Something interesting is happening among the Democrats: they are scared to death of global warming—which in all likelihood won’t destroy the planet—but they don’t believe the country’s finances are a mess.
Here is Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu:
“I am not going to keep cutting the discretionary budget, which by the way is not out of control, despite what you hear on Fox News,” said Landrieu.
President Obama reportedly told Speaker John Boehner during the fiscal-cliff negotiations that we “don’t have a spending problem.”
Someday, if we fail to address our spending problem and the country comes crashing down as a result, future historians will look back and wonder how the leaders of one of the oldest political parties in the world could have been so deluded. This delusion will be as mysterious to future generations as medieval cults that were certain the world was coming to an end.
It is unfortunate that in the midst of hard times, President Obama behaves like a king, spending millions of taxpayer dollars on vacations and $1.6 to go to Las Vegas to deliver a speech on immigration that could have been delivered anywhere. John Stossel writes:
I might not mind presidents behaving like kings — if they at least made the tough decisions that the government needs to make, like balancing the budget. But no president has tried to use an executive order to eliminate whole programs or cut spending. They almost always act only to increase their own power.
Yet they pretend they make bold choices — even when refusing to make choices. Obama said, “We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the elderly and investing in the next generation.”
That’s Washington-speak for, “We will spend government money on young and old alike and refuse to think about when this will bankrupt America.”
But it sounds exciting when he says it. He’s not just a king — he’s Santa Claus, too. Except that Santa spends his own money. The president spends yours.
Kings don’t like to be constrained. But all government should be.
Stossel proposes that the president does know that the economy is unsustainable. I leave you to ponder on that.