzone.” BTW, are you also Canadian? Judging by some of your comments this morning I’m seeing “an inherently good sense of humor.” 😉
@Missy
Gosh, thanks!
I’m actually a mix of Cambodian, Thai and Burmese, with some Georgian swamp wader tossed in to even out the blend.
Nice to see that i’m creeping up towards Canadian on the humor scale….
@ Don,
I certainly agree that during the election campaign, his character, background, career, past and current associations, made his intentions very obvious to a minority of us.
I’m principally saying that while Obama made many rambling speeches, his most emphatic claim and the one that resonated most with taxpayers, was Getting Out Of Iraq.
Nothing else seems to have been heard. Well, . . . OK, the Hope and Change mantra was believed for rather pathetic reasons, which doesn’t speak well for the intellectual capacities of 53+% of the voters who showed up at the booths. Actually, on second thought, it speaks really badly of the Dem. crowd that chose him as their leader over H.Clinton.
James, it was those airheaded party members, PLUS George Soros, that did it.
Whoever turned the edit feature on, THANK YOU!!
hankster; hi, it’s CURT, bye 🙄
Cool! Thanks…..iloveb’s….. bless you Curt!! LOL!!!!
MISSY: hi, GEEZ I think, MONKEY KING beat me in humor; he must be a clone copycat, bye
@ OLD TROOPER: hi, IT’S thundering lightning and pouring rain, and the sun is also showing and a huge rainbow on top of it all; they all came together. 🙄 it must be a conspiracy. bye and to y’all take care and check in. 😉
MONKeY KING: are you also CANADIAN or AMERICAN?; if you are, forget the rest, bye
@ilovebeezwarzone
American, with an Asian twist…..
MONKEY KING: HI, Nice of you to join, we want all AMERICANS ON THE RIGHT SIDE, more than ever. bye 🙄