PR agent Obama still selling President Geithner’s revised budget … off by over a trillion

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It was back on March 3rd that I first wrote of Obama’s fuzzy math… basing his big spending plans on a rosy view of projected economic recovery.

It was only two weeks later that we learned Obama underestimated tax repercussions for his energy scheme to Americans, and that they were actually triple their original estimates. A cap and trade plan that Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer tell us *must* be passed, cost doesn’t matter.

Bloomberg reports that Obama’s current 2009 budget is $100 billion short of their actual spending, and that this year’s deficit will be $1.9 trillion. And health experts say that Obama’s $635 billion healthcare reform is less than half of what is needed.

Today we cap it off with yet more new revelations about the ability of Obama’s economic team to honestly project revenue …. ala the Obama budget deficits, originally forecast to be $6.9 trillion over 10 years, is actually short as much as 20%.

The Congressional Budget Office has warned the White House in advance of Friday’s estimate that the deficit projections will outpace the White House estimate, perhaps by as much as 20%, Politico reports. Democrats expect that the CBO projections will add around $1.5 trillion more to the Obama deficit.

The problem? They’ve opened their eyes to their fantasy economic recovery. Fudging the numbers on the low, optimistic side can no longer be ignored.

This serious calculation error has not only GOP former Obama Commerce pick, Sen. Judd Gregg, raising his eyebrows, but Democrat Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad as well. Per the Politico report:

But New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, warned that the growing debt burden reflected in CBO figures is too big to be easily dismissed. “The CBO re-score is going to be an eye-opening event for a lot of people who want to finesse this,” Gregg told POLITICO. “You cannot finesse the coming fiscal calamity we are facing, the size of the debt in the out years and the size of the deficit in the out years.”

Gregg refused to discuss any of the CBO estimates. But behind the scenes, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has begun to aggressively raise warnings with the administration and his colleagues about the data.

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Conrad is adamant that the numbers require budget adjustments: Senate Democrats could be put in the position of scaling back the administration’s domestic appropriations requests. “I’m expecting significant change,” Conrad said this week of the CBO numbers. “I think all of us have a very good sense that they will be more adverse.”

The North Dakota Democrat has emerged as something of a wildcard in the entire budget debate this year, and often appears at cross-purposes with the White House. He was openly critical of elements in the president’s economic recovery plan last month and has thus far firmly blocked any hope the White House had of using the Senate’s expedited budget “reconciliation” procedures to push through the administration’s health care or climate change agenda.

Under Bush and now Obama, Conrad has been passionately focused on the growing national debt, but he also appears reluctant to take on the issue himself without more open support from the White House. It may be the new CBO numbers will give him added leverage to persuade Obama to take more of a stand. But thus far, Conrad seems in retreat himself, saying this week that he now expects to report only a five-year budget next week — putting off a real fight over the long-term debt.

And how is the campaigner-in-chief taking the news? All in stride, and with the confident “cool” that so many admire… as if to say what’s a few zeros here and there between fellow progressives and political comrades in arms.

Refusing to be swayed by the numbers, top aides to the president met Wednesday evening in the Capitol with House Democratic allies on moving the plan ahead, including an effort to use expedited budget procedures to advance Obama’s healthcare initiative past Senate filibuster threats.

Yes, folks… numbers be damned. Obama appears determined to not only push ahead this spending agenda, but still holds the filibuster proof/51 votes needed method on the table to bypass opposition. This administration is determined to spend, no matter what economic repercussions lie down the road.

Who’s running the WH show?

I held my nose, and watched Obama’s appearance on Jay Leno last night. Would he acknowledge his economic team’s major error? Or just continue to sell us a bill of goods? (read transcript here)

What struck me in the middle of all that feel good gobbly-goop was the burning question… who’s in charge? Watching Obama playing the campaigner-in-chief, spinning his Aesop’s fable with the “happily ever after” ending – his actual position of delegator-in-chief became obvious.

When asked of Geithner’s media woes and criticism:

He is a smart guy and he’s a calm and steady guy. I don’t think people fully appreciate the plate that was handed him. This guy has not just a banking crisis; he’s got the worst recession since the Great Depression, he’s got an auto industry on — that has been on the verge of collapse. We’ve got to figure out how to coordinate with other countries internationally. He’s got to deal with me; he’s got to deal with Congress. And he’s doing it with grace and good humor. And he understands that he’s on the hot seat, but I actually think that he is taking the right steps, and we’re going to have our economy back on the move.

“*He’s taking the right steps….”? Has Obama has made Geithner the Economic President, while he’s taken the role of Geithner’s PR agent on the road? By all appearances, Rahm’bo, Gibbs and sideman Plouffe are handlers for Obama, and Obama is Geithner’s handler. Is this the change the nation voted for?

The power that the Treasury Secretary position possesses after the first Bush bailout was already frightening enough. Now add Obama’s attempt to seize other troubled financial institutions via his proposed “resolution authority” – again, with full power centralized in the Treasury Secretary.

Not only should we wonder who is actually running the show, but maybe we should start looking at appointing a President, and electing a Treasury Secretary in the future.

Now here’s where the O’faithful leap in and say “but he says he takes full responsibility”. Does he? Obama, that silky tongued master of doublespeak, doesn’t pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. As Jake Tapper pointed out a couple of days ago…

“Washington is all in a tizzy,” President Obama said at a town hall meeting here this evening. “It’s their fault, it’s the Democrats’ fault, it’s the Republicans’ fault. — Listen, I’ll take responsibility. I’m the president.”

