Our President Budgets Like My Ex-Wife

During the less than blissful early days of my first marriage, (unfortunately, a list that can be said to have numerous entries,) I would come home from work on certain days to find my young bride sitting in our apartment's small living room with what appeared to be at first glance, about a dozen shopping bags. These bags would invariably have hempen handles and be made of that sturdier form of paper that was pretty close to corrugated cardboard in quality. The bags served two purposes. First, they served to help transport the contents from store to home and let everyone who saw them know that the store who provided the shopper with such happiness was where the purchases were made. The second and more subtle purpose was to let the entire world know that the prices exacted for the contents of those bags resided in a region somewhat North of the prices exacted at one's local Wal-Mart. Her admittedly cute brown eyes would look up at me each and every time, while she made the same statement, "you'll never guess how much I saved you at Hudson's today."

Welcome to the world of spin. Those shoes, that anyone with two functioning grey cells would have to have recognized as not only being unnecessary, but also soon to be abandoned, were supposed to be viewed by me as some sort of bargain that could not be passed up. They were half off you see, which means that we saved half of the price listed, and only paid the price exacted. I was too insistent on concentrating on the latter number for her tastes, and anger ensued when she wanted credit for the, "budget savings," from the full price listed with only half being paid. Our car you see needed repairs, or groceries needed to be purchased, or heat paid, or savings invested for those golden years far off in an unseen future.

I told you that story so that you would understand this latest gem, in its proper context. Recently I heard the President, during his latest campaign tour, which has been termed a, "charm offensive?" convincing us of his bipartisan bona fides, make this statement.

I've already cut $2.5 Trillion in spending from the budget over the next 10 years.

We've gone over this nefarious ground before, you and I. It is that bit of Legislative Kabuki Theater known as Baseline Budgeting, and ridding ourselves of it should definitely be the first order of business once sane people start winning elections again in sufficient numbers. You would have to be from some woozy Unicorn Infested alternate dream Universe to believe that anything this President has done or advocated can in any way be termed, a spending cut.

In 2008, the last year that George W. Bush was our President, he presided over an amount of spending that was admittedly alarming in both size and scope. His deficits, (which during his last two years in office were partly the doing of a Nancy Pelosi led House and a Harry Reid led Senate,) rang all sorts of bells at the astronomically absurd number of $450 Billion. (I say partly, because they still required the man's signature in order to become law.) Today, those $450 Billion deficits would be a welcome change of pace, since Barack Obama's promise to, "cut them in half," came with the usual Obama Promise Expiration Date, which is about 5 whole minutes after he's left what ever stage he was on at the time. Our deficits are now North of $1.4 Trillion, and will automatically grow at a staggering 8% per year according to the baseline law. Any growth less than that 8% is, as a matter of the magical baseline law, now labeled a cut in spending. It should also be noted that President Obama as of now, has not yet signed his name to a budget, as is Constitutionally required. Perhaps, and I'm just spit balling here, this is part of the problem.

A new demographic in American society has been identified this year, and it has been given credit for the election of our current President. That demographic has been labeled, and appropriately so by the way, as the low information voter. That group of people who vote in our national elections, helping to decide our collective fate as it were, without bothering to familiarize themselves with trite little things such as actual policy positions, basic economics, foreign policy beliefs, or even the cursory perusal of a candidate's resume. I've talked to these people plenty over the last 5 years, and one thing is certain, they were all Obama voters, and proud of their choice. The astounding thing for me is this, many of them were well aware of the fact that they were low information voters, and just plainly felt that the banality of the Obama campaign and the endless stream of mindless platitudes emanating from that high tech internet driven cult group known as OFA, (Organizing For America,) would somehow translate into real world results that would match the dream and not the nightmare.

Hopety Change has led to some real world disaster. Unemployment has been reported as having ticked down, but only the economically illiterate believe that fairy tale being told by the Solis Labor Department. The Labor Force Participation Rate is the lowest since just prior to World War II, a period of time commonly referred to as, "The Great Depression." Per Capita Income has dropped each and every year of the Obama Presidency, and every single commodity requires more of our devalued dollars to purchase on a world market that has clearly not been fooled by the single greatest currency manipulation in world history. Our President's goal, clearly is to follow this path, knowing full well that the ramifications of such an action will mean tremendous economic hardship for Millions of Americans. At the same time that he is doing what ever he can to destroy our nation, he is telling those irresponsible minions who make up the low information voter demographic, (unfortunately one of the largest American demographics,) that he has indeed seen to the greatest spending cut of any President in American history.

Please for the love of God America, buy one of those $1.00 calculators that are available in dollar stores all around this great nation and perform some simple math. You don't cut spending by increasing the amount on the checks you write from $2.5 Trillion to $3.8 Trillion. That, at least to people not operating in the Unicorn filled world of the baseline scam, is what is termed a spending increase.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.

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Comment by Wilafret on March 14, 2013 at 3:56pm: @John Wiseman or the Mad Conservative, I am willing to bet or give the benefit of the doubt that your ex did better.

