by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cReckless Fiscal Policies\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Why did Obama only enumerate George W. Bush\u2019s big spending as responsible for the out-of-control $14 trillion-plus debt, while not mentioning his own contribution of $5 trillion? Why is there a debt limit standoff now, rather than, say, in 2009 or 2010? Why did this latest $1.6 trillion Obama budget prompt the current crisis? Why did Obama not start debt limit talks the moment that his own hand-picked Simpson-Bowles commission presented their findings? Why did Obama just recently submit, and have rejected, a budget that would have scheduled even larger deficits of the sort he is now warning against (\u201cArmageddon\u201d)?<\/p>\n Why is voting against the debt limit reckless now, but in 2006 Obama lectured us thusly:<\/p>\n The fact that we are here today to debate raising America\u2019s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US government can\u2019t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government\u2019s reckless fiscal policies. \u2026 Increasing America\u2019s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that \u2018the buck stops here.\u2019 Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (He then failed even to vote on the issue in 2007 and 2008 when the limit was raised again. So Obama has an even weaker case than the weak case of the congressional Republicans who approved the Bush deficits, given that if Obama was right at the time to vote \u201cno,\u201d then $6 trillion later, with a ruined, rather than robust, economy, he could now be really right to vote again \u201cno,\u201d when he has the political power not to raise the debt ceiling.)<\/p>\n Why is Obama talking of new tax increases when he ruled that out in December 2010: taxes then bad, now seven months later good? Why does the president claim 80% of the people want taxes when polls prove no such thing?<\/p>\n Failure, Failure Everywhere<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2009, newly arrived Obama was convinced of redistributive Keynesian postmodern economics, a sort of updated fable that borrowed money would spawn more money, or at least would not have to be paid back, or could be excused along the lines: \u201cIf a Republican Bush borrowed nearly $5 trillion in eight years, then, dammit, why cannot a liberal Democrat be allowed to borrow more than $5 trillion in three?\u201d And if Reagan gave us \u201cstarve the beast\u201d (cutting taxes would cut revenue that would force smaller government), Obama could console himself with \u201cgorge the beast\u201d (growing government in extraordinary fashion would force higher taxes that in turn would redistribute income from those who \u201cdidn\u2019t need it\u201d to those who work for or receive from the government and who most certainly did need it).<\/p>\n The architects of his economic policies \u2014 Austan Goolsbee, Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers \u2014 did not even last three years. All now are either back in tenured academia, making millions in the revolving door that Obama once blasted, or writing op-eds why following their former advice is leading to insolvency, or all three combined. None are making the argument any more that we need more of their stimuli or ObamaCare will save us billions and create \u201c400,000 new jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n Their borrowing did not stop unemployment from plateauing at 9.1% or prevent the housing market from getting worse, or growth from stalling, or gas from soaring, or the beginnings of a new inflation. In the meantime, the model of Obamism (e.g.,\u00a0Greece<\/a>\u00a0[1], Portugal,\u00a0Italy<\/a>\u00a0[2], Spain, Ireland) in Europe of high taxes, redistributive government, astronomical debt, and unsustainable pensions has crashed. So Obamism did not work, and now is the politically opportune time, before the 2012 election, to follow the famed Obama reinvention stratagem: Cite straw men and extremists on both sides, and put St. Obama plop in the middle as the sober, great dragon slayer, who blames both his contemporaries and his predecessor. Hard to do, I know, when you wasted $5 trillion, but do it nonetheless he has. In the word of Obama, wasted borrowed money is \u201cstimulus,\u201d not-so-shovel ready jobs are \u201cinvestments,\u201d and hiking taxes on someone else is \u201crevenue enhancement.\u201d<\/p>\n 2012 on the Brain<\/strong><\/p>\n The Tea Party won the largest midterm election victory since 1938 on the theme that Obama\u2019s rate of borrowing and debt-creation were unsustainable and made worse, not better, by massive new Obama healthcare and green initiatives. So Obama, now well below 50% in the polls, is to be reinvented as a reasoned budget cutter. Note the logic that suddenly after ObamaCare and green fiascos we pause in midstream, and talk of fiscal restraint and again more taxes. The thinking is analogous to this: the adolescent takes the chronically indebted family Master Charge card, maxes it out, has no more credit, and then asks his father and mother to take on additional jobs to find the money to pay off the debt, but while insisting that he keep all his previously charged junk \u2014 and the card as well. At some point in July 2011, all the money borrowed since 2009 was deemed absolutely essential. Nothing was wasted. There was no fraud. Instead, all that $5 trillion saved lives and the planet as well. Borrowing a trillion dollars for ObamaCare cannot be renegotiated.<\/p>\n Obama 2.0 is talking, then, of some cuts to projected added expenditures, not going back and cutting a $1 trillion ObamaCare initiative or the tens of billions in green subsidies, much less just balancing the budget by adopting the 2007 budget levels. Any argument that government expenditures have reached a record percentage of GDP, or that combined state, federal, and payroll taxes can gobble over 50% of one\u2019s income, or new figures that the US is the most progressively taxed of the Western democracies, or that almost 50% of the population pays no income taxes, or that 5% now pay almost 60% of the aggregate income tax obligation \u2014 all that is rendered meaningless.<\/p>\n Sacred Borrowing<\/strong><\/p>\n Again, today everything borrowed since 2009 is considered wise \u201cinvestment,\u201d and thus pruning back any of the unnecessarily added spending is deemed heartless. Remember the logic of the debtor (I knew it well during the dark years of farming in the early 1980s when I saw the indebted everywhere): the debtor always asks himself why he should have to pay anything back, since his lenders still have more money than he. A Greece shrugs that even without their $180 billion paid back, Germans are still wealthier than Greeks; an Obama shrugs that even with higher taxes, the \u201cwealthy\u201d still have more than the recipients of federal largess.