Early this morning I was listening to a news broadcast where they said that this fiscal year’s federal budget deficit (October 2008-September 2009) will top $1 trillion which is more that triple the largest budget deficit in history. That sounded pretty bad even considering the financial bailout that the government was undertaking to keep the money flowing.
Reading later in the day in the Wall Street Journal, Obama is quoted as saying, “We’re already looking at a $1 trillion budget deficit or close to a $1 trillion budget deficit, and potentially we’ve got $1 trillion deficits for years to come,” {emphasis added}. Years to Come? This is hope? This is change? I’ll give you a moment to try to wrap your mind around that statement before I continue.
If we see trillion dollar deficits for years to come, That’s All Folks!, our economy is gone, G-O-N-E.
Now I understand he may have just been saying that for the shock effect because he follows that statement with the another about the necessity of budget reform. Budget reform? People, budget reform is not going to close a trillion dollar shortfall, and the very fact that the president-elect even utters the words is like shouting FIRE in a crowded theater. Does he think that is leadership? Here is where Obama’s lack of executive experience is on full display, and the man is yet to take office.
In an excellent piece on Cafe Hayek, Russ Roberts explains that if you cut taxes but you do not cut spending by an equal or larger amount, you are not really cutting taxes. All you are doing is moving them around. To put it another way, if you cut taxes today and spend the same or more, you are just deferring the taxes to later. The debt will eventually have to be paid and it is paid through taxes. So with trillion dollar budget deficits on the horizon, there will be a tax bill coming due that will crush the economy for us or for our children.
Someone needs to take Obama aside and tell him never to make such a public statement again, lest someone throw a net over him and carry him off to an asylum. Second, he needs to get with his advisors and start hacking away at the size of the government and I recommend starting with the Department of Education. Although it took 28 years for that department to spend a trillion dollars, it’s a start. But this is not going to be fixed by tinkering or eliminating earmarks. Our government has gotten too big and is meddling in too many things, causing many of the problems it is now trying to fix. Government needs to be cut down to size.
