Legend has it that prior to embarking on his mission to conquer the known world, Alexander the Great, who had not yet established his greatness, visited the oracle at Delphi seeking a good omen. The oracle was actually a priestess who sat on a stool in the crypt of Apollo's Temple above a fissure in the earth that emitted vapors and put her into a trance, wherein she would channel messages from Apollo.
Alexander encountered a minor problem when he arrived at Delphi: The oracle was only open for "business" one day a month, nine months a year, and it didn't happen to be open then. So Alexander went around the village, searching for the priestess. When he finally found her, he forced her to accompany him to the temple. Upon arriving at the temple, in his eagerness to receive the oracle, he was literally shoving her down the ramp toward the crypt when she turned abruptly toward him and exclaimed, "Boy, there's no resisting you." With that, Alexander took his hands off her, stepped back and said, with great satisfaction, "That's the only oracle I wanted to hear."
This is precisely the attitude that possesses President Obama. He is hellbent on pursuing his agenda, and he will not be denied, even if he has to strong-arm the gods and flout the laws of finance and economics to get his way.
While he has the entire nation horrified at our imminent national financial collapse, he chooses not to steer the ship of state, but to drive his putt-putt electric car with all the acumen and obliviousness of Mr. Magoo, smiling in self-satisfied delight as he careens through the streets of our national budget, imperiling everyone in sight.
Obama resents having to deal with these nagging debt issues, as they interfere with his obsession to play with his new spending toys in his quest to redistribute, er, transform America into his image. He refuses even to make a good-faith effort to confront these problems, because he can't wean himself from his reckless addiction to profligacy and social planning.
His 2010 budget projected a $1.2 trillion deficit and produced $1.3 trillion, and his 2011 budget gave us another $1.3 trillion deficit. Last year's budget was projected to generate a $1.1 trillion deficit, and preliminary data indicate that it will be worse when all the numbers are calculated.
Obama complained when he was forced to compromise with Republicans in Congress on spending "cuts," which are actually merely reductions in the rate of increase, as we all continue to wallow in the anesthetic fictions of baseline budgeting. Nevertheless, he boasted that he had agreed to more than $4 trillion in cuts. So we should expect something at least marginally prudent this year, should we not, as we approach $16 trillion of national debt?
Well, in a word, no. Obama has anything but frugality on his mind. Is he going to take advantage of the expected "savings" from winding down our military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the twin evils he and his liberal colleagues have blamed for much of the national debt? The answer, again, is no. Modern Democrats never use projected savings to reduce overall spending; they use them as an opportunity and excuse to spend more elsewhere.
So it is with Obama's new budget, which Sen. Jeff Sessions is calling "utterly irresponsible." He'll balloon the national debt to $26 trillion by 2022, causing annual interest payments to be $1 trillion annually.
According to Politico, he is showing "a willingness to gamble on costly new initiatives, even after the sobering debt accords last summer." He is calling for an $8 billion "commitment to build up community colleges as partners with industry" to train a new generation of skilled workers -- blah, blah, blah. He's calling for $770 million to advance democracy in the Middle East, an almost 50 percent increase in transportation spending and a 26 percent increase in program management funds for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, thanks to Obamacare. He'll increase energy taxes by $80 billion and overall taxes by $1.9 trillion.
But don't worry; he can pay for these and other increases simply by hiking the tax rate on dividends and otherwise increasing taxes on the evil rich, many of whom will be surprised to discover they're rich, despite the fact that no matter how much he sadistically gouges producers and the "winners of life's lottery," it will not appreciably close the deficit gap. Of course, it also appears he is still kicking the entitlement-reform can further down the road.
Even in an election year, Obama cannot bring himself to show any fiscal restraint. Let's work and pray for a "transformative" November.
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