The Coming Budget Fight And Why We Need To Make Sure It Is A Big Fight

What will the ultimate results of Obama's budget and tax hikes be? In general terms, bad news. But in terms of how much of the U.S. economy is going to be swallowed up by government, it looks even worse.

Patrick Buchanan, writing for Town Hall, gives us some particulars:

Where the U.S. government usually consumes 21 percent of gross domestic product, this Obama budget spends 28 percent in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7 percent of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush and twice as large a share of the economy as any deficit run since World War II. Add that 28 percent of GDP spent by the U.S. government to the 12 percent spent by states, counties and cities, and government will consume 40 percent of the economy in 2009.

40%. And most of that is going to be wasted on welfare programs and socialist wealth redsitribution schemes.

More:

Since the budget was released, word has come that the U.S. economy did not shrink by 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, but 6.2 percent. All the assumptions in Obama's budget about growth in 2009 and 2010 need to be revised downward, and the deficits revised upward. Look for the deficit for 2009 to cross $2 trillion.

Do you remember just two years ago when the Dems were screaming that Bush's budget was causing a deficit and how the Dems were going to fix that for us? I guess when the Dems said "fix" it they meant they were going to send it soaring even higher than Bush ever tried to do.

And this:

Who abroad is going to lend us the trillions to finance our deficits without demanding higher interest rates on the U.S. bonds they are being asked to hold? And if we must revert to the printing press to create the money, what happens to the dollar? ... Who is going to pay for all this? The top 2 percent, the filthy rich who got all those Bush tax breaks, say Democrats. But the top 5 percent of income earners already pay 60 percent of U.S. income taxes, while the bottom 40 percent pays nothing.

And that bottom forty percent are going to get nice fat checks next April, that is, wealth will be redistributed to them despite the fact that they do not invest, they do not employ other people and their tax burdern was 0. In other words, Obama is making good on his promise so that he can complete the deal of buying off their votes. What is going to happen when the banks no longer honor those government checks, though?

And the reason we know that Obamanomics is going to be a disaster:

Markets are not infallible. But the stock market has long been a "lead indicator" of where the economy will be six months from now. What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying? Having fallen every month since Obama's election, with January and February the worst two months in history, they are telling us the stimulus package will not work, that Tim Geithner is clueless about how to save the banks, that the Obama budget portends disaster for the republic.

Which is why we need to put up a huge fight over the budget and the way this administration is dragging us towards socialism.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Pitchfork Time
Patrick J. Buchanan
TownHall.com
March 3, 2009

Reality Check From CBS: Obama's Infomercial Didn't Discuss The True Cost Of His Presidency

First the Associated Press and now CBS is finding fault with Obama's claims from last night's 30-minute ad. In a nutshell, Wyatt Andrews shows us that it will not be possible for Obama to keep his campaign promises (just like Bill Clinton was unable to keep his) when it came to budgets, new spending and taxes.

From the article:

Let's start with his highly suspect, and widely discredited, claim that he can find federal "spending cuts beyond the costs" of his promises. Very few independent economists believe he has identified the savings needed to offset his remarkable list of tax credits, tax cuts and spending pledges. Fact: Even if you believe Obama intends to fix health care, most independent analysts say the cost is massive - $1.2 trillion over ten years, according to the highly respected Lewin Group. When the new Congress wakes up next year to a $1 trillion deficit, and answers the overwhelming new demands for another stimulus package, will the leadership really bite on a health care reform package that digs the deficit hole so much deeper?

And this:

Fact: The tax cuts he promises, which are mostly refundable tax credits (code for cash back), will cost $60 billion just in year one, according the National Taxpayers Union, though the Obama campaign's own estimates in July put that figure at $130 billion.

But what a great time to be a worker who owes no taxes! You get a check for not paying taxes at all! Wealth redistribution, here we come!

And this:

Fact: His new promise to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each new job created will cost $40 billion. But economists say this credit is far more likely to benefit companies already planning to expand and will likely not be enough to help companies create new jobs or forestall layoffs.

Yep. That wealth redistribution check isn't going to mean much to the workers who will lose their jobs because their employers are getting over-taxed.

Fact: Obama's claim he will lower health care premiums by $2,500 is: 1.) guesswork, which is 2.) based on health care savings that might, in a perfect world, happen over 10 years - a fact Obama neatly glosses over.

And we already know what happened in Canada and Great Britain with their versions of socialized medicine.

Most of the time he spends the Iraq savings in the context of the roads he wants to build; sometimes it's for the teachers he wants to hire. Tonight, he riffed rhetorically on the savings, asking how many scholarships could be funded, or how many schools could be built. In the end though, presuming he really saves $90 billion, he can only spend it once. Remember he also mentioned rebuilding the military ($7 billion/yr); his education initiative ($18 billion/yr); and his energy initiative ($15 billion/yr). He did not mention the $188 billion that he would spend on the brand new stimulus package he has proposed. If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq, raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he's promised to do "line by line," he still doesn't pay for his list. If he's elected, the first fact hitting his desk will be the figure projecting how much less of a budget he has to work with - thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he's facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House.

Awesome article!

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Reality Check: The Cost Of Obama's Pledges
Wyatt Andrews
CBS News
October 29, 2008

Obama's Definition Of 'Rich' Seems To Be Going Down

It used to be that according to Barack Obama, if you made less than $250,000 per year, you would not see an increase in taxes. Now, in his latest ad, Obama has lowered that to $200,000 and maybe even $150,000 if we are to believe Joe Biden.

According to National Review:

Obama's position in the past was that he would raise taxes on families making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. But in his new ad, "Defining Moment," he seems to lower it to $200,000 for families. "Here's what I'll do as president," Obama says in the ad. "To deal with our current emergency I'll launch a rescue plan for the middle class That begins with a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans. If you have a job, pay taxes and make less than $200,000 a year, you'll get a tax cut." That seems kind of ambiguous, but the graphic on the screen says clearly: "Famlies making less than $200,000 get tax cut."

Obama's Moving Tax Threshold: $250,000? $200,000? $150,000? What Next?
Byron York
National Review
October 28, 2008

And in Pennsylvania yesterday, Joe Biden said that tax relief should only go to "middle class people — people making under 150,000 dollars a year."

It looks like Obama and Biden are finally fessing up to how much they will really have to gouge the American worker to pay for all that wealth redistribution they have planned. Chances are, anyone making over $42,000 per year is going to get gouged even further.

Check out the video of Joe Biden over at Hot Air:

Video: Biden Talking About Taxing Incomes Over $150K, Not $250K, Now?
HotAir.com
October 28, 2008

Watch Obama as he lowers the bar to $200,000 over at YouTube:

Obama Ad In Which He Breaks His Promise Not To Tax Those Under $250,000 A Year
YouTube
October 28, 2008