Obama budget: Life is short, eat dessert first

If a motto summed up the Obama presidency, it might be, “Life is short. Eat dessert first.” His policies are all about self-indulgence in the present, to be paid for with either long-run economic decline, or painful sacrifices by future generations.

His recent budget proposal, which contains a mix of real spending increases and mostly imaginary “cuts,” is a case in point. It pretends to cut spending and the deficit, but its “cuts” are slated to occur largely in the distant future (and thus may never happen), while its increases kick in almost immediately. It is so dishonest that it has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum.