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Townhall...
Obama’s ‘Balanced’
Approach
By Thomas Sowell
7/28/2011
Barack Obama’s political genius is his ability to say things that will
sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail --
regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who
have. Shameless effrontery can be a huge political asset, especially if
uninformed voters outnumber those who are informed.
President Obama’s big pitch in his Monday night televised talk was that
what is needed to deal with the national debt crisis is a “balanced”
approach -- not just spending cuts but revenue increases as well.
What could sound more reasonable -- especially to those who have not
been following what Obama has actually been doing and not doing? This
is the same Barack Obama who, earlier this year, called for a “clean”
increase in the national debt ceiling.
In this context, the soothing word “clean” referred to an increase in
the national debt ceiling without any provisos. That is, no spending
cuts at all. In other words, a blank check to keep spending. How
balanced is that?
Another word that sounds good to people who don’t stop and think is
“fair.” President Obama says that he only wants the wealthiest
Americans to pay their “fair share.” But he says zilch about just what
that fair share is, or even how to determine it.
Is the “fair share” of the top 10 percent of income-earners 20 percent
of all taxes? 40 percent? 60 percent? Those who talk about paying a
“fair share” of taxes don’t want to be pinned down.
This is another blank check that Obama wants. “Fair share” in plain
English means “more,” regardless of how large a share of all income
taxes is already being paid by a fraction of the population, while
nearly half pay no income taxes at all.
What President Obama says may not make any sense if you stop and think
about it -- which he of course assumes that most people will not do.
But that does not mean that he is a confused man. He is crystal clear
in what he is doing, however confusing his words may be to others.
At the heart of the political games being played in Washington is
taking credit and putting blame on the other guy. That is the game that
Obama played flawlessly in his speech.
It began by referring to the increased government spending that had
been going on for a decade -- in other words, before Barack Obama
reached the White House. It is true that President George W. Bush had a
record amount of deficit spending. But what is also true is that
President Obama’s deficit spending has broken Bush’s record.
While Obama seldom misses an opportunity to blame his problems on the
situation he inherited from President Bush, he says nothing about all
the hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus money he inherited from
the Bush administration. Incidentally, this “stimulus” money did not do
any more stimulating under George W. Bush than under Barack H. Obama.
Nevertheless, Obama is an accomplished master at playing the blame
game. Having gotten all the political credit for the money he has
showered on his favorites from coast to coast, he now seeks to share
the blame for the resulting financial crisis with Republicans, by
maneuvering them into a position where they have to help solve the debt
crisis that Obama created.
He has done this in great part by simply speaking of spending cuts
mostly in the abstract, leaving it to the Republicans to be specific,
and thus have them face the wrath from the constituencies who support
the programs they want to cut.
However one might criticize President Obama’s policies in terms of
their effect on the American economy, those policies can turn out to be
very successful in the terms that matter most to him -- namely, his own
re-election.
A Washington Post-ABC poll shows that while 52 percent of the public
disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy, 65 percent disapprove of
the Republicans’ handling of it.
The Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 elections. Whether
the Republicans’ ideas are good, bad or indifferent, they have not been
able to pass economic legislation -- or any other kind of legislation
-- for more than four long years.
Yet Obama is still ahead in the blame game.
Read it at Townhall
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