Doin' the Washington Two-step to the Budget Blues

It's dirty work, but somebody's gotta do it. We are bleeding internally from a horrendous debt load, and it must be stemmed. We need a courageous leader to do the job, and Obama seems reluctant to be so. In his budget speech on Monday, Obama stated that he will use a scalpel, rather than a machete to make the necessary initial cuts. How very careful and astute sounding---careful not to strike the first blow, and astute so as not to get blamed or blown away. Those are the words of a man not ready to take on the burdensome task of slashing and cutting programs and entitlements and special interest group monies.

It's apparently just too much to ask of any one politician, including this president, to take dramatic, possibly vote losing steps to ----save a country from possible financial ruin and future woes. But it would be so admirable and refreshing if he had. Instead, his thinking seems to be that there will always be time later, and for now, we can hope that things will turn around, and that the "investments" we make will actually make money for us in the future. In addition, the president plans to gain thirty nine trillion in taxes----and spend forty six trillion. You don't even have to do the math. But he is banking on heavy spending on education, clean energy innovation, and infrustructure to pay big dividends later. One of his pet projects appears to be a high-speed rail transportations system, similar to Japan and parts of Europe. Seriously? Obama has already allocated eight billion dollars toward this dream train. Would someone please tell Obama that we are not Europe, our geographics are not at all conducive to such a plan, it will take years , way too much money to install, and many think it will never get done. Nor do we fancy ourselves giving up our cars---I'm sorry, but this is not a people who are going to go backwards in time. Find another idea---like allowing more deep well drilling in our own country---that might make a difference right now. So would assuring big business that the government isn't going to continue to over regulate and over tax them. The market must be allowed to flow again, not be so restrained by fear of reprisal; and yes, we must take a chance on them once again. We are a capitalistic society, and cannot allow it to be choked by overzealous politicians, some of whom seem to threaten the very core of our historical success and identification---self motivation, and less government intervention.

There was little mention in the president's speech of entitlement cuts, especially medicare and social security---these have to be addressed, but like a duo holy grail, they remain so far, untouched--and that's because it will hurt everyone, and nobody wants to take responsibility. But it appears it must be done. On the other hand, the military was curiously mentioned as a target of cuts. Even taking into account the plan to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems, in this era of terrorism, a questionable tactic to downsize our defense finances.

But President's budget speech was just a preamble or a curtain rising on much further debate and deep, painful digging into potential areas of spending elimination. President Obama is nothing, if not clever, and he is no doubt waiting for others, such as the Republicans to introduce the more unpopular, machete cutting topics, thereby relieving him of the duty. He will stand aside, with his scalpel, and claim he is doing more important, larger picture, but less invasive work---and let someone else do the more serious surgery---which he knows must be done. We all do--but who wants to go first? The Republicans, perhaps even more so than the president, must be held accountable to do what they were mandated to do---stop all unnecessary spending. Will they have the courage, or will they too do the Washington two step?

In the meanwhile, too many people are still out of work, the housing industry is still on its knees, and, and our debt is not going away or even getting smaller. The budget recommendations given by the president's own budget commission are not being heeded; because in spite of our predicament, political heads will rule over common sense. How dare they ignore all the screaming warning signals for their own political future? China is rising and racing fast. It has now surpassed Japan as the second largest economy in the word, and indeed owns most of our debt. Time will tell, and we are using that up as well--the American people do not like indecision, procrastination, and much as we like to live well, we are also learning quickly to live within our means. It's time for the U.S. government to do the same, and stop catering to those groups who insist upon doing business as usual. These are not usual times , and we no longer can afford to oil every wheel that squeaks----nor can special interest groups put their interests above all others.

There are those who fear the budget cutting will be done at the expense of the middle class and the poor. Much of this is political rhetoric, designed to villianize the Republicans, but it is precisely the poor and middle class who are hurting the most now, due to unemployment---which will not begin to show true improvement until we get the wheels of commerce turning again, which will not happen until commerce has incentive to produce and hire, and people once again have faith and confidence in a financially stable country. The jobs will then hopefully follow,and slowly we will begin to dig ourselves out of this close to depression recession. It's the old dominoe effect, much of which is psychological, but mind over matter can be powerful medicine and the road back to true health is never done by avoiding the problem. The president and congress can begin to make us,the patient,feel better by giving us a more realistic budget, and a pathway to if not where we were, a launching pad to better times.

This is crunch time for President Obama, Democrat, and Republican leaders. We are quite frankly, broke. For the benefit of all of us, put away your differences--- take off your party hats, and get out your pens to scrap the truly unnecessary, and save only that which we really need to survive and thrive. We and future generations are depending upon you. Higher and more taxes? Maybe and probably, but not before we've done everything we can to avoid it. Taxes have never been known to spur economies.

Scalpel, please? According to the newly released report from the Congressional Budget Office, the president's new proposals are projected to increase the national deficit by 2.3 trillion dollars more over a period of ten years. Not only is this way over what Obama had predicted, it's incredibly careless sounding, if not downright outrageous. Pass the machete---and the Manichewitz.