Obama Wants Spending Freeze He Once Opposed
by Big Dog on Jan 26, 2010 at 20:40 Political
What a difference a campaign makes. Back when Obama was a candidate he opposed the idea of a spending freeze. In the presidential debates John McCain said he would consider a spending freeze for the government except for veteran’s programs, national security and certain other vital programs. Obama said that the problem with this was that it was taking a hatchet to the budget when a scalpel was needed. Obama said that the freeze would halt vital programs that would hurt people.
Obama is expected to call for a spending freeze during tomorrow night’s State of the Union Address:
The freeze would take effect in October and limit the overall budget for agencies other than the military, veterans affairs, homeland security and certain international programs to $447 billion a year for the remainder of Obama’s first term, senior administration officials said Monday, imposing sharp limits on his ability to begin initiatives in education, the environment and other areas of domestic policy. Washington Post
When John McCain proposed this idea Obama poo pooed it but now that he finds it necessary to tact to the right he is in favor of it. The right is not happy because Obama raised the budgets of most agencies by as much as 50% so the freeze will be at a higher level and the left is upset because it does not want any freeze on its ability to spend, spend, spend.
By requesting this freeze Obama is admitting that the country cannot afford his agenda. He tried pushing it and the public became outraged at the excessive spending particularly in these hard economic times. Obama has ceded the fact that we cannot afford what he wants and has given the right ammunition. Any Democrats who oppose the freeze will be labeled as out of touch while the right points out that even Obama wants the freeze. If things in the economy get better during Obama’s time in office and he tries to push his agenda the public will quickly be reminded that he admitted we could not afford what he wants.
Considering that Obama has tripled the deficit which will hit 1.4 TRILLION dollars again this year, the freeze amounts to very little but it is nothing different than what McCain called for and Obama discounted out of hand. Obama is a rookie and this pandering to the middle class will not work. People have seen the man behind the curtain and they do not like what they have seen.
Nancy Pelosi tried to pin the deficit increase on Bush but Gateway Pundit sets the record straight:
For the record, during the Bush years, despite the 2000 Recession, the attacks on 9-11, the stock market scandals, Hurricane Katrina, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration was able to reduce the budget deficit from 412 billion dollars in 2004 to 162 billion dollars in 2007, a sixty percent drop. In 2004 the federal budget deficit was 412 billion dollars. In 2005 it dropped to 318 billion dollars. In 2006 the deficit dipped to 248 billion dollars. And, in 2007 it fell below 200 billion to 162 billion dollars. During the Bush years the average unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, the economy saw the strongest productivity growth in four decades and there was robust GDP growth. These were amazing accomplishments considering the unexpected challenges. You certainly didn’t read much about this in the press.
But, things changed in 2007. Democrats took over Congress, gas prices started to rise, and at the end of the year and into 2008 several financial institutions started to crumble as the housing bubble began to burst. Of course, it should be noted that President Bush publicly called for the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Democrats, on the other hand, blocked reform numerous times. It was later reported after the 2008 election that Bush had nothing to do with the financial crisis. Hoover Institution visiting fellow Scott S. Powell wrote in Barron’s in February of 2009 that the present crisis began in the 1970s, during the Carter administration, with passage of the Community Reinvestment Act to stem bank redlining and liberalize lending in order to extend home ownership in lower-income communities. This risk was acknowledged in the Bush administration’s first fiscal-year budget, released in April 2001. Sadly these warnings were ignored by Congress.
Obama said he would rather be a real good one term president than a mediocre two term one. Of course people who have real good first ones usually get a second one. Obama will be lucky to be as high as mediocre when his first (and only) term ends.
Barack Obama took an axe
And gave the budget 40 whacks
When the libs saw what he’d done
His term in office was just one.
Others:
Pajamas Media
Real Clear Politics (video of Obama opposing spending freeze on four different occasions)
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Tags: budget freeze, debate, lie, McCain, Obama
“Considering that Obama has tripled the deficit…”
Don’t be dishonest. Your statement denies the fact that Q1 of 2009 was all Bush and it ran a $485.2 billion deficit for the quarter, already ahead of the $454.8 billion for the previous year total. In fact a 3rd of the fiscal year had passed before Obama even took office. At worst Obama doubled the deficit. The reality is more complicated though. The CBO estimates Obama inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit when he walked in the door.
