With a straight face, Obama has announced that just as Americans are tightening their belts, so too he is taking fiscal responsibility seriously. He magniloquently claims he has "charged"- the OMB to go through the budget line by line taking action to save Americans tax dollars. He assures that he is taking "aggressive"- action, and result? $17 billion in Savings "next year alone." America is not laughing, and while the MSM is reporting this presentation with languidly deferential support, some of the reporting appears to be betraying some signs of embarrassment with the absurdity of its task.
How can the majority of the MSM not feel queasy when reporting on the Administration's new aggressive savings claims? After emphatic campaign promises, and consistent affectations since the election that Obama would bring change to Washington's addictions to spending, a $3.55 trillion dollar budget can only yield $17 billion in cuts?"
Evidently the Administration believes that this one half of one percent scrubbing of the budget will be easily "bought" by the public if it is presented with "we can no longer afford to spend as if deficits do not matter and waste is not our problem." At least that's how it's sold to the media since even the NYT and the Washington Post couldn't find a term in their dictionaries to call this perversion of the truth for what it is, ... a lie.
The MSM must have accepted that Obama's cutting of a $35 million long-range radio navigation system had taken superhuman effort, and been convinced by Obama's refrained, "we cannot accept business as usual." Repeated often, with a frown, and earnest conviction, this affirmation apparently becomes convincing. Evidence that it works rests in the fact that a majority (though a shrinking one) of the nation is buying into the brilliant salesmanship committing taxpayers to almost $15 trillion in debt in four years.
Perception is everything, it seems, and the Obama White House has mastered the art of affecting consciousness. It can make absurd statements with seemingly no serious challenges from the Fourth Estate. The repercussions from this complete lack of fiscal acumen will bring an electorate far beyond the change it was seeking after eight years of Bush.
Bush believed it was his right as President to run helter-skelter and without discernment through the corridors of debt. He was clearly apathetic to the consequences. Obama, a little more than a hundred days in office, is making the object of his blame look like a miser.
Obama's determination to grow government, plus the bailout/stimulus funds he is being manipulated into providing, will bring America's national debt to a level approximately equal to the nation's GDP. His supportive Congress will ensure that his programs win the day, however, the nation will become weary of the reality behind the presentation well before the First Term is over, and a popular President will have squandered an opportunity to bring positive change to Washington.
James Raider writes The Pacific Gate Post.
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