Budget Smoke and Mirrors: Where's the Outrage?

When we cut through the smoke and mirrors, we see that Obama's plan is to ratchet up annualized spending to rates greatly exceeding President Bush's budgets. The Heritage Foundation reports that President Bush ran budget deficits that averaged $300 billion annually (see figures above), while Obama's are projected to average more than $600 billion, "even after the economy recovers and the troops return home from Iraq."

Obama also doesn't mention, and then dissembles when asked about it, that after his first term -- in the so-called out years -- his deficit numbers start rising even more precipitously, to some $1.2 trillion -- almost the level of FY 2009. All one really needs to do to understand Obama's unconscionable plan to bankrupt America is to look at a simple chart comparing his deficits with those of President Bush, prepared by The Heritage Foundation.

Obama should look at this egregious $1.3 trillion figure (some say it's substantially more than that) with horror, instantly promise never to allow it to happen again, and have extreme confidence he could fulfill that promise merely by cutting out the extraordinary items. But he's doing just the opposite, with fraud in the inducement and malice aforethought.

His ideology compels him to grow government exponentially, national deficits and debt be damned. Oh, sure, he tells us he has to spend these enormous amounts to stimulate the economy, but he knows the vast majority of his expenditures aren't even designed to stimulate the economy, and he's also aware that the economy will turn around anyway in due course, without government intermeddling on the spending side.

Adding insult to injury, he's claiming he's saving $2 trillion in spending, when the truth is that a great portion of these "savings" will result from withdrawing our troops from Iraq, which was also going to happen anyway. Another portion involves trillions of dollars in tax increases, which have never before been considered "savings." By the time he's done -- if he serves two terms -- he will have almost doubled the national debt, according to conservative estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, and we're supposed to thank him for impoverishing and enslaving our children. This is what Obama calls "A New Era of Responsibility."