Thursday, February 26, 2009

Obama budget spending purposeful, visionary, but it scares the hell out of investors and taxpayers

President Obama's first budget sets higher standards for honesty and visionary objectives. He is a leader who knows what he wants in the tradition of Ronald Reagan.

But the growing of government -- contrary to Reagan's vision -- is quite scary to investors and taxpayers. That's because Obama does not ultimately control this process. Budget matters are under more Congressional direction, and these politicians end up spending more money than a president wants.

As it now stands, the Obama budget represents more than $25,000 per taxpayer, the Drudge Report said.

Consider the House, which just passed a $400 billion spending bill that contained more than 8,500 earmarks, something Obama said earlier this week he was wanting to eliminate. But Speaker Pelosi already said before Obama took office that she was going to follow her own political muse.

The New York Times reported:

And one watchdog group said the bill provided nearly $8 billion for more than 8,500 pet projects favored by lawmakers, including $1.7 million for a honey bee laboratory in Weslaco, Tex.; $346,000 for research on apple fire blight in Michigan and New York; and $1.5 million for work on grapes and grape products, including wine.

Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, said Mr. Obama’s call for fiscal responsibility, in a speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, was “sandwiched between two wasteful spending bills.”


However, Republicans have shown themselves no more virtuous than Democrats in spending control. And it was the Bush administration that exploded the deficit with an unnecessary war that was never budgeted. To his great credit, Obama is budgeting the war into his numbers.

I can appreciate what Obama wants to do even if I do not agree with him. It is the politicians who support him in his own party who are going to turn this budget into a disaster for taxpayers and investors.

And that will delay any economic recovery.

1 comment:

Bluegrass Pundit said...

Taxing the rich at 100% won't pay for Obama's budget. The Wall Street Journal has reported that taxing the rich at 100% won't pay for Obama's budget. Barack Obama promised not to raise taxes on anyone making under $250,000 per year. Where is he going to get the money? The numbers indicate Obama will need to take 100% of the income of everyone making over $75,000.