The Budget

The budget projections coming out of the White House aren’t terribly encouraging except for one solid fact that I’m sure won’t be given the publicity and credit it deserves.

The one solid fact is that they are honest.

During the eight years of the Bush administration we got vague assurances that the budget would ultimately be balanced while the Bush tax cuts and the ill advised adventure in Iraq guaranteed they couldn’t be.

Obama is taking the position that job growth and economic stimulus take precedent over a balanced budget. I’m not 100% certain I feel comfortable with that conclusion. I would seriously like to see the justification, the projections and the math associated with it. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not one to take anybody’s word for anything without seeing the evidence for myself.

Obama should get praise; what he’ll probably get is vilification from the Republicans for a situation that is mostly their fault. However, I’m not letting the Democrats off the hook. Clearly the administration should have been singing this tune for the last year and making the point that controlling health care costs is necessary for getting the deficit under control.

I’m in favor of the proposed tax increases (although I’m sure I will find them painful), but I’m not sure they go far enough. I think the domestic budget freeze is a good idea and actually thought it was the primary good idea McCain had during the campaign.

It’s going to be painful folks. We’ve all been enjoying the party and now it’s time to pay the band.

The difficulty will be the pundits and soft shoe politicians who will lie to you and claim it isn’t necessary or that raising taxes is going to lead to a new recession. I can guarantee it’s necessary and I think it’s more likely that not taking steps to correct the deficit will lead to, not only a new recession, but a potential economic catastrophe that would make the upheaval of the Great Depression look like boom times.

The time has come to face reality, consider the facts and ignore the Right Wing morons who are about to spin up another load of nonsense for political benefit.

The president is doing what is right. The Republicans will undoubtedly react with what they think will be popular regardless of whether or not that means the country will burn.