{"id":2542,"date":"2011-07-12T17:56:40","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T17:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=2542"},"modified":"2013-03-20T17:59:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T17:59:19","slug":"obama-1-0-2-0-3-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-1-0-2-0-3-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n

NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/a>\u00a0that it is hard know what his current one is, or whether to take it seriously, much less to gauge how long it will last.<\/p>\n

He calls for more taxes, but in December reiterated \u2014 after the midterm shellacking \u2014 that it was unwise to raise taxes in times of uncertainty. Apparently that was then, this is now; perhaps he calculates that the tea-party angst has peaked.<\/p>\n

He deplores threats not to raise the\u00a0debt<\/a>\u00a0ceiling, but as a senator in 2006 voted, replete with lectures on fiscal sobriety, to do just that \u2014 even though the debt then was $5 trillion smaller and the economy far stronger.<\/p>\n

He talks of \u201ceating our peas\u201d and doing the hard work of getting the budget balanced, but had he his way, budgets for the next four years would have had even greater deficits. Obviously such calls for prudence are a result only of the 2010 elections and do not characterize his own reckless budgets the two years prior.<\/p>\n

Now, more than half the country does not know whether their president believes in raising income-tax\u00a0rates<\/a>\u00a0or why, whether failing to raise the debt ceiling is nihilistic or a legitimate way to send a message, or whether their president really believes in fiscal sobriety or is worried about his own past massive borrowing only to the degree that it results in political jeopardy.<\/p>\n

Is there any logic in all the inconsistency? Partisanship explains some things: As a Democratic outsider in 2006, voting against Bush\u2019s raising of the debt ceiling was garden-variety politics. As for the disappearance of his post-shellacking fiscal sobriety, he probably calculates that the anger in November 2010 was generic, and must now translate into support for a particular Republican candidate, thus he is not so concerned about raising taxes now, eight months after a supposedly one-time populist venting.<\/p>\n

But the\u00a0ad hoc<\/em>\u00a0making-it-up-as-he-goes-along that comes from inexperience explains just as much: From 2009 to 2010, the creed was gorge the beast \u2014 borrow so much\u00a0money<\/a>\u00a0for pet programs and liberal nostrums that higher taxes would have to follow, a good redistributive thing in itself. When that didn\u2019t happen, he suddenly froze and for the first time in 30 months is talking, in Jerry Brown post\u2013Prop 13 style, of reining in the debt that he himself advocated and piled up.<\/p>\n

The sad thing now is that no one knows what the president will say about deficits on any given day, other than a rough (and often wrong) calculation of what he thinks will win in November 2012.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92011 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 to gauge how long it […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[12,48,473,67],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-F0","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2464,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/spare-us-the-sermons-mr-president\/","url_meta":{"origin":2542,"position":0},"title":"Spare Us the Sermons, Mr. President","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services During the recent debt crisis, President Obama talked about the need for bipartisan compromise and, as in the past, urged civility. Giving ground and engaging in polite discourse, of course, can be noble aims. But, like most one-eyed-jack politicians, Obama has rarely embraced\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":6638,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-heed-thyself\/","url_meta":{"origin":2542,"position":1},"title":"Obama, Heed Thyself","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He used to know some important things. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Republicans and Democrats are still name-calling in their arguments over the government shutdown, out-of-control federal spending, and the implementation of Obamacare. 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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":2530,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/st-obama-and-the-debt-dragon\/","url_meta":{"origin":2542,"position":3},"title":"St. Obama and the Debt Dragon","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"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? Why is there a debt limit standoff now, rather than, say, in 2009 or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economic Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Economic Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/economic-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2451,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-verses-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":2542,"position":4},"title":"Obama Verses Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas President Barack Obama is more exasperated than ever as polls dip, critics multiply, and none of his massive borrowing seems to jump start a stalled economy. He seems bewildered that House Republicans did not immediately agree to his tax increases proposals, and confused over\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":[]},{"id":845,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/freedom-or-fairness-in-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":2542,"position":5},"title":"Freedom or Fairness in 2012?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services This should prove to be an ideological election about the economy. Not all campaigns are so clear-cut. Sometimes moderate Republicans raise taxes (as George H. W. Bush did); at other times, pragmatic Democrats cut spending (as Bill Clinton did). 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