Ruth Marcus, RCP:
The state of the union is . . . leaderless. Sounds harsh, but when it comes to digging America out from what President Obama calls its “mountain of debt,” I’m becoming increasingly worried that this assessment is accurate.
The president talks the talk about fiscal responsibility. But the evidence suggests he’s not willing to spend the political capital to translate that talk into action.
[…]
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, he proposed a five-year freeze on discretionary spending, two years longer than his previous offer.
But as the president himself recognized, this kind of nibbling around the edges of the budget is entirely inadequate.
“To make further progress, we have to stop pretending that cutting this kind of spending alone will be enough,” he said. “It won’t.” Except the president then offered nothing else of substance about what else he envisioned — and would be willing to push for.
Some serious people with unquestioned bona fides on fiscal responsibility grasped at wispy tendrils of seriousness in the president’s remarks. He mentioned Social Security! He talked about tax reform! I hope they are right but fear they are deluding themselves.
Examine the president’s words, and you see nothing new or specific. It hardly constitutes bravery to call for a bipartisan Social Security fix that doesn’t slash benefits. At that level of generality, who would disagree?
Uh oh.
When you’ve lost a liberal Democrat like Ruth Marcus, you’re in danger of… well, more mild criticism, mildly delivered, I guess.
Still. Some of us are noticing.
No. No no no. How about emphasis on DUPE instead there Ruth?
Well, she couldn’t surrender her own fantasies and still live with herself, could she, sdferr?
Still. A step in the right direction.
Wait — I thought he was digging out of a hole. That’s what everybody was saying before.
So now it’s a mountain? Of debt?
And who put us under that mountain, I wonder? Who tripled the deficit in two years?
WTF?
Yeah, but now we’re gonna freeze spending! Sorta. Maybe.
Ha.
Wiley Coyote took plenty of steps in the right direction as he hung in the air there, desperately trying to get back on top of the cliff. That’s the ugly reality about Ponzi schemes: by the time anyone notices the “benefits” are actual injustices it’s too damn late to do anything about it.
The evidence is in but hopeful Ruth remains hopeful. To do otherwise is to contest the obvious fact that federal governments are there to provide for their many customers. We remain hopeful with Ruth.
One more Time cover and we’ll be won over all over again.
By the way, with President Barack Obama’s conversion to conservatism and especially Austrian School economics all but complete, shall the left’s electorate be disappointed? As unhelpful as it is to suggest such a thing, might they feel a tad, well, misrepresented in this the third year of their liberal candidate’s presidency?
I feel this could be a relevant question but if it’s not somebody please let me know and we can ignore it.
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Scammy scam exposed:
Women, children and confectioners hardest hit.
In case there were any doubt, the Democrat campaign strategy is clear – Cat Food 2012
Chuck & Dick: Social Security Caucus
and
Obama: Granny is Safe
There is only one known winning reversal to a Cat Food campaign: Be right, be true, be selfless, don’t give an inch, and stay on the offensive.
For example, This is not about Granny eating catfood, people 55 and over will be taken care of according to the current rules. This is about Granny’s grand-children eating cat in their middle age, if our Chinese bankers decide to foreclose and become our bosses.
Well, maybe a little bit much. But not by much.
Interesting little article that explains one of Leftardia’s key mistakes: the “The Man is hiding The Stash” fallacy.
I assume that everyone knows that China holds a portion of our debt, not all of it. Most of it is held by U.S. citizens.
OT: Funny stuff.
Re: #13, about 20% of foreign held debt, about 6.5% of total.
Calced off numbers here with total debt assumed around $14T.
I’m sure that’s just useful hyperbole though (along with the cat eating, heh).
You’re definitely right about their strategy, motionview, and I like your general thrust on our possible response.
Thanks, bh, for the figures. I’m kind of getting tired of the meme that China “owns” us, because it gives people who aren’t paying attention the wrong impression.
I’m not saying that someone trying to call in that much debt all at once wouldn’t be a problem, but there are a lot more players out there. I see no reason to kiss China’s ass over it, as so much MFM traffic seems to indicate we should.
Starting with, “well, no changes would apply to those who’ve been in the system for x years — so the Democrats are openly and bald-facedly lying to you, seniors and those nearing retirement age, because they figure they’ll either be dead or taken care of once the system goes tits up and relegates your children and grandchildren to abject poverty and crushing debt” — might be a good place to start.
A friend of mine has a theory that China captures this attention because it does such a good job with perfectly fitting many different peoples’ definition of the boogieman.
For some they’re commies, for others they’re a regional militaristic threat becoming a global militaristic threat, for others they’re a billion cheap workers working hand in hand with Walmart, for yet others they’re messing with the Dalai Lama.*
Myself, I think they’re going to show the world exactly how hard a large emerging nation can crash and burn with their centralized and controlled crony corporatism. I always find it a little confusing when people who believe in free markets somehow also think a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats in Bejiing is going to pull this off.
*Some of these are true, of course.
David Harsanyi on Sputnik moments.
Potemkin satellites for Russia and poorly constructed sky scrapers for China.
Hmmm, all these metaphors make me hungry for a spudnut.
The health care law — if implemented as planned — is merely a down payment on cost containment.
stupid lying whore
creepy picture give you the wiggins
There was a lady in my church did that with her five kids back in 1967 or so, though she began with an infant at home and shot the others as they came in from school in the afternoon. Killed herself too though when she got done. Not her first psychotic episode as it turned out: she’d had others prior and breaking one last time, everybody figured she was committed never to go back to the institution.
this lady’s husband is career Army he’s in Qatar right now
I can’t even imagine
Yeah, that’d have to be about the worst news you could get out of the blue when you were away from home.
The 67 lady’s husband was a school administrator if I remember right, a principal I think. He walked through his house finding everyone. Awful either way, surely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6kv_eGSGZ4
#9: Right up to the point that others say ‘fair trade-shmare trade’ and start putting out non-fair trade chocolates. Then we’ll see how much support…No! ladies! Please….”
This is the one I thought of, 1971 John List. Caught because of “America’s Most Wanted”.
Can President Obama at least fake being a strong leader? Others have gotten away with this. I fear that he couldn’t even be a fake University President and that is hard.
Too much revealed weakness over the dam, don’t you think Rupert? I mean, who in their right mind would believe this pusillanimous twit could change for the better? He is who we know him to be.
It is , ironically, guys like Obama that get wars started. He will eventually be forced to act and can’t comprehend that he might be wrong. Is Hillary our best hope? The VP needs to just shut up and slink away.
Sick of penguin blubber, waiting for Shackleton to return. We gonna die here on Elephant Island.
In case there is any question as to how far Chuck will go in Cat Food 2012, it’s useful to remember that as the very experienced Member of the Senate Finance Committee, and concurrently serving Democrat Senate Campaign Chairman, he accidentally started the bank run on IndyMac that brought the financial crisis panic from Wall Street to Main Street, and purely coincidentally also brought that filibuster-proof 60 seat Democratic Senate Majority oh so tantalizingly close :-|
Shackelton got his job through affirmative action and then he went and ruined his government issued shoes by putting screws through the souls. – Talk about no leadership abilities.
(Why does the phrase “screws through the soul” remind me of Obama’s speeches?)
Wow, nor even an insult. Feets – are you O.K. ?
A misspelled word even – and nothing.
So she’s finally discovering what all of that voting ‘present’ meant about him? If so she’s probably a little thick so I’ll type slow:
Ms. Marcus, people who vote present are not leaders, and it was foolish to expect them to be.
Don’t bust HF’s chops when he hasn’t done anything wrong.
That’s my job.