President Obama gave the first major speech of his 2012 re-election campaign at George Washington University today, in the guise of talking about budget reform. All of the usual tropes were present: false choices, straw men, and the now-ubiquitous “Win The Future” catch phrase. This speech did not contain a single word we didn’t already hear in Obama’s last State of the Union address.
The President struck the usual moral postures. It was hilarious to hear the leader of a Party that didn’t even produce a budget last year talk about the urgent necessity of “getting our fiscal house in order.” It was even more grimly amusing to hear the President who values Planned Parenthood funding above the paychecks of soldiers talk about how “most of us, regardless of party affiliation, believe that we should have a strong military.” Evidently some of us think we need an even stronger abortion industry.
Best of all was the lecture about working together, and how the President is “eager to hear other ideas from all ends of the political spectrum.” Does that include the people Obama said we “didn’t need to hear a lot of talking from” at the beginning of his term? The ones he said could “come along for the ride, but need to sit in the back of the bus?” The leaders of Obama’s party spent last week telling us those people are solely concerned with killing as many women as possible. How seriously can they expect the President to consider their ideas?
There was much talk about shared beliefs and values, none of which has anything to do with racking up an unsustainable debt that will soon pass $15 trillion. I wonder why our “shared values” require so much compulsion to attain.
Of course, the President cautioned us not to disturb the fragile, beautiful economic “recovery” he has engineered, and told us “economists think the economy is just starting to grow again,” the same way it’s “just starting to grow” every time he gives a speech. The awful numbers on employment and economic growth which follow are always “unexpected.”
The Evil Rich were duly castigated, and the President declared his firm determination to make certain they don’t get any richer. Obama’s endless class-warfare railing against “tax cuts for the wealthy” voids every word he says about reducing the size of government. If you think some people are too rich, then you think government is too small.
As expected, we were told the first dollar of any spending cut will come straight from the fixed income of seniors, or the scholarships of promising students. After the exhausting battle to keep Republican spending cuts down to $38 billion – much of which turned out to be accounting trickery - this President cannot name a single ounce of fat that remains in the federal budget.
It was mostly a speech about raising taxes, which is the sole idea in the Democrat mind when it comes to “budget reform.” One of Obama’s core beliefs is that all important tasks must be completed by the government. It’s unthinkable to even let the private sector try. Every dollar kept by the private sector is a dream denied to a worthy client of the State. No amount of government failure does the slightest amount of damage to this belief.
When he rages against the notion that “we won’t be able to afford good schools, new research, or the repair of roads and bridges,” he’s saying that only the State can provide these things, and we won’t have them if we restrain the growth of the government. When he rhapsodizes about American “compassion,” which can only be expressed through a titanic government, he is saying that we must choose between liberty and compassion. We cannot be trusted to do what is right, if more of our freedom is returned to us.
Every American should reject this idea, along the rest of President Obama’s moth-eaten ideological wardrobe, with their last breath. We consent to the actions of government through the tax rates set by our elected representatives. Spending in excess of this revenue is government without consent.
Our “responsibilities to each other” are our concern. The President need only be concerned with his duty, which consists of wisely allocating the resources we choose to give him. We now require him to accomplish those duties without incurring further debt, or claiming more of our property. We expect humble compliance, not a lecture about how much money he thinks we should be allowed to keep.