In the next breath, the president said, “We didn’t grant these contracts, we’ve got a lot on our plate. But it is appropriate when you’re in charge to make sure stuff doesn’t happen like this.”

But the president said, the point isn’t to assign blame but to solve the larger issue.

Yup… in one moment, he says the buck stops with him, and that they shouldn’t be pointing fingers. In the next, he points fingers to wash off the political slime. If any of the mud sticks, the only job he’s apparently assuming – the PR guy to President Geithner – is in jeopardy.

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So where are we? Under the thumb of a economic guru/appointee with more than Presidential powers, spending up the whazooo based on optimistic fuzzy math, and an administration that doesn’t give a whit about the price tag of their progressive Euro-socialist agenda. What does this mean for us?

It was only yesterday that I wrote about the US dollar now on death watch. Obama’s spending plans are not going unnoticed by the rest of the world. And the UN’s upcoming recommendation to drop the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency in favor of a basket of currencies instead is a price US citizens may have to pay for their Euro-socialist agenda.

These latest numbers make the loss of that lofty status more real. The inflation (or worse, hyperinflation) that can occur will forever change the lifestyle of Americans. For those of you who voted in a man, dedicated to remaking America into a Euro-socialist nation, you will be waking up one day, and realized the hefty price you have asked us – the 48% of the nation who did *not* want this agenda – to pay.

You, the O’faithful, listened to the rhetoric, enjoyed the lilt of the voice and the flashy shows. Yet he told you over and over this spending was his plan. You cannot be surprised.

But perhaps you may find yourself stunned by the real economic repercussions of this new big government. A government who insures they operate virtually unchecked.

But I have to wonder. Did the O’faithful ever anticipate that our lives and future would be dictated by a man – appointed by a naive legislator – who no one elected at all?

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It’s gonna be hard to beat this find re Geithner though…
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=284395-1&showVid=true&clipStart=7537.81&clipStop=7785.89

(ht Hot Air)
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/20/video-congress-geithner-knew-about-bonuses-on-march-3rd/#comment-2005041

It’s a CSPAN file vid from weeks ago where Timmy was asked SPECIFICALLY, by Congress in a Congressional hearing about the AIG bonuses. Oh yeah, that’s right, I forgot…he didn’t hear about it till the other day. Yeah, right.

While we were all distracted by AIG- The fed printed another TRillion -we are buying our own dept. and i have no clue how that is done. I was watching bloomberg. BOE is also printing money, everybody is printing money. We are all in deep do do.

They are running a smoke screen while the man behind the curtain is destroying the dollar.

I believe it’s called “Voodoo Economics

I can’t believe Gibbs said that cutting the budget in half is still their goal and thinks they will do it in 4 years. He is completely insane!

We all know that the numbers from the Obama initial budget were not even close. I don’t know if you would call it a lie or just a pure pipe dream. I am leaning toward a lie that fit with the status quo with Obama. I They are based on events that will not happen.

The point that I have been making is that Obama assumes growth, and I cannot foresee enough growth if any with all the other policies he has instituted. I cannot see the government generating enough tax revenue because economy will continue to slow. Everything he has done negatively affects the economy and diminishes growth.

On top of that, they are not going to stop spending. Dems just don’t do that, so the numbers are not even close to whatever cause they want to fund next year or the year after that.

.http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/

Such hard-core GOP spew. I am so tired of listening to the losing party grind their pitiful little axes over everything that the President is trying to do. Oh, I forgot, GOP got a brandnew Face! Can’t wait to hear what Rush and the Bimbo’s have to say. Just keep repeating, he’s got to fail, he’s got to fail….Thanks for the optimism for a country under the gun.

Having been left in the lurch by a presidency that had to know what kind of shape the countries economics were in, I’m still waiting for what their great plan was. Oh, I forgot, they didn’t have one!

But, Mata, “hope and change” is all Woods has. Of course, perhaps that’s all most of us have now…we can only hope enough Democrats change to derail this train. Hell, a train wrech would look good right now. Rush has understated the case for Obama’s failure.

The dims are going to cut the deficit in half in the next four years. That is the world deficit, the U.S. share willl increase 10 fold. O’Dumbo outfoxed the retards, aka democrats, in the country, again.

Actually the real problem is us. 99% will say their congress critters are good and everyone else’s is garbage. Not me, I live in Va and my district rep stinks and both senators should be drawn and quartered, then fed to the sharks. Or feed all three to the sharks while they’re alive.

I wonder if S.L. Woods will feel the love for O’Dumbo when his/her family become homeless and starve because the president is too stupid to walk and chew gum at the same time. Is there any country or group the idiot hasn’t personally insulted in 60 days. Any black wino in Chicago could have done a better job than the drugged out , I’ll speak if you give me a teleprompter’ dumbest man in the country. No one ever questioned why he and the moose both lost their law license in Il, something almost impossible for a member of the mob to do. The answer may have shown why, and what a low down criminal he really is.

There is one Happy Hooker in SF. She heard no one was firing Peeeloshi and she could keep the corner for a little while longer.

If the Democrats succeed in getting their Cap and Trade scheme passed, I would say that their throwing inflation on top of a recession, will insure that the US economy will be brought to it’s knees. And that’s an optimistic outlook. With high unemployment, a devalued dollar, and much higher energy costs driving the price of everything up, we could easily see a situation worse then the 1930’s Depression. Of course it would go without saying that many of the Democrats will NOT be re-elected, but America could be pretty screwed by then.