Big Dogs House

Obama Lectures On Fiscal Responsibility Then Spends Too Much

Feb 4, 2010 Political

Barack Obama ticked off the people of Las Vegas for a second time when he said that people could not just go to Vegas and blow a bunch of money. Of course, the money is yours (though he might see it differently) and what you do with it is your business. But, if you are blowing your money in Vegas or anywhere else you should not be looking for a government handout. Obama’s latest economic advice is:

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts.”

“You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage….”

“You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.” Charlie Foxtrot

I do not disagree with any of that but if you decide not to tighten your belt, to buy a boat or to blow your money in Vegas it is your business. Just don’t ask the taxpayer to pay for your lack of fiscal prudence.

The hilarity of all this is that Obama, while admonishing people and extolling the virtues of fiscal responsibility, submitted a budget that increases spending by 36% and runs a huge deficit.

Obama doubled the deficit in his first year (Dick Morris explains how it is not all Bush’s fault) and will increase the deficit by even more with his out of control spending.

In other words Mr. Obama, you can’t spend money you don’t have if you really want to decrease the deficit.

It is amazing that Obama had the nerve to dispense economic advice while doing the opposite of what he preached.

My wife and I have a balanced household budget. We spend less than we make and put the rest into savings and retirement. This was not always the case as I can remember the days when I made $600 a month as a private in the Army while trying to support my family. There were plenty of months where we had three days of food and five days until payday.

We did without and were prudent with our money and now we are in positions where we earn enough to pay our bills and save. We did this by doing without. We lived (and continue to live) within our means.

Barack Obama should try running his budget the way we run ours and the government would be better off. Do without the things that are not necessary. Cut programs (particularly redundant ones) and spend less.

But then again it is always easier to spend when it is someone else’s money.

As long as we taxpayers allow those in government to extort money from us they will continue to spend like there is no tomorrow.

And if they keep it up there will be no tomorrow.

Others:
Did We Just Get Lectured on Fiscal Responsibility By the Guy With the $1.6 Trillion Budget Deficit? [Hot Air]

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Tags: economy, hypocrite, Obama, spending, vegas

Wasn’t The Stimulus Supposed To Create Jobs?

Dec 18, 2009 Political

The nearly 1 trillion dollar stimulus package that had to be passed immediately back when Obama took office was supposed to fix the economy and create jobs. Obama told us that unemployment would go way up without the stimulus but would top out at under 9% with it. We have an unemployment rate of 10% and this is an indication that either the stimulus did not work, they lied to us, or they did not know what they were talking about. I think it is a little of each.

Only about 20% of the stimulus money has been spent. It was supposed to be spent on “shovel ready” projects that would create jobs but no jobs are being created and it is obvious that the stimulus did not work. So what do you think Democrats do when their massive spending does not work? Why, they spend more. The Democrats in the House passed a 155 billion dollar jobs bill designed to go toward “shovel ready” projects and create jobs.

Forgive me, but wasn’t the first stimulus supposed to create jobs and be for “shovel ready” projects? If it did not work, why spend more money for the same thing? Since only 20% of the original stimulus has been spent, why commit more money? Shouldn’t they spend all the original stimulus before committing more money?

This is a sign that the first stimulus was a failure. It is an admission from Democrats that the massive spending did not help. Instead of being smart and realizing that more of the same was bad, they spent anyway.

The bill was touted as a job creator but it is political ploy. The Democrats are trying to show that they are on top of things by throwing more money at the problem. They are foolishly demonstrating that they have no concept of fiscal responsibility (which is their pattern) and they are doing so at their own peril.

Do they actually think Americans are so stupid we will not be able to see they are throwing good money after bad and that they are doing more of what has proven to be ineffective? Can’t they see the stupidity of committing more money to this when 80% of the original money has NOT been spent?

This is absolute stupidity and will end up costing them in the long run.

It will end up costing all of us in the long run…

Source:
al-Reuters

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Tags: Democrats, foolishness, jobs bill, spending

New York Times Errs In Reporting Protest

Sep 13, 2009 Political

There was a huge protest in DC with an estimated 1.3 to 2 million** people descending on the Capitol to protest out of control government and its out of control spending. The protests were about the health care overhaul as well as the stimulus, the cap and trade and all the other items that have led to a deficit of 1.3 TRILLION dollars. People have awakened to how out of control government is, a condition that is not specific to any one party. Government has been out of control for years and Republicans have been as bad as Democrats when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

We now have the party of big government and the party of bigger government from which to choose.

The New York Times though, saw it differently. They reported that the protest was against Obama. This is how most liberals (except those who were at the protest) see any condemnation of government. It, to them, is against Obama.

As President Barack Obama flew to Minnesota on Saturday to rally support for his health care plan, a sea of protesters filled the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall on Saturday in the largest rally against Obama since he took office, a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to the health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with government. Statesman.com (reprint of NYT story) [emphasis mine]

The protest was not against Obama and was not a conservative only event though I am sure his ego leads him to believe this. Certainly the partisan NYT holds this view as does the Washington Post which reported that:

Tens of thousands of conservative protesters, many complaining that the nation is racing toward socialism, massed outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, angrily denouncing President Obama’s health-care plan and other initiatives as threats to the Constitution.

The protest no doubt consisted mostly of conservatives but there were many liberals and moderates as well. The common thinking in the ivory towers of the media is that no logical person would oppose this government (and in their view, Obama) so it must be the conservatives who are protesting.

Lost in all of this are the Democrats in Congress who oppose the legislation. They have the numbers to get done what they want but are unable because their own oppose the legislation. This is because their constituents, people of all political beliefs, let them have an earful during the August recess.