Of course Obama will be on the hook for a lot of this year’s deficit though the CBO projects a slight drop in the debt. If Obama can get us out of Iraq and see to it Bush’s tax cuts expire correctly the deficit will continue to decline over the next few years.
Yeah, that graph at Gateway Pundit is a lie. Looks like a 500 billion dollar deficit he inherited.
If those tax cuts expire there will be further erosion of the economy. The middle class will get hit the hardest.
Jim Hoft hasn’t met a lie he wouldn’t tell.
Where do you see $500 billion? The spending for 2009 was largely in place before Obama took office. That is the truth.
The spending authorized and put in place by the Democrat Congress.
I see it on the chart. Stimulus, c4c, social security rebates, all added by Obama.
Part of that budget belongs to the prior year but Obama added more than a trillion dollars to that deficit.
Bush’s budget was passed in an omnibus. As I recall, the Dems wanted to wait for Obama to pass a budget. The FY10 budget is his first complete one but he is responsible for a lot of the spending that took place in FY09.
The budget Bush presented was estimated to add just under 500 billion to the deficit. Assuming 500 billion the rest belongs to Obama. 500 billion to 1.4 trillion is almost triple.
“The budget Bush presented was estimated to add just under 500 billion to the deficit.”
Estimated by whom?
The CBO in a report from Jan 2009:
“Stimulus, c4c, social security rebates, all added by Obama.”
Stimulus was about $200 billion, C4C is about $3 billion. How much for the “social security rebates”? I’m having a hard time finding figures for that.
Lovely poem, Big Dog! 😉
Seriously, there are going to be so many “read my lips” clips for the campaign commercials in this upcoming presidential election, it’ll be amazing if Obama wins his own primary again. LOL.
“Obama said he would rather be a real good one term president than a mediocre two term one”
As Charles Krauthammer put it–“He forgot choice number 3 and that is mediocre one term president.”
Or the most likely choice: The economy stays on track, there’s no double dip recession, and consumer confidence continues to grow as the stock market slows but continues to rise. By 2012 unemployment is 7% and the deficit is half of what it is today. National debt is still huge and taxes are a bit higher but most people favor the direction of the government since many of them are able to work again. Obama beats Romney for a 2nd term.
Left out of Adam’s castigation of Bush (rightly methinks) is that all of that spending for the last 2 years wasn’t Bush at all, but a Democratic congress out of control. Bush didn’t wield his veto pen of course, but that couldn’t have stopped an override between the Dems and the RINOs. Yep, what Obama inherited was Dem… through and through.
Let’s not pretend the President is completely disconnected from the budget process or that Bush’s policies over 8 years such as tax cuts and 2 wars haven’t contributed to the deficit.
Obama is the president and he’ll be responsible for setting an agenda and directing congress to support it that will reduce the deficit without impacting the recovery. If he fails at this some liberals may try to blame congress but it will all be on Obama even if he’s not 100% responsible for every bit of spending the Democrats or Republicans do.
The tax cuts did not contribute to the deficit- the wars did, true- but the spending really got ramped up under O’bamma- you can’t pin this massive spending splurge on Bush-
The EPA got a 23% rise in their spending- waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than the 3% accountable for ordinary inflation, and now O’ messiah wants to “freeze” the spending at 23% for the EPA, just as an example?
This massive “overbudgeting” is true in almost every department EXCEPT the military.
We cannot sustain this-
It’s not that hard to understand. A third of the fiscal year took place before Obama was in office. The vast majority of the 2009 deficit was from spending or tax cuts in place before Obama signed anything into law. Everything you keep listing will fall under the 2010 deficit which is already on track to be a doozy.
“The tax cuts did not contribute to the deficit…”
Wrong. Read this factcheck of an false statement by Pelosi that details this problem a little:
And presidents don’t have the authority to veto a budget and they do not sign them into law. The Constitution sets the authority to establish the budget with Congress.
And since we have been in a deflation cycle there should not have been any increase in budgets.
Tax cuts bring revenue to the treasury but Congress cannot spend more than it has.
And Adam, one fourth of the fiscal year had passed when BHO took office. Oct-Nov-Dec.
I think you’re forgetting Obama came in at the end of January, not the start. That’s four months. You do the math with the remaining 8 months of the fiscal year.
I’ll cede that point.
He still gets two thirds. Over a trillion
It’s not even a trillion though. It’s much, much less. I don’t know why you’re fighting this one. There is not a vacuum in between administrations where 100% of the debt from the day Obama took office is the responsibility of Obama. That comes this time next year…