Obama's Magical Thinking

[Geee]

American Thinker:

Attempting to keep up with the Orwellian mental evasions of modern liberals can be exhausting. After weeks of following the president's pronouncements on the matter of the deficit, I remain undecided as to whether he is a liar or whether he has become disconnected from reality altogether.

Let's consider a few of the propositions put forward by the president on this matter:


First, he has maintained -- as in his press conference on Friday -- that the problem is primarily a result of the actions of the previous administration. He cited the War on Terror, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as the source of the deficit. This is simply untrue.

Let's travel back in time half a decade, to George W. Bush's second term. Over the first few years of his term, the deficit trended steadily downward -- from over $400 billion in FY2004 to $161 billion in FY2007. In FY2008, as a recession began (and a Democratic Congress took office), the deficit trended back up into the $400 billion range.

Prior to 2008 the federal government was about a year of growth from a balanced budget with the war, the tax cuts, and the prescription drug benefit all taken into account. Such a deficit as existed was less than 10% of the present deficit. None of these costs has significantly increased since 2008. In fact, the cost of the war has declined. Therefore, to think that the $1.5-trillion increase is a result of the previously mentioned factors requires one to hold a magical belief that everything wrong in the world is the fault of the 43rd president. That, in the face of all reality, some liberals persist in this belief is unsurprising as in their minds President Bush has been become a Goldstein-like figure of hate conjured up to excuse the errors the present government.

So, where did the present deficit come from? Simple: it came from the current president. It is true that, when he took office, the deficit had -- temporarily -- hit a record level. This was a result of one-time emergency measures such as TARP and the bailouts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. These were not, nor were they ever intended to be, the harbinger of a new fiscal order. Instead, they were all one-time charges that President Obama and his allies have sought to exploit in order to justify a massive expansion in the federal government.