Gimmicks Galore in the Campaigning Obama's Fiscal Budget

The annual charade of the President presenting a budget to Congress has now been carried out. The President is obligated to do this. We all know it is a sham exercise. This budget is particularly cynical on the part of Barack Obama. Clearly, he is running for re-election and feels that the latest numbers on the economy point to a slowly improving picture. The fact is, Barack Obama and his failed economic policies have made it all worse. Our recovery is slow to non-existent in many areas of the economy and he continues to push for renewed class warfare to get himself another four years in office.

This year we note that President Obama again fails to make good on an early promise in his administration's first term: On February 23, 2009, Barack Obama "pledged" to cut the deficit in half in his first term of office. We are now in 2012 and we all know that it hasn't happened and will not happen in the foreseeable future.

As a matter of fact, President Obama admits to a voter that he sees no light at the end of the tunnel for another year or two. The writer of this letter is unemployed and has been for some time. He was questioning President Obama about how long he thought it will take for the economy to pick up enough for jobs creation.

A letter provided to Washington Secrets from Obama to a long-unemployed Portland, Maine carpenter pulls back the curtain of economic hope to reveal the truth about the stagnant economy. “I won’t lie to you,” Obama penned in hand to Charles Oliver in October. “It will probably take another year or two to fully dig our way out of this hole.”

Oliver had written the president in June to ask: “Are we as Americans going to be alright?” Answered Obama, “Yes, we will be ok. Because America has gotten through tough times before, and because of good people like you.”

While happy for the response, Oliver told us that he hasn’t seen any of the recovery the president and media have been heralding. “He’s out campaigning saying everything is coming up roses. He’s a lying SOB,” Oliver said of Obama, who has tried to temper his hopefulness with cautions that the recovery could hit speed bumps.

As much as President Obama would like to make it all the fault of Republicans in Congress that his policies are not enacted with a fierce fight, the fact is that there are two contrasting political and economic philosophies playing out between the two parties in office. The far left liberals are a dying breed and Barack Obama may be ushering in the final death knell. We can only hope so.

This budget is standard raising taxes, demanding new fees, new regulations and increased spending. There is no entitlement reform, which consumes 2/3 of our national budget.

The only thing that you can be certain will become law in this budget if Mr. Obama is re-elected is the monumental tax increase. His plan would raise tax rates across the board on anyone or any business owners making more than $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. These are the 3% of taxpayers that Mr. Obama says aren't paying their fair share, though that 3% pays more in income tax than the rest of the other 97%.

Despite its tax increases, the White House still predicts that the annual budget deficit will be $901 billion in 2013 and never fall below $575 billion in any of the next 10 years. Democrats denounced George W. Bush for allowing so much red ink, but his deficits averaged only 3.5% of GDP if you don't count 2001 but do include the 10.1% of 2009. Mr. Obama's deficits have averaged 9.1% of GDP if you count 2009, as you should because his $800 billion stimulus passed that February.

The political reality of budgeting is that voters should only believe what they can see, which is what politicians are proposing now. Promises of future spending cuts are a mirage. Mr. Obama needs to point to the mirage because his fiscal record is the worst in modern American history.

The budget is full of accounting gimmicks - the very kind that candidate Barack Obama was so quick and loud about criticizing George W. Bush's administration for producing. In particular, the Obama budget even claims savings for the costs that won't occur from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were never budgeted for in the first place.

Even the AP finds gimmicks. It led off with billions saved from the wars, as claimed by the Obama administration, that will now go to infrastructure spending. No such savings will exist.

This will be a tough re-election for Barack Obama, even with all the unnecessary chaos self-inflicted by the Republicans running against him. This is a man who feels entitled to his own wants and he wants to be re-elected. With his epic record of failures in office, waging nothing more than a vicious campaign based on good old-fashioned class warfare is his only shot.