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. Obamas attempt at fiscal responsibility works about as well as Madonnas 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?
Heres 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. Obamas 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 arent 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 Macys and then calls telling me how shes 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 theyre saving us money theyre really just spending it.
Its not just Obamas money-wasting ideas embedded in this plan. Its 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 hes going to blame. Next time he should propose the Its Bushs Fault Fee directed against wealthy people across the country. The very title of the initiative shows Obamas 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 wheres 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 hes going to cut subsidies for the oil and gas companies but hes 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 its his money stupid. Youre 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 doesnt mean it is. Just because he says its fiscally responsible to continue revving up spending doesnt mean it is. And just because he says he respects our money doesnt mean he does.
Ben Shapiro is a regular guest on dozens of radio shows around the United States and Canada and author of Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House.
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. Obamas attempt at fiscal responsibility works about as well as Madonnas 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?
Heres 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. Obamas 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 arent 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 Macys and then calls telling me how shes 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 theyre saving us money theyre really just spending it.
Its not just Obamas money-wasting ideas embedded in this plan. Its 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 hes going to blame. Next time he should propose the Its Bushs Fault Fee directed against wealthy people across the country. The very title of the initiative shows Obamas 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 wheres 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 hes going to cut subsidies for the oil and gas companies but hes 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 its his money stupid. Youre 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 doesnt mean it is. Just because he says its fiscally responsible to continue revving up spending doesnt mean it is. And just because he says he respects our money doesnt mean he does.
Ben Shapiro is a regular guest on dozens of radio shows around the United States and Canada and author of Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House.
