Opinion

Barack Obama and the Family Budget: A Complete Disconnect

Last week our President held a press conference on the ongoing negotiations regarding the debt ceiling.  The presser highlighted some real concerns about President Obama.

Obama Confused

The first thing I realized was how truly inarticulate he is when off the teleprompter.  Perhaps my political leanings have biased me when it comes to Obama, but I never really thought he was that great of a speaker to begin with.  He never really exuded passion or sincerity to me.  During his historic campaign, I felt people were so enamored with the color of his skin that they ascribed to him all manner of other imaginary skills in order to make him more palatable as the “historical candidate”.  I never really got it.

I remember the first time I ever saw footage of Malcolm X speaking.  Not to get all Chris Matthews-y, but it gave me tingles.  Although I fundamentally disagreed with his religious values and angry approach to Black empowerment, it suddenly became clear to me how so many people so willingly and gladly followed him.  His delivery was passionate, articulate, sincere and persuasive.  I find Barack Obama to be nothing of the sort.  He is a speech reader.  Off of the teleprompter he is monotone, flat and halting.  I find it excruciating to watch him hem and haw his way through a press conference.

The second thing that struck me was how truly out of touch this President is with the lives of average American citizens.  As he used various analogies of how family households manage their budgets to explain the current budget issues of government, I suddenly realized that this man has no idea what it is like to live in middle America today. None.  One particular statement floored me:

“ We have to do it the same way a family would do it.  A family, if they get over-extended…they don’t just stop paying their bills…they say, how do we start cutting our monthly costs?  We keep on making payments, but we start cutting out the things that aren’t necessary…. we don’t stop sending our kids to college; we don’t stop fixing the boiler or the roof that’s leaking.”

When was the last time this President had to worry about sending his kids to college or fixing up the house?  It couldn’t have been any time recently, because if it was he would know that is exactly what happens when you become financially overextended.  You most certainly do stop sending your kids to college and fixing things around the house.  And that is the problem.  We are suffering, Mr. President! We are making tough choices we don’t want to have to make and we expect you in government to do the same.

When my husband and I began our family, we worked at setting aside money for our educating our children.  However, those funds have been raided just to keep us afloat.  Forget about saving for college.  We are more worried about feeding and clothing them now.  Hopefully, when their college days arrive, they will be able to work and support their own tuition costs.  Our provision of a college education for our children is a dream we’ve let go for now.  We’ve had to.  We need gas in the car and food in the fridge.  We have stopped fixing the things in our home that need to be fixed.  I’ve needed a plumber for months to stop some leaks that we can’t fix ourselves.  The leaks are enough to drive our water bill up slightly and I hear the dollars signs racking up with every drip.  And yet, I can’t afford a one-time lump payment to a professional to fix the problem, so we let it be and choose to give that money to the water company month to month.  We need a new major household appliance and the window screens my three-year old pushed out months ago still need to be replaced.  But none of that will happen because we are completely tapped dry.  That’s what happens when you are overextended. You start cutting out even the necessities.  That is why this recession is hurting so badly.  It’s not that people are being forced to give up their toys, it’s that they are being forced to give up their most basic comforts, and their dreams.

Our President has been in government so long that he believes during hard times like these, families simply tighten the belt and restructure.  However, we families do a lot more than just tighten that belt.  There is no “magical” new revenue stream we can tap into to increase our bank accounts and help pay down our debts.  We are not the government.  There is no one to take money from.  We make our own money, and that supply is limited.  When the debt accumulates but our salaries stay the same, we start looking at cutting the necessities as well as the perks.

The President was right in the respect that we need to start asking the government to handle its budget problems the same way an average family would handle theirs.  However he is completely clueless about how real families handle their budget and income problems.  And that scares me.  And hurts me.  If our own President is so removed from the suffering as to make such an idiot statement, it does not bode well the future fiscal situation of this country.  When your own President shows zero knowledge of the day-to-day living situation of average citizens, what hope is there of an outcome that will benefit and help those same people?

There is no way to solve this crisis without pain.  We are far, far beyond any type of slow and steady solutions.  Cuts will have to be made, cuts that hurt people and their loved ones.  There is no way around that.  My family has had to go without some pretty important things that mean a lot to us.  Its time for our government to do the same.

