Obama’s Deficit Hustle (1)

Critics of President Obama’s deficit reduction speech called it the opening of his 2012 reelection campaign rather than a serious, sober presentation of the problem and proposed solutions.  We agree.

He began by praising big government for all its varied taxpayer funded functions.  He then fixed blame for recent massive deficits and the looming debt crisis:

…after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed.  We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program – but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending.

This is pure, deceptive, campaign rhetoric. “The decade that followed” was, of course, the Bush decade.  The President hopes you’ll conclude that the debt crisis was caused by Iraq, Afghanistan and the Medicare Prescription Drug program that began paying benefits in 2005.   Why?  Because the wars were President Bush’s decision and the prescription drug program was his initiative.  Obama hopes to shield himself and his party from accountability while at the same time energizing his Leftist base by reviving the frenzied Bush hatred that fueled his 2008 campaign.

As is often the case in the tax and spending debates the President is attempting to plant a false perception in the mind of the public.  The Chart shows the truth.

Obama’s base voters hate any military operation.  So, it plays into their biases to blame the debt crisis on the wars they opposed.  They also hate George W. Bush.  So even though they strongly support government provided health care of all types to every American they pretend to be offended by Bush’s expansion of Medicare to cover part of the cost of prescription drugs.