Holding Obama to his inauguration promises

[Geee]

Washington Times:

Monday’s inaugural festivities offered Americans a chance to celebrate our country and the enduring success of our democracy. With the pomp and circumstance over, however, our attention returns to the challenges facing the nation. The unsolved problems of President Obama’s first term are all the more urgent now that he begins his second.

Chief among them is our out-of-control federal spending. Left unchecked, the president’s addiction to borrowed money will jeopardize the future of the next generations — of our children and grandchildren. The time to act is now. In his inaugural address, Mr. Obama said he agrees, insisting we must “reduce the size of our deficit.” Good. We can hope he means it, but we’ll believe it when we see it.

That’s because the last four years gave us little reason to believe the president cares about deficit reduction. In 2009, he promised to cut the deficit “in half by the end of my first term in office,” but he didn’t even come close. In fact, he exploded the deficit. Under his watch, the government saw four budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion — the only four times that has happened in our history.

As a result, the national debt now exceeds $16.4 trillion. Senate Democrats, apparently unconcerned about the debt’s threat to economic stability, have not passed a budget in nearly four years. The Obama administration has already announced they won’t propose a budget until well past the Feb. 4 legal deadline. In contrast, the House of Representatives has passed a budget and multiple deficit-reduction measures since Republicans won back the majority in 2010. This week, the House will authorize a measure to ensure that members of Congress will not get paid if the Senate does not pass a budget. No budget, no pay.