Obama Whacks Republicans on Deficits Ahead of Stimulus Pitch

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

“[Republicans] run up these wild debts and then when we take over, we’ve got to clean it up.”

-- President Obama speaking to donors in Denver touting the fact that federal spending has increased less than 2 percent since 2009.

The economy is the greatest area of concern for President Obama’s re-election bid because it is the greatest area of concern for the electorate. If the economy flat lines or slips in the coming weeks, it will be hard for Obama, despite his many advantages, to win re-election.

But Obama’s most persistently poor marks have been on his handling of the federal budget deficit. A long-standing consensus in the electorate is that Obama spends too much. For a president struggling to defeat the notion that he is too liberal, that’s a dangerous notion.

One of the watershed moments of Obama’s presidency, the first-ever downgrade of U.S. creditworthiness, casts a long shadow over the campaign.

The president’s re-election pitch is based on a “stimulus now, austerity later” plan in which he argues that another round of increased federal spending, partly offset by higher taxes on top earners, is the key to reviving the nation’s saggy economy while simultaneously narrowing the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Obama argues that once the economy is chugging along, deficits can be peeled back as government receipts increase as American incomes rise and higher tax rates kick in. Obama echoes the famous prayer by Augustine of Hippo: “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

Republican Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is arguing for simultaneous cuts in taxes and spending. The tax cuts, he says, will spur growth, but also argues that a move toward fiscal restraint will encourage the economy by boosting confidence in long-term economic stability.

With Americans so worried about the deficit, this is a perilous perch for the president. Romney, a fiscal hawk as governor of Massachusetts who has grown more hawkish in his two runs for the presidency, is looking to maximize the pressure on Obama.

Democrats say Romney’s plan is itself a budget buster, predicting that decreased government spending would hurt the economy and compound the budget shortfalls. Republicans say that Obama’s plan would be a fiscal calamity, simultaneously slowing growth and increasing outlays.

But this, like much of economic forecasting, depends on one’s philosophy. Romney believes tax cuts and spending restraint will spur the economy. Obama believes more spending and tax increases will spur the economy.

These wars fought over cherry-picked fiscal data points don’t likely do much to change voter views. Both sides spout their preferred economic jabberwocky and voters tune out, assuming that politicians spouting statistics are lying. Not tuned out, though, is the belief that spending is way out of control in Washington.

To combat this dangerous sense, Obama is going on the aggressive, blaming the policies of the Bush administration for four straight years of deficits of over $1 trillion since 2009. George W. Bush and Republicans, Obama says, destroyed the economy and spent unsustainably, problems that he has only begun to be able to deal with. The unsustainable spending of the current era, Obama says, is necessary to reverse the problems of the former era.

Obama further claims that if House Republicans were not blocking his plans for more stimulus and higher taxes now, deficits would already be smaller.

On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called reporters who pressed on the subject of deficit “lazy” and biased while Obama blamed Bush in campaign speeches.

In truth, Bush and Democrats in Congress jacked up deficit spending dramatically starting in 2008 in a bid to head off the worsening recession. The Panic of 2008, however, blew away these efforts. Obama’s February 2009 stimulus, the largest single spending bill ever, was really the third stimulus effort in a yearlong bid to slap some life into the economy.

Since 2010 when the economy shifted into neutral from reverse and Republicans took the House, deficits, but not spending, have shrunk. In the first two years of his presidency with total Democratic control of Washington, Obama kept up the 2008 spending pace. And Obama’s signature accomplishment, his 2010 health law, is the largest expansion of federal obligations in generations.

Obama doesn’t need to win the argument, he just needs it to become very complicated. He will never be known as a small-government kind of guy, but Obama can hope at least to reinforce the belief that the problem was beyond his control. This is more of Obama’s Gingrichian approach: campaign as voter re-education.

But Obama’s line of being a frustrated deficit hawk comes with risks.

Today, Obama will campaign at a wind-turbine plant in Iowa calling for an extension and expansion of stimulus programs to boost the industry. This is good politics in Iowa, where federal subsidies for wind power have been a boon to the local economy.

For a larger national audience, though, any reminders of the 2009 stimulus are probably bad politics. Obama’s attacks on Republican fiscal policy are intended to give him operational space in which to tout his own spending programs. This may work with some in the press corps, but Obama may want to hold off on the windmill photo-ops for a while longer yet.

________

 

Obama's blame games and attempts at revisionism just aren't working, and he knows it.

[pollyannaish]

I have read several articles lately referencing Obama's many advantages. Could someone enumerate what those are? I think I am too biased against him to identify them!

[Casino67]

Acknowledging the many Accomplishments of President Barack Obama

 

 

http://votingamerican.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/acknowledging-the-many-accomplishments-of-president-barack-obama/

 

 

pollyannaish, this may help you.

[Valin]

I have read several articles lately referencing Obama's many advantages. Could someone enumerate what those are? I think I am too biased against him to identify them!

 

For the likes us...you know racist sexist homophobes who have sold out to the 1%, there aren't very many advantages. We have to remember he does have a formidable machine behind him and of course the bully pulpit, also a lot of people, those who don't really pay much attention to politics, so he does have advantages. OTOH the left is not quite so united as some would have us believe, so take heart...strap on your big boy pads and as that great 20th century social critic Albert Bundy once said "Lets Rock!".

 

[raygun]

[raygun]

I have read several articles lately referencing Obama's many advantages. Could someone enumerate what those are? I think I am too biased against him to identify them!

 

1st advantage:

 

Obama is a cuckold:

 

 

Advantage #2:

 

lots of friends (when I mean lots, do truly mean LOTS & LOTS of friends).

 

Advantage #3 (the coup de gras of advantages):

 

Implementation of the following:

 

[raygun]

Its advantage #3 that kicks all comers in the butt; nobody can put that on their resume. To put it mildly: Obama waged nuclear apocalyptic warfare of political grimace proportions to accomplish advantage #3.

 

Its a done deal.

 

 

One does have to admit the man does have 'zing'.