<\/p>\n If anyone thought that past Obama lamentations about the Supreme Court\u2019s failure to force \u201credistributive change,\u201d about the need to spread the wealth, about the notion that at some point we have made enough money were aberrant, then examine the most recent Obama toss off that he has hundreds of thousands in income \u201che doesn\u2019t need\u201d and thus doesn\u2019t mind paying higher taxes on it (so should we all if we just had a government-paid-for house, car, plane, food, and expenses).<\/p>\n There Is a Pattern Here<\/strong><\/p>\n Note well this pattern of suddenly turning to the neglected debt: Obama lectured for most of 2008 that \u201cdrill, baby, drill\u201d was silly, given his belief that increased supply would only marginally affect then climbing prices, and his religion that high gas prices are good in that they make wind\/solar subsidized energy more attractive, encourage less energy use and thus cool the planet, while favoring government mass transit rather than the mindless individual\u2019s use of a private car. Then as reelection neared, he tapped the strategic petroleum reserve on the logic that while drilling more new oil does not lower prices, pumping previously drilled oil most surely does.<\/p>\n Note well that suddenly Obama called for withdrawal in Afghanistan, on the logic that, while a few months ago a surge, a new commander, and a sustainable commitment were vital to winning the \u201cgood war,\u201d now, with reelection looming, it is time to start packing it in.<\/p>\n Aspirin for Cancer?<\/strong><\/p>\n So what is the status of the debt limit crisis now? The annual deficit and the aggregate debts are so massive that all the talk of a few billion cuts here and there, or even a trillion or so, means little. To save us, we would have to slash two or three entire departments (e.g., perhaps energy, education, agriculture, etc.), end all agriculture subsidies, raise the retirement age, freeze cost of living raises for Social Security, clamp down on food stamp and entitlement abuses (almost 50 million now receive them), and do far, far more \u2014 while encouraging the private sector to drill, mine, grow food at unprecedented rates, as government trimmed regulations and revised the tax code to encourage wealth creation.<\/p>\n But it is far easier to create monsters and joust over the slices of a shrinking pie. So the current economic paralysis will persist as we continue demonizing the mythical \u201cthem\u201d \u2014 until we stop acting like Greeks cursing better off Americans as if they were German bankers who are to be damned for their success.<\/p>\n URLs in this post: \u00a92011 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media \u201cReckless Fiscal Policies\u201d Why did Obama only enumerate George W. Bush\u2019s big spending as responsible for the out-of-control $14 trillion-plus debt, while not mentioning his own contribution of $5 trillion?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[619],"tags":[12,51,42,50,40,213,65,1020,205,1052],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-EO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":113,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dr-barack-and-mr-obama-on-the-debt-ceiling\/","url_meta":{"origin":2530,"position":0},"title":"Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama on the Debt Ceiling","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Barack Obama once had a lot of insightful things to say about the debt ceiling that transcended the usual political game of voting for debt-ceiling increases when your guy was president and against when he was not \u2014 and even some things that were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8667,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-utterly-hypocritical-response-to-trumps-criticisms-of-his-record\/","url_meta":{"origin":2530,"position":1},"title":"Obama\u2019s Utterly Hypocritical Response to Trump\u2019s Criticisms of His Record","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO - The Corner President Obama just said this about Donald Trump\u2019s disparagement of the last seven years: \u201cIn the echo chamber that is presidential politics, everything is dark and everything is terrible.\u201d Presidential candidates \u201cdon\u2019t seem to offer many solutions for the disasters that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NRO The Corner"","block_context":{"text":"NRO The Corner","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/nro-the-corner\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Obama-Budget-Plan-jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Obama-Budget-Plan-jpg-500x281.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2542,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-1-0-2-0-3-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":2530,"position":2},"title":"Obama 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner One of the reasons the president did not sound convincing in his press conference yesterday is that he has taken so many positions on the debt andtaxes\u00a0that it is hard know what his current one is, or whether to take it seriously, much less\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-big-deficits-became-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":2530,"position":3},"title":"When Big Deficits Became Good","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama said that he detested budget deficits. In 2006, when the aggregate national debt was almost $8 trillion less than today, he blasted George W. Bush's chronic borrowing and refused to vote for upping the debt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2433,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-paradoxes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2530,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Paradoxes","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Consider the myriad paradoxes of the Obama age. Unprecedented government borrowing is out of control, unsustainable, and finally causing financial markets to panic. Yet we are told that the necessary cutting ahead will further stall the stalled economy. We went from $9 trillion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-un-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":2530,"position":5},"title":"The Un-Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama\u2019s favorability in the polls fell when he acted like himself \u2014 overexposed, hard-left in his press conferences, and boastful about legislative achievements like Obamacare and a stimulus of more than $1 trillion. Then a strange thing happened. Obama largely went quiet.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "First Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"First Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/first-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2531,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n[1] Greece:\u00a0http:\/\/pajamasmedia.com\/blog\/greeces-deal-with-the-devil\/<\/a>
\n[2] Italy:\u00a0http:\/\/pajamasmedia.com\/blog\/europe\u2019s-debt-crisis-arrives-in-italy\/<\/a><\/p>\n