Just when you see things improving, and you hope that the recovering housing market can be sustained, comes President Obama telling us the world will end if the sequester he created during the 2011 debt ceiling fiasco goes into effect.
If you recall Republicans agreed to a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling, that Obama promptly spent in sixteen months, in exchange for $1.2 trillion in cuts that were to be determined by a ’super-committee’. Should the super committee fail to agree on what was to be cut, automatic cuts would be made equally to discretionary spending and defense spending.
Obama threatened in November of 2011 that if the committee failed to agree and the sequester went into effect that he would veto any law that would roll back the sequester. Perhaps you remember that threat, ‘there will be no easy off ramps’ if you fail to pass cuts.
Today is a new day and Obama not only won’t veto any sequestration changes, he’s begging for changes claiming if the drastic cuts go into effect emergency responders, air traffic controllers, police, fire, day care, defense workers will all lose jobs.
Do you recall the recent fiscal cliff negotiations? All Obama needed was for the rich to pay a ‘little more’ toward their fair share and all would be well in Wonderland? Taxes were raised $630 billion on those earning over $450,000 a year in exchange for kicking the sequestration can down the road to March 1.
Then it was deja vu all over again. House Republicans put forward a bill that made sensible spending cuts that would avoid the sequestration cuts. Again, Harry Reid refused to call the bill in the Senate because Obama shared with America that we can’t cut our way to prosperity, and proposed a balanced plan that included spending cuts and more tax increases on the rich who still need to pay a little more of their fair share.
What is really at issue here? The amount of the sequestration was reduced during the fiscal cliff negotiations to $44 billion, according to the CBO, or about 2% of the proposed $3.8 trillion continuing resolution. There hasn’t been a budget passed by Reid and the senate in four years.
The president wants you to believe that those cuts would be devastating and possibly throw the nation back into recession.
A compliant liberal media report these claims without challenge and as truth. Anyone with more than two brain cells, an income, and checkbook knows their budget would not be devastated by cutting 2% of their spending.
The president who is a great speaker and campaigner, but terrible leader is doing one of three things; lying, demagoguing, or setting up congress to blame if the country falls back into recession.
The facts tell a different story. It is the failed policy of tax, spend, and regulate that has led to the worst recovery in history. Perhaps Obama doesn’t realize the recession ended four years ago this June?
Just when you start to lose hope that someone in the media would ever tell the truth to the American people, a glimmer of hope appeared this week.
The avowed liberals at Politico published an article; Obama the Puppet Master stating, President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping, and manipulating media coverage of himself, and his White House. A sign of hope?
However the best was a few days earlier when Barron’s blasted Obama with a cover story, “Follow Me, We Can Be Just Like Greece”. Finally Obama creating a ballooning and unsustainable debt receives some coverage.
Yes one can be hopeful that the recovery in housing can be sustained considering this report from Real Trends: “The February 2013 report shows that the rate of housing sales increased dramatically on an annualized basis over a year ago. Overall, January 2013 new and existing unit sales were up 12.1 percent from a year ago. The annual rate for January was 5.888 million up from the 5.255 million recorded in January 2012.”
This is a hopeful sign after 2012 improved from a disastrous 2011. We are nowhere near out of the woods yet, but definitely improving. That can all change if Obama gets his way. The real job losses will come from more tax increases, and more debt, not from a small decrease in spending.
If Obama gets his way on the sequestration:
America and Greece are sitting in a bar having a casual drink. America points across the bar at two drunks and says, that could be us in ten years. Greece replies, that’s a mirror you idiot.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of Fritz Pfister or identified sources, and not necessarily those of RE/MAX Professionals of Springfield or RE/MAX International.