Today in Washington D. C. - March 23, 2009 - Obama Budget to Produce $9.3 Trillion Deficit

The Senate reconvenes at 2 pm today and resume consideration of H.R. 1388, a bill which would significantly expand AmeriCorps and boost its funding. At 6 pm, they will vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill.

But the big news: Staggering CBO Report Shows Obama's Budget Would Produce $9.3 Trillion Deficit Over Next Decade! The Congressional Budget Office released its first analysis of President Obama’s $3.55 trillion budget proposal on Friday and found that it “would generate unsustainable large deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade,” according to the AP. The CBO found that the budget would produce $2.3 trillion more red ink than the administration’s projections of $7 trillion over ten years. Thus $9.3 Trillion!

The headlines from Friday and Saturday tell the tale - The New York Times: “New Deficit Forecast Casts Shadow on Obama Agenda”; The Washington Post: “Deficit Projected To Swell Beyond Earlier Estimates”; Los Angeles Times: “Congressional Budget Office sees more red ink in Obama budget”; The Wall Street Journal: “Big Deficit Projection Tests Obama Agenda”; AP: “$1 trillion deficits seen for next 10 years”; Reuters: “U.S. Budget Office offers darker economic and deficit outlook”; McClatchy: “CBO: Obama's budget would double deficit over decade”; Bloomberg: “CBO Projects 2009 Deficit Will Reach $1.85 Trillion”.

In an editorial yesterday, The Washington Post described the new estimates as “stunning numbers -- far and away the largest deficit ratio since World War II.” The Post went on to deem the forecasts for the second five years of the Obama budget “scary,” noting, “In none of those years would the federal deficit fall below 4.1 percent of GDP -- and it would be stuck at 5.7 percent of GDP in 2019.” Politico notes, “By 2019, the government will be paying $806 billion annually on interest charges alone — a cost that appears to exceed in real dollars the core Pentagon budget today.”

The Wall Street Journal editors warn that the CBO numbers could be only the beginning. “These deficits assume the passage of Mr. Obama’s enormous tax increases in 2011 and $629 billion in new cap-and-tax carbon revenues,” they write today. “And by the way, all of this is without including the costs of Mr. Obama’s plan to offer ‘free’ health care for the middle class. The White House budget includes only a ‘down payment’ on health care, with every serious person figuring it will cost at least $1.2 trillion, and probably more.”

Fortunately, the massive deficits being proposed in this budget haven’t gone unnoticed by "some" Senate Democrats, most notably Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND). In a positive sign, Politico reports today that Conrad “is pressing to cut up to $28 billion, or almost half, of the increased appropriations sought by President Barack Obama for domestic and foreign aid programs in the coming year.” Sadly, $28 billion is a drop in the bucket of the CBO’s estimated $1.1 trillion deficit for next year, following this year’s projected $1.8 trillion deficit.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell rightly said on Friday, “If there was ever any doubt that the administration’s budget spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much—it’s gone. This non-partisan CBO report shows clearly that the budget spends, taxes and borrows far too much. It’s worse than even the most pessimistic predictions for this budget.”

It appears that President Obama and his administrative staff have opted to use the process used by spoiled children to get what they want from the the guardians of the money (for families it's the parents, for government, it's supposed to be Congress). Or, maybe Obama is just acting out his only real experience as an ACORN advocate who operates off other peoples money. Both spoiled children and many nonprofits use the "ploy of asking for the moon" in hopes of getting far more than they actually need which establishes the base line for future negotiations for what they want (not need). While we love our children and may indeed spoil them, we cannot love "government" which will burden us and our children's children with more debt and deficits over the next decade. While government is needed for "limited" defined purposes, it is not America which we do love.

The honeymoon period for Obama needs to stop right now; his administration is not acting responsibly. Obama has promised Change. True, you can appear to have accomplished much when you build your programs on the labors (incomes) of not only today's generation but future generations. However, in the Unites States, we do not need any Pyramids, Great Walls, Hanging Gardens, or transformations of society built on the back of people by the government. Obama's advisers have already unleashed the Obama campaign machine to lobby Americans to pressure Congress to "Give Us Barabbas," a massive budget for new programs leading to debt and not to freedom and personal responsibility. Change is what was promised by Obama - and now we know it is change we (and our children and children's children) can't afford! Now the urgent and immediate questions are: How many of our elected members of Congress are already in Obama's pocket? How many are prepared to do their constitutional responsibility to "control the purse strings" of Federal government thereby protecting the people?

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