The country may be in jeopardy, and Barack Obama may have supported a $700 billion gamble to prevent the worst from happening, but he isn’t about to budge in any other meaningful way for the public good, certainly not on his spending plans.
Obama made that much clear in his recent debate with John McCain – who said that if elected, he would support a federal spending freeze on everything but entitlements, defense and veterans’ benefits to help offset the cost of the Wall Street imbroglio.
Obama? Nothing doing. Some of these other programs will need even more money, he said.
The Democratic presidential nominee did say he might have to delay some of his fondest hopes, depending on budget realities that aren’t yet known. But he clung firmly to his big-deal programs on health insurance ($65 billion a year), education ($18 billion), a vast infrastructure campaign ($6 billion), and energy ($15 billion) – with hints since the debate that he may modify the energy plan some.
These numbers add up to an annual cost of $104 billion out of some $130 billion in pledged programs. Understand that Obama did not say he would definitely postpone – and he certainly did not say he would scotch – any of them. Understand as well that these numbers reflect his own assessment of the costs, and that it’s unlikely they come close to what the reality would be.
Are the programs themselves vital to the public good? Only if you believe in the sort of welfare state that is now sinking Europe and led Europeans to search out such conservative reformers as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. The Obama health plan amounts to a new entitlement on top of entitlements we now have no way of paying for, despite the fact that there are other ways to improve health care without recourse to this extreme.
Obama says he has figured out how to pay for all of his proposals, but that’s an absurdity only believed by economists on his payroll.
He is counting on an efficiency plan that will do about as much as previous federal efficiency plans – pretty much nothing – and figures on recouping $50 billion a year by undoing President Bush’s tax cuts to the wealthy, thereby addressing only the slightest fraction of the nation’s expenses. Even before any new bailout costs, our budget deficit is projected at $400 billion, and Obama wants to cut middle-class taxes by $80 billion a year.
Even if he planned to tax us enough to pay for all of his new programs and eliminate the deficit, he would still be yanking multi-billions out of an economy that badly needs the money to capitalize businesses, produce needed products and services, and provide jobs. Huge deficits are to be feared, but as the late economist Milton Friedman tried to explain, they are essentially a tax by another name.
The crucial need is to reduce spending, Ending the war in Iraq won’t help there nearly as much as people think, especially given additional resources that are going to Afghanistan and the Medicare-Social Security crisis that is creeping up on us.
Consider that, on top of his spending enthusiasm, Obama also wants to inflict widespread unionism on the economy through the unprincipled trick of scrubbing secret ballots in union-forming elections, and to reformulate trade deals that are now helping export-driven businesses and fostering economic growth.
Then consider that he has seen few subsidies he does not like – in the farm and energy bills, for instance – and calculate how all of this added to the financial mess we are already in might collaborate against the general welfare during an Obama administration.
It is not a pretty picture.
Examiner columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He can be reached at: [email protected].
