Does President Obama even read what is put in the teleprompter before he delivers it? On Monday night, Obama claimed that “because neither party is blameless for the decisions that led to this problem, both parties have a responsibility to solve it.” But just three paragraphs earlier, Obama put the blame for our $14.3 trillion debt squarely on President George W. Bush, claiming that “trillions of dollars in new tax cuts,” “two wars” and “an expensive prescription drug program” caused government surpluses to turn into annual deficits. This despite the fact that in only three years Obama’s spending has added $3.7 trillion to the national debt.
Monday night was not the only time Obama has schizophrenically shifted between demagogic finger pointing and patronizing lecturing. In fact, the speech provided an illustration of the central reason he has failed to provide the kind of presidential leadership that is crucial to solving the debt-limit crisis. “I won’t bore you with the details,” Obama said of his secret budget plan. But the biggest problem with Obama’s approach so far is that he has never bothered with any details. The White House has been negotiating with congressional leaders for months, yet Obama has never committed any of his offers to paper. The result has been a steady flood of leaks, counterleaks, speeches and news conferences about what was, or was not, in the latest rejected offer. This environment, created entirely by Obama, created only mistrust and ill will between the parties.
Then there is Obama’s obsession with raising taxes. Again Monday night Obama insisted that a “balanced approach” must include tax increases on “the wealthiest Americans.” “A cuts-only approach … doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all,” Obama said. This statement is simply divorced from reality. The top 5 percent of income earners pay 59 percent of all federal income taxes. Meanwhile, 45 percent of households pay no income tax at all. What’s balanced about that?
If Obama truly was serious about solving our nation’s debt crisis he would have released a serious plan months ago. Instead, he not only passed the buck to a debt commission that he created, he then cynically dismissed their work when they announced a solution. Obama then introduced a budget so fanciful that the Senate rejected it 97-0. House Republicans, meanwhile, bravely took a hard vote on a real budget proposal scored by the Congressional Budget Office. Obama reacted by publicly rebuking House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and then outlining a plan that was so vague the CBO refused to even score it.
The Treasury Department has reportedly been telling U.S. banks that there is no risk the federal government will default on U.S. debt. And there is no reason it should. The federal government takes in far more money each month in taxes than it owes in interest payments. But there is a real danger that ratings agencies may downgrade the nation’s triple-A credit rating anyway. If that happens, Obama will only have himself to blame.