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2 Comments

  1. Obama has NEVER had to live like one of us, NEVER. He went to the best schools as paid for by his grandparents in Hawaii. Obama’s mother had a well paying job with the Ford Foundation. When he lived with his father, who had a good paying job with the government. So Obama has never had to go through job layoffs, job losses, having to pack up and move somewhere in search of a job, like I have, three times. I know what it’s like to work your butt off somewhere and then get kicked out on the street. Obama does not. His college was paid for by the Arabs. He didn’t have to take classes part time and work some little job to have money to live off of because his parents just didn’t have the money. No, not him, he was special. When he went to work for ACORN he was paid for doing nothing with somebody else’s money. When he became a lawyer, and got married he swung a deal and got his wife a high paying job with the hospital she was working for while he was state senator. Then US Senator, and now President. When did he have to suffer and scrounge and scrape and save for his kids to have the money to go to college, while working overtime at some sucky job just to have enough money so that he and his wife didn’t have to starve while sacrificing for their children.

    Obama does not know of that which he speaks. He is a liar and a fraud. He doesn’t have the humility to admit that he doesn’t know about suffering economically like the rest of us, and never has, that he has always had it good and never has had to worry about putting gas in his car. We do. We’ve suffered for decades while the Socialists and Communists take over our country, and are either to lazy or to disenfranchised to demand a stop be put to it. But I’m telling you right now, these insane people that are in control of our country don’t EVER have to worry about the price of gasoline, we do. What skin is it off their noses if the government takes more taxes out of OUR pay checks? NONE, so why should they worry about what legislation they pass? They aren’t going to be affected by it because they are all filthy rich and nothing short of total economic collapse would ever have any affect on them. But by the time that happens we’ll all be dead from starvation. Are you going to enjoy watching your children starve to death in front of you, while these fat cats rake in millions in kick backs from lobby companies for the influence they sell?

    I’m telling you all right now, if you don’t get tough with your legislators and demand that they put a stop to all this it will only leave the American people with one option left to us to put a stop to it once and for all. And that is for us to act on our Constitutional right, and that is to take the government back by force, throw the bastards out, and the Constitution says “replace the government with a Constitutional one”. That means we appoint who we want in those offices that are vacated when we have that representative arrested for violating their oath to the Constitution and their oath of their office, which is what they are doing. They took an oath to uphold, protect, and obey the Constitution. By not doing that, this is what we get from a government out of control.

    Here’s my question. How out of control do things have to get before it reaches the “out of control” the Constitution says is enough for us to be able to act on our Constitutional right? Is 14.5 trillion out of control? Is borrowing trillions from everyone and his brother in the world who’d loan to us, to pay for social and domestic spending, enough? Is having Communists running our government and bleeding heart liberals whose religion is environmentalism that tells us what kind of light bulbs we’re to use, or we go to prison, enough? When is enough, enough?

  2. Obama has professed his hatred of the wealth building ability that American’s are given by the right to freedom as God has given it to each man and woman. Obama went to a so-called church, under the tutoraledge of Jeromiah Wright, for twenty years. Obama himself said in one of his books, on himself, how much he hates White people with the quip “…White man’s greed feeds a world in need.” How would it be if a White person said something like that about Black people? Well, you couldn’t say anything about prosperity concerning Blacks because they aren’t known for being prosperous, but you could say alot about Blacks ignorance feeds a world of more ignorant people, or something to that affect, I’m not a poet but you get what I mean. Somebody on the radio yesterday said Obama was a racist, and the radio host came right back in Obama’s defence and said Obama was not. Well, he IS a racist, and the proof is twenty years in Wright’s church that taught White hate, and Obama’s books that talk about White hate, his acts against White owned corporations and the affects on the big banks and investment corporations, insurance companies, private jet maker companies, etc. and that impact that his economic policy’s are having the greatest affect on White workers, people loosing their homes I’m sure are not mostly Blacks, but Whites. It is all geared to destroy the wealth building ability of White people in this country. Who else could he be aiming all his hatred towards? It sure isn’t Blacks, look what he’s done for Blacks since he’s been in office. The fact that 98% of all Blacks voted for him and almost the opposite for Whites, what he’s done for Mexican’s since he’s been in office is against White property owners on the border, and backing of the unions that are mostly Mexican’s and Blacks, not Whites. And do I count some group that has a few Whites, or Blacks in it as that’s who the group is? No, that would be stupid. If a group is mostly Black, then it is a Black group, even though there are a few Whites or Mexican’s in that group, I concider it a Black group because they are the largest number of members or whatever.

    Obama can’t know as much about us as he claims because he is who he is with the background that he has. And yeah, some rich people do know about White people struggling to make ends meet because they just do, either because they were like us for a short while or for some time before they became rich, or they’ve got their hearts in the right place and know because they have contacts with people who aren’t rich that they know. But, Obama? No, he is out of touch with White people who have to struggle for what they want.

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