The media wing of the Democratic party would have America believe that the only people opposed to the government’s actions are conservatives and that the protests are against Obama. Both of these statements are incorrect and show a lack of journalistic integrity.

Americans of all political stripes are concerned about the out of control spending of the government and of the way that item after item is rushed through with little debate and with no one reading what the bills contain. People are also tired of being lied to.

Americans do not want the bills for the government’s inability to exercise fiscal restraint passed on to their children and grandchildren.

People have had enough and are demonstrating to show politicians their distrust and dissatisfaction.

They have that right under our Constitution in the same Amendment that allows freedom of the press.

It is too bad that the press lacks the integrity of the people who protest.

**This number is from earlier reports that were attributed to ABC News. ABC is saying it never made those estimates. The numbers now reported are from 75,000 to healthy 6 figures depending upon who you ask. The issue in the post is how the news attributed this to a protest against Obama by conservatives, which is a lie. But since someone was kind enough to point out the number issue I wanted to make it clear.

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Tags: deficit, lies, Obama, protest, spending, washington dc

Debt Ceiling Continues To Rise As Congress Continues To Spend

Aug 10, 2009 Political

The Democrats went nuts when George Bush asked them to raise the debt ceiling. To be fair, the party not in power usually raises hell when the majority party asks for the ceiling to be raised. Both parties are guilty of spending more rather than spending less and this causes havoc with our budget process. The Obama administration is adding to the debt at record levels (the previous record was set last year by Bush and the Democratically controlled Congress) and there appears to be no end in sight. On top of the stimulus that did not stimulate, Obama and the Democrats are pushing for a health care overhaul that will tremendously increase the US debt burden. Obama has been in office for 7 months and already his Treasury Secretary is asking that the debt ceiling be raised:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress to increase the $12.1 trillion debt limit on Friday, saying it is “critically important” that they act in the next two months. WSJ

The federal deficit grew by $181 billion in July and will likely continue to grow. Tax revenues are way down because of the bad economy and the Obama Administration has spent a fortune on a stimulus package that added to the burden and produced no positive results. The cap and trade legislation will further burden taxpayers, including those in the middle class (particularly those in the middle class) and the health care overhaul will likely be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Congress will likely approve the increase in the debt limit and the vote will probably be party line (or close to it) as it usually is.

The funny thing is that the very same Democrats who balked when Bush wanted to increase the limit and claimed he had no plan to reduce the deficit are the ones asking for an increase when they have no plan to reduce the deficit. By all accounts the Democrats will only continue to add to the problem.

Democrats blamed Bush’s tax cuts on the problem. When taxes are cut the revenue to the treasury increases but that is often ignored for the sake of political grandstanding. Obama has not cut taxes and the deficit is still rising out of control. That is what happens when they spend more money than we have.

Our government needs to go line by line, program by program and make meaningful cuts just like Obama promised to do. Until the out of control spending is reigned in there will be more and more debt and future requests to raise the ceiling.

That is no way to do business.

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Tags: debt ceiling, deficit, geithner, Obama, spending

Watch For The Insidious Tax Increases

Jun 20, 2009 Political

The Democrats are working on a health care plan for Obama who wants it done this year. They want this done very quickly because the longer they mess with it the longer the American public has to see what it really involves. Once people start kicking the tires and looking under the hood they will not like what they see.

Republicans have been shut out of the process and Democrats have reported they were told NOT to work with Republicans on this issue.

This is all on the Democrats and what they will do is triple even what Obama wanted to spend and they will raise taxes on everyone. The Democrats are not willing to say this and they are trying to hide it until they can push this through because they know higher taxes are not popular. Like Carlie Rangel said, they want to get the particulars out but not the taxes so people become happy with the plan. Then they will mention the taxes. They don’t want any negative press on it.

The Democrats are looking at a number of ways to tax YOU. They will tax everyone. Here are some things under consideration (this is not all inclusive):

The tax options include:

- Increasing the price of soda and other sugary drinks by 10 cents a can.

- Applying a potential 2 percent income tax increase to single taxpayers earning more than $200,000 a year and households earning more than $250,000.

- A new employer payroll tax could target 3 percent of employers’ health care expenditures.

- Taxing employer-provided health insurance benefits above certain levels – a less likely option but one that still is in the running. My Way News

The second item is specific to people who make certain incomes and that would be about the upper 3%. There are not enough wage earners in this category to pay for the cost of health care.

The other three items involve everyone. If you consume cola or other sugary drinks, you would be affected. If you have employer provided health insurance you might have to pay taxes on 3% of it or on all of it. The government will require it to be reported as income and then tax you. You will pay taxes on your health care benefit in order to pay for someone else’s health care. Incidentally, this will cause many employers to drop health care for their employees and force employees into Obamacare, just like he wants.

Obama said he would not raise taxes on those making under certain levels (that number changed several times) but it looks like his Democrats are working on methods of taxing nearly everyone.

The article discusses the different taxing schemes and the dishonesty of the Democrats. Remember, Rangel said that they did not want to disclose the taxes because they would get negative attention. This article shows they are still intent on keeping quiet about the huge tax increases:

The draft, being released at a news conference of the chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction – Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor – was not expected to mention the potentially unpopular tax options. [emphasis mine]

The Democrats are well on their way to outspending the last 8 years and they will do so in record time. In order to do that they need to obtain money so the question they will be asking is; “What’s in your wallet?”

Related:
Who Are The Big Spenders? American Thinker

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Tags: Congress, health care, Obama, spending, tax increases, taxes