Really? Really?
President Barack Obama’s budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency, congressional auditors said Friday.
The new Congressional Budget Office figures offered a far more dire outlook for Obama’s budget than the new administration predicted just last month — a deficit $2.3 trillion worse. It’s a prospect even the president’s own budget director called unsustainable.
In his White House run, Obama assailed the economic policies of his predecessor, but the eye-popping deficit numbers threaten to swamp his ambitious agenda of overhauling health care, exploring new energy sources and enacting scores of domestic programs.
The dismal deficit figures, if they prove to be accurate, inevitably raise the prospect that Obama and his Democratic allies controlling Congress would have to consider raising taxes after the recession ends or else pare back his agenda.
By CBO’s calculation, Obama’s budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year of red ink over 2010-2019.
Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama’s policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.
What lots of contemporary Republican observers who want to double-down on Huckabeeism to squeeze a few more votes out of the South fail to realize is that there are millions of voters, particularly white collar voters in the North and Northeast, who once made states like Michigan and Maine swing states because Democrats behaved just like this. In fact, the solid blue states of the North were quite purple even in 1992, where Clinton’s percentage of the vote rarely topped Dukakis’ in the Northeast and Great Lakes States and where Ross Perot proved the spoiler by stealing a large chunk of the vote that went to Bush 41 back in 1988. It wasn’t until 1996, after Bill Clinton took ownership of the pragmatic techno-libertarianism that was the offspring of the Clinton/Gingrich years, that the North began to vote Democratic as a bloc, giving large majorities to Democratic candidates. Now, freed from Clintonism for the first time in sixteen years, Democrats are able to re-discover those very traits that made Northerners an actual swing vote. And while they’ll never vote for Huckabee or Palin, it’s not the top of the ticket that matters — what matters is that Republicans like Rudy Giuliani and Mike Castle will become governors and senators, and that the shape of the Republican Party will change from the bottom up, even if the 2012 presidential field continues to look fairly hopeless, with a few exceptions.
March 20th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
If New Englanders or New Yorkers join the GOP en masse they’ll have influence in it. If they don’t then their voices will continue to be irrelevant to the party’s direction.
You don’t get to lead a party from the sidelines.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Well said Doug, I do not think many of these Socialists want to join our party anyways.
March 20th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I wonder if someone like Gov. Romney would be able to sell the right kind of agenda to voters north of the mason-dixon line? With the kind of debt Obama is going to be running up he could be looking at trouble in his northern flank.
March 20th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Worst Week for Obama Yet….
You know it is bad when CBS goes after him.
Link/Video:
http://mvred.com/2009/03/20/worst-week-yet-for-obama/
March 21st, 2009 at 5:00 am
Obama has already blown his chance to be the Democratic Party’s Reagan.
I honestly thought he’d be able to do it, too.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:18 am
61% Support Putting More U.S. Troops In Afghanistan
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/march_2009/61_support_putting_more_u_s_troops_in_afghanistan
Obama Approval Index History
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history
This is Obama’s highest disapproval rating to date.
March 21st, 2009 at 10:09 am
Iran’s supreme leader dismisses Obama overtures
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090321/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_obama
Khamenei Says Obama Hasn’t Shifted ‘Hostile’ View
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a6wAuwxe8vHg&refer=us
Iran’s Axis of Nuclear Evil
by John Bolton
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123759986806901655.html
Obama’s rhetoric and reality clash
by Liz Sidoti
http://www.freep.com/article/20090321/NEWS15/90321006
Obama’s Communication Breakdown
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/weekend-opinionator-obamas-communication-breakdown/
Are Independents Hedging Their Bets?
If Republicans really have pulled even among independents, it’s an ominous sign for Democrats.
by Charlie Cook
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/print_friendly.php?ID=cr_20090318_8146
Bonfire of the Trivialities
By Charles Krauthammer
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/bonfire_of_the_trivialities.html
Palin’s legal debts pile up
‘SUBSTANTIAL’: Governor may create fund to pay the bills.
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/731157.html
No Return to Normal
Why the economic crisis, and its solution,
are bigger than you think.
By James K. Galbraith
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0903.galbraith.html
‘We Have a Lot of Work to Do’
ABC’s John Stossel on defending the market from within the liberal media
http://www.reason.com/news/show/131974.html
March 24th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
[...] question. Obama can’t help himself. If an $800 Billion bailout gets attention then why not a 9.3 trillion dollar deficit; why not go suggest taxing our health insurance; why not threaten AIG execs and others; why not go [...]