Which was a given.  Because he’s a Marxist, and his aim is to expand the federal government while repeatedly kneecapping the private sector economy.  And he’ll use any lies or deceptions he thinks he and his media enablers can sell in order to do so.

Hardly a story.

But this is:  anybody want to place odds on whether its Rubio or Rand Paul who first notes that the “one-time” stimulus is now built into a baseline budget that just keeps extending itself automatically, and that if we don’t drastically cut spending — not just superficial cuts to rates of increase — the dollar will collapse and economic catastrophe, following the laws of economics, will most assuredly arrive?

Bill Wilson, ALG:

Obama is arguing that slashing budget authority by $85 billion — just 2.4 percent of the overall $3.5 trillion budget — will somehow ‘do unnecessary damage to our economy.’ Government statistics agencies reflect this Keynesian bias in their estimates of the Gross Domestic Product, which includes government spending as a component.  But even when government spending is excluded from the measure, the private sector only grew by a real rate of 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter, in spite of borrowing an extra $1 trillion a year and the Federal Reserve’s expanded quantitative easing programs.

This failure of the private sector to grow is a direct result of our massive $16.5 trillion national debt which several independent studies have shown is creating a real drag on our economy. Contrary to Keynesian assumptions, excess government spending and borrowing is robbing the private sector of resources necessary to create the conditions for robust growth.

Of course, when one measures prosperity by how much money the government spends, the only conclusion that can be arrived at is that spending must always increase — even if we cannot afford it. The national debt is increasing at an annual rate of $1 trillion such that by 2022, it will total at least $24 trillion. By then, the budget will total $5.7 trillion. There is no question we have a spending problem. Tax revenues cannot increase fast enough to keep up with the level of spending and borrowing that is anticipated over the next ten years.

Yet Obama wants to replace the modest cuts that will occur under sequestration with tax hikes. Despite getting what he wanted — the so-called ‘balanced approach’ that includes tax increases on those making more than $400,000, and cuts to national defense set to occur on March 1 — Obama is not yet satisfied. He is single mindedly focused on his class warfare agenda of even higher taxes, which he knows full well will have next to zero impact on moving our nation toward a balanced budget.

Obama and the left have revealed, now that he doesn’t have to pretend to voters anymore, that the deficit doesn’t matter to him at all, and that he believes that the government has a right to each of our earnings in order to award them to other politically favored constituencies. This is nothing more than vintage Marxist economics: ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.’ Except as Margaret Thatcher famously noted, ‘socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess, they always run out of other people’s money.’

Again, look for the reaction of the GOP, then carefully compare it to the reaction of Rand Paul, representing the TEA Party response.  One will inevitably move the other — with either the GOP moving right, or Paul tacking a bit more to the center.

I know where I’d put my marker.  Because pragmatism.

When you don’t stand for anything, you can afford to position yourself anywhere to do it. Unctuous politics is fluid that way.