As has been noted in this space, President Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget is not going to pass.
That is just about the only good thing that can be said about it. It is a window into the president’s economic soul and, should he win re-election, we’ll see the administration working to institute the policy ideas enshrined in the budget.
Like Rep. Paul Ryan, Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard has read the budget. Barnes says that, if you read the budget and the president’s speeches, you will get the “pure Obama:”
For the past year, they’ve told the same story. No, the real Obama is not a pragmatist or a frustrated moderate or a well-intentioned but weak politician forced by political circumstances to take positions he’d rather not. Only sympathizers, notably media types, believe any of those notions.
The truth is not hidden. One merely has to digest the new budget Obama unveiled last week, his budget last year, and his four major speeches since last April, and the real Obama comes into focus. He turns out to be a left-wing progressive who rejects many of the mainstream political and economic ideas of post-World War II America.
This is not an entirely new take on Obama. Others have identified him as such, Stanley Kurtz in particular. What’s new is that Obama has been so revealing in his own words. Only occasionally do you have to read between the lines to discover what he truly thinks.
One of the president’s unhidden beliefs, according to Barnes: America is an unjust country where hardworking people can’t get ahead. He has said this repeatedly and it is a core belief, not something he has drooped a few times on the hustings.
Another key belief is that government spending is more effective in creating growth than private industry—it should be dawning on him $787 billion later that there are flaws in this theory, but it isn’t.
The president actually believes that when the rich get rich it hurts the middle class. This is economically naïve and runs counter to traditional American thought on the subject.
Barnes outlines eight core beliefs of the pure Obama. They are all economically disastrous and philosophically out of tune with our traditions. This is the sixth one:
Conservative, free market economics is a plague. Obama describes it as an economic system that tells Americans, “You’re on your own.” In his view, it consists of cutting taxes for the rich and gutting regulations of every kind.
The president further believes that Medicare and Medicaid are no big problem and that investing is not influenced by tax policies.
So let me get this straight: The GOP, with this rich and juicy target, has walked into President Obama's Contraception Ambush. We find ourselves talking about something that is important to a bunch of aging feminists who (forgive me for noticing) are beyond the point of having to deal personally with contraception.
We should be talking about whether the free market will survive another four years of a president who actually believes that an ATM might take your job.