Down The Road Of Insolvency

Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: Obama went before the cameras today and tried to “dress up” his proposal with rhetoric suggesting it was fiscally responsible. President Obama is sending his budget for the 2011 fiscal year to Capitol Hill today. According to the Associated Press, under Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget, “The deficit for this year would surge to a record-breaking $1.6 trillion, …That deficit would easily top last year's then unprecedented $1.41 trillion gap.” Included in the budget is a $100 billion “jobs” bill, which is yet another so-called stimulus bill and likely to be no more effective than the last two. The president is also calling for tens of billions in more federal education spending, which already has been massively increased with little or no improvement in educational results.

Reacting to Obama’s spending, Senator Judd Gregg, ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said, “It's not just this year, which is the issue of stimulus. It’s the year after, it’s the year after that and the year after, eight years out the president is projecting a trillion dollar deficit, a trillion dollars every year for the next eight years, that’s not acceptable. You just can’t do that to this country because you’re basically taking us down the road of insolvency.”

Predictably, Obama is also calling for major tax increases on successful families and small businesses. He also wants to limit deductions for charitable donations and home mortgage interest. Why would the president do anything that would punish charities and discourage home ownership in the middle of a severe recession caused largely by a collapse in the housing industry?

Obama’s proposal would result in top tax rates approaching, if not exceeding, 40% -- something only a liberal could celebrate. I understand that we must all pay taxes to support the legitimate functions of government. But I don’t share the liberal view that government is the preferred vehicle for investment and economic growth.

Government does a few things well, but as we’ve seen from Obama’s first “stimulus” bill, creating jobs isn’t one of them. That’s best done by the private sector, by consumers and entrepreneurs. When government takes more of their money, that’s less they have to spend or invest in their businesses. Consumers with less money spend less, and that hurts the economy. When taxes go up for small business owners, they are forced to raise prices or cut costs (jobs and benefits) or both.

Higher taxes are not a prescription for economy recovery. No nation has ever taxed its way to prosperity. As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday, "I don’t think anybody in the country thinks we have a problem because we tax too little. I think the problem is we spend too much.” I couldn’t agree more.

By the way, the media continue to hype the president’s so-called spending freeze, but Obama’s last budget hiked spending for many agencies, on average by 12%. So the president is locking in spending for the next three years at these exorbitant levels. But this fake freeze isn’t getting any applause from the public. A recent Rasmussen poll found that just 9% of voters believe this freeze will make a significant impact on the deficit, while 81% believes it won’t. The poll also found that 57% of voters want to see federal spending cut, while just 12% want it increased.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Campaign for Working Families, federal budget, Gary Bauer To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!