An unlovely act of desperation.
by John Hayward
04/03/2012
CNN reports on President Obama’s “major assault” against the Republican budget proposal at the American Society of Newspaper Editors luncheon Tuesday:
Obama described the measure -- prepared by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and passed by the House -- as a "Trojan Horse" that is disguised as a deficit reduction plan but actually imposes a "radical vision."
"It is thinly-veiled Social Darwinism," Obama said. "It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who's willing to work for it -- a place where prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class."
He added that "by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last -- education and training; research and development; infrastructure -- it's a prescription for decline."
“Social Darwinism?” Really? Given the staggering level of ignorance about American constitutional law and history he’s recently demonstrated, it’s possible that Barack Obama doesn’t actually know what the term means. He might just have a vague notion that it’s bad, and thought it sounded good in a speech blasting those heartless Republicans.
But Social Darwinism describes a specific set of social theories, which hold that Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” concept applies to human social issues. The strong should prosper, while the weak die off. These theories have been put to ugly use by racial supremacists… yes, including the Nazis. That’s what Obama outrageously claims the Republican budget echoes, in a “thinly veiled” way. What a wonderful, uniting figure this President turned out to be!
Leaving aside the outrage of Obama’s remarks, we can enjoy a good laugh at their pure absurdity. As if Paul Ryan’s budget plan – which cuts a little over $5 trillion during a 10-year period, compared to a federal budget that current weighs in at over $3.6 trillion per year – would leave our streets littered with emaciated corpses!
And as if Barack Obama’s deranged spending binges, codified in a delusional budget that couldn’t find one single vote in the House of Representatives, would lead to a future that was “built to last!” This is a pure expression of the fundamental delusion behind Obama’s out-of-control government: the bills will never come due, the national debt can grow forever, and no one in Washington even has to think about slowing down, never mind repaying all those past-due bills.
As saner minds often remind us, nobody is more eager to “kill Medicare” than Barack Obama. Its impending demise is a matter of actuarial fact. A steady hand at the rudder is the last thing the Titanic needs as the iceberg draws closer. Using the words “built to last” to describe his philosophy is grotesque.
A better term for Obama’s philosophy, borrowed from an earlier era, would be “voodoo economics.” Mixed in with his usual class warfare was another demand for the “Buffett Rule,” a purely symbolic millionaire surtax that would raise a puny $4.7 billion per year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. That’s roughly one-third of one percent of this President's latest budget deficit. It's enough money to run the titanic Obama government for about 11 hours. Treating it as a serious tool for addressing our budgetary problems is sheer lunacy… a belief in symbolic magic over rational thought.
It’s equally grotesque for Obama to talk about “opportunity and upward mobility.” Those things require economic freedom. Opportunity is a matter of voluntary choice, not something to be provided by the government. And Obama clearly doesn’t think his misbegotten countrymen can seize opportunity on their own, since he thinks returning the federal budget halfway to George Bush’s bloated spending levels would ruin their lives, if not kill them outright, depending on whether or not you think the “constitutional law professor” who doesn’t know what the Supreme Court does understands what Social Darwinism means.
You can’t have it both ways. Either America is a land of opportunity, stewarded by a great and free people, or it requires endlessly increasing levels of government control to keep its hapless citizens on their feet.
Speaking of Paul Ryan, he did not appreciate Obama’s remarks:
"History will not be kind to a president who, when it came time to confront our generation's defining challenge, chose to duck and run," Ryan said in a statement. "The president refuses to take responsibility for the economy and refuses to offer a credible plan to address the most predictable economic crisis in our history. Instead, he has chosen tired and cynical political attacks as he focuses on his own re-election."
According to Ryan, Obama used his speech to "distort the truth and divide Americans in order to distract from his failed record."
House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas also issued a strong statement:
President Obama’s unhinged attack on our budget amounts to an act of desperation and does nothing to hide the fact that his policies and his vision have failed the American people. If fear-mongering and straw men arguments could erase our record deficits, the president would be hailed as a hero. Instead, as we confront the worst debt crisis in our nation’s history, President Obama has failed to rise to the occasion and remains utterly AWOL – absent without leadership.
For the second year in a row, House Republicans passed a budget that takes our nation off the disastrous Obama trajectory toward bankruptcy and onto a path to solvency and prosperity. Our budget saves and strengthens Medicare and stops new taxes from shattering our sluggish recovery. Our budget makes the tough and necessary decisions the president has failed to make in order to end the era of historic job-killing debt and deficits that his policies have caused.
Hensarling also points out that Ryan is talking about $5 trillion in cuts over 10 years, while Obama wants to add another $11 trillion in debt, on top of the $5 trillion he’s already added… but we’re supposed to treat Ryan as the “radical?”
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To read more about Paul Ryan's 2013 Budget, click here.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.
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