THE OBAMA FLIM-FLAM OPERATION

BY CINCINNATUS

I remember laughing at this Onion article in November. But as things play out with the current budget debate and the passage of the stimulus, I'm starting to wonder if this bit of sattire wasn't ominously prophetic. Rather than campaign funds, however, it appears the president will make off with trillions of dollars in spending on new programs during a period when this country is running its highest deficit in history and simply walk away, either four or eight years from now. He'll have robbed not only current American taxpayers but future taxpayers of ridiculously incalculable sums of money and stick them with the bill. I've tried to moderate my thinking just a bit, but as each day passes and more and more outrageous spending proposals are exposed in the president's budget, I become enraged. Is now really the time for $600+ billion in spending for a future Universal Healthcare program? Does the president honestly expect that money to be there when/if the program is eventually created?

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That kind of spending, particularly during the president's disingenuous talk of fiscal responsibility, enrages me to no end. His promises of halving the budget by the end of his first term are entirely hollow; it cannot be done, not with the new spending that is being proposed, not even with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on those earning $250K+. And when it isn't done he is sure to blame it on either the economy or Republicans. Then what? Tax hikes on the middle class? If Obama wins re-election, there surely won't be any more budget cuts, except perhaps in Defense, and with a war escalating in Afghanistan there's only so much fat to trim.

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So when the con man puts on his shades, peels off his (metaphorical) fake mustache and wig and walks away from the White House, we'll be left with soaring debt, out of control spending, and an inevitable and very painful tax hike that may well stagnate a recovered/recovering economy. We're being cheated, folks.