Comment by Kate Bowe on March 13, 2013 at 11:19am: An article I just read states that Our potus says he is not going to balance the budget just for the sake of balancing the budget! He, instead wants to grow the economy!!!
Like H@ll he does. This has to be the biggest lie that has ever come out of his mouth.
His plan, plain and simple, is to crash the economy. How does the common man continue to believe this? If he actually really wanted to grow the economy, then he is the dumbest person in the world for us to depend on to do it.
Look at what he says!

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/03/president-obama-wont-b...

Comment by Roc29 on March 13, 2013 at 9:55am: Regarding the Howard Stern video:

The problem is that we don’t teach American history any more. I’m old enough to have gone to school just before they effectively stopped.

Our Founders knew three things: The average person is too busy trying to make a life for himself and his family to spend time trying to analyze the intrigues and machinations of Washington politics: That’s why they created indirect elections. And, that if we did not teach the principles upon which the nation was founded that they would be lost in a generation. And that the system that they created would not work without religion and morality.

The first is confirmed by Jay Walking and other Man in the Street interviews. The second by how little we know about the Founders and what they believed. The third as revealed by their words which can be found on BrainyQuote.com.

The Founding Fathers rejected Democracy. The challenge was to create a representative form of government that was not a Democracy. That is why the only elected federal office holders voted for by the people were members of the House of Representatives (It’s why it is referred to as The People’s House) and then, only from an electorate drawn from 30,000 people.

Senators were appointed by the state legislators to represent the interests of the states. Remember, they were thirteen independent countries: They had their own currencies, their own laws, and formed their own treaties. The main reason that they wanted to unite was for defense. They were afraid that England and Spain would pick them off one at a time. How to unite without giving up too much of their sovereignty was the big issue.

In keeping with their concern over factions (parties) they created the Electoral College not only to elect a president, but to find candidates. It was considered unseemly to seek the office of President. Only the electors name was on the ballot. When the Electors met they nominated candidates for President. They wanted to put a buffer between the voter and the candidate. That is why they couldn’t nominate someone from their own state. Also, the Vice President was not voted for but was to be the presidential candidate that receive the next highest vote total. This is why there is no record of the popular vote for President until 1824. Once the Electors were selected by the parties they became committed to the party’s candidate, even though, technically they could vote for the other candidate, such a betrayal is not likely. Were that system in effect today, we would not be spending billions of dollars on a presidential election.

I know the arguments for the changes. IMHO they were just as sophistic as the argument that the Constitution is outdated.

So, when all federal elected officials are elected by popular vote, with all buffers removed, then what is left is a Democracy. We were a Republic because of indirect elections: The 17^th Amendment and party selected electors ended that.

If we were still a Constitutional Republic we wouldn't be buying the popular vote with money from the public treasury and having the factional wars that we're having today.

Comment by Thomas Nunn on March 13, 2013 at 8:58am: "All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from (people's) downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."

President John Adams

If there is one thing that tops the list of ignorance, it's "Economics".

For some reason that can only be explained by "Wishful thinking", many people don't believe that "Government Budgets" are controlled by the same principles as a "Household Budget".

When expenses exceed income, the results are always the same, everyone in the house, or country, suffer together, nobody is exempt from the consequences.

Yet we have "millions" who believe no one must work to be the "bread winner" and the Government can keep printing free money.

I guess it's never dawned on some people that free money is like Wal Mart trying to stay in business but giving all it's merchandise away, "free".

Nothing is "free", everything has a "price", and it doesn't matter how rich or poor a person may be, they'll suffer the consequences of "Economic collapse" as everyone else.

Comment by Kristin Fecteau on March 13, 2013 at 8:13am: One of your best posts ever, John

Comment by Rich Knoch on March 13, 2013 at 7:46am: He's a sterling product of Affirmative Action, the Department of Mis-Education, a self-directed druggie and deviant life style in his formative years and, to compound it, simple math wasn't taught in Community Organizer school.

It would seem our only hope are those (few) Democrats who have remained silent, not echoing his inane words, as they surely get it, fully aware of the abyss we're approaching at supersonic speed.

Cloward & Piven and Alinsky are his guides . . . . . he's successfully implementing their goals!

Comment by Debrajoe Smith-Beatty on March 13, 2013 at 6:27am: I think we have waited to long to act.

Comment by Robert J. Widor on March 13, 2013 at 6:22am: Sadly I count my own Mother as one of those low information voters. And that is sad as her parents immigrated to the USA from Italy in the very early 1900's.

Comment by Jo Gonzalez on March 13, 2013 at 12:59am: John, John, if you ingested enough Crack, you ,would probably think this was all a great idea, too. Captian Bull S***, is probably high so much of the time, that obviously reality escapes him. Living in Never-Never Land with Michael, hooked up, everything might seem imaginable. Rainbows and Lolli-Pops. We are in the vices of a Mad Man, hopefully someone will figure a way for us to escape.