“If we don’t take meaningful steps to rein in our debt, it could … jeopardize our recovery.”
–President Barack Obama, January 2010.
“Next year [I will] start presenting some very difficult choices to the country” on debt reduction.
–Obama, June 2010
Bartender, giveaways for everyone!
–Essentially what Obama said, in so many words, December 2010.
Barack Obama pledged to reduce the national debt during his presidential campaign, but instead has added $2.7 trillion to that debt so far – more than the entire national debt in the year 1975. Throughout 2010, he repeatedly promised there will be no more treating the Treasury as a cookie jar. Now, suddenly, there will be $900 billion in new giveaways, financed entirely by borrowing.
Just a week ago the deficit reduction commission proposed wrenching cuts and tax increases that, best-case, would cut several hundred billion dollars from the deficit over the next few years. The deficit commission recommendations had only been out a week before the White House, most Republicans and some Democrats endorsed a giveaway of significantly more money than the wrenching cuts would save!
But don’t we need more giveaways to stimulate the economy?
First, there is little reason to believe this will work. Second and more important, constant additions to the national debt — coupled with the sense that Washington is out of control — may be the reason the economy keeps sputtering. The latest giveaway may cause more economic malaise, rather than cure it.
