Money & The Economy

Obama’s Budget: America, Our Financial Chickens have come Home to roost, and it ain’t Pretty

budg•et  (bjt)
n.

  1. An itemized summary of estimated or intended expenditures for a given period along with proposals for financing them: submitted the annual budget to Congress.
  2. A systematic plan for the expenditure of a usually fixed resource, such as money or time, during a given period: A new car will not be part of our budget this year.
  3. A stock or collection with definite limits.

A budget presupposes that money is a finite object. And the application of the aforementioned budget usually means that the person(s) creating the budget actually have a desire to live within their means. All of which makes President Barack Hussein Obama’s budget proposal for the 2012 fiscal year an utter and complete joke. The Obama Administration prefaced its 2012 budget proposal to Congress with a budget message from the President which begins thusly:

America is emerging from the worst recession in generations. In 2010, an economy that had been shrinking began to grow again. After nearly 2 years of job losses, America’s businesses added more than one million jobs. Our capital and credit markets are functioning and strong. Manufacturing is coming back. And after teetering on the brink of liquidation just 2 years ago, America’s auto industry is posting healthy gains and returning money to the taxpayers who helped it through a period of turmoil. The determination and resilience of the American people and the tough choices we made over the past 2 years helped to pull our economy back from the brink of a second Great Depression.

Two years after those dark days, the stock market is booming. Corporations are posting record profits. Momentum is building. Yet, in America, we have always had a broader measure of economic health. We believe in a country where everyone who is willing to work for it has the opportunity to get ahead; where the small businessperson with a dream or entrepreneur with a great new idea has their best chance to make them a reality; where any child can go as far as their talent and tenacity will take them. That is the genius of America. That spirit is what has built the greatest prosperity the world has ever known.

So even as recovery begins to take hold, we have more work to do to live up to our promise by repairing the damage this brutal recession has inflicted on our people, generating millions of new jobs, and seizing the economic opportunities of this competitive, new century.

It is breathtaking to read Obama’s view of the budget situation. It makes you wonder which planet he resides on and what the natives there drink while creating their budgets. Not only is denial a river in Egypt but it is also the foundation for a pyramid scheme of epic proportions. Let’s analyze the opening paragraphs of Obama’s budget message sentence by sentence, shall we?

America is emerging from the worst recession in generations.

Well, if you consider sinking ever further into the quicksand to be “emerging” then it certainly is possible that the United States is “emerging” from a terrible situation. It all depends upon your point of view, doesn’t it? The reality is that the American economy is trapped in financial quicksand of the Administration’s own making. Consider this:

Blazing Saddles – the Quicksand Scene

In 2010, an economy that had been shrinking began to grow again.

Of course the economy is growing. We have yet another war to support. Wars mean bombs and bombs mean jobs for people who make bombs. So if you work for Lockheed Martin and help it manufacture the BLU/97B cluster bomb, or Raytheon, which makes the Tomahawk cruise missile and the Joint Standoff Weapon modular precision-attack glide bomb, or even Alliant Techsystems, which makes the bomblets used in the JSOW AGM-165 missile, then you probably still have a job. Unless of course you are a non-union middle-aged white male who is a supporting a family – in that case your career now probably means asking “would you like fries with that?” All joking aside, Obama’s claim that the economy is growing gets harder to swallow every time the cost of gasoline spikes ever higher. Facing reality isn’t exactly Obama’s strong suit.

After nearly 2 years of job losses, America’s businesses added more than one million jobs.

And every one of them is in the landscaping or fast food market segments. Companies are shedding fixed costs by eliminating the high-end jobs that families depend on to put food on the table. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for the family breadwinners to find employment that pays enough to actually meet the financial requirements of a middle-class family. It is a well-known fact that the Obama Administration plays it fast and loose with the definition of “job growth.” The method the Obama Administration uses to count newly created jobs is somewhat akin to the manner in which the military performed body-counts in Vietnam. In each case those responsible for the accounting used Fantasy Land as the training site for their calculating personnel. Reality is ignored and figures are pulled from a hat for the solitary purpose of political expediency. If it makes Obama look good it must be right.

Our capital and credit markets are functioning and strong.

Can you say Quantitative Easing II? Translation: the federal government is printing money as fast as it can. The only problem with shoving all this new money into the economy is that it causes inflation as that new money with the fresh ink smell becomes ever more worthless. And as far as the “credit market” is concerned, have you tried to get a house loan lately? Sure, the rates are low. But the banks aren’t giving the loans out. The banks are sitting on their cash, just like everyone else. The Obama Administration has made it so dangerous for companies to invest in anything that those companies are pulling back and refusing to take risks –and rightly so. The banks are terrified that those to whom they give loans won’t be willing or able to pay those loans back. This fear is not a matter of paranoia. Right now there is an effort underway by various liberal/progressive elements to convince people to stop making payments on their outstanding loans. The purpose of this campaign is to collapse the financial system.

Manufacturing is coming back.

Manufacturing is highly cyclical–Which means that accepting a job with a manufacturing company isn’t exactly the road to long-term financial security. Yes, some segments in manufacturing back actually are making a comeback. But that can change on a dime. Just ask anyone with a pink slip from a major manufacturer about that concept.

And after teetering on the brink of liquidation just 2 years ago, America’s auto industry is posting healthy gains and returning money to the taxpayers who helped it through a period of turmoil.

Ah, what a tangled web we weave when at first we attempt to deceive. Let’s set the matter straight. The Obama Administration ensured that the rightful owners of both Chrysler and General Motors lost all of their ownership rights in the famous takeovers of those corporations during their respective bankruptcy proceedings. And in each case the unions were granted the ownership stakes that did not rightly belong to them. Now, in the case of GM, the government has decided to divest itself of its ownership stake. But this divestment comes at tremendous cost to the taxpayers. The government’s selling of its stock in GM is planned for June, 2012 come Hell or high water. In other words, the divestiture of the government’s stock in GM will be made regardless of the current stock price. The American taxpayers are going to get soaked for untold billions of dollars. Yes, Obama’s assertion is technical correct. Money will be returned to the Treasury of the United States through the sale of GM stock. But the reality is that the GM stock will be sold for much less than what it is worth. But hey, when you get the stock for free, who cares if you take a “loss” on the deal, right? Now the Obama Administration will argue that it didn’t get the stock “for free.” Once again they are technically correct. But the reality of the situation is that they bought the stock with near worthless dollars that they came across by simply printing them. The bailouts were a financial disaster for America and were politically motivated as Obama set about nationalizing the American auto industry. Mission Accomplished.

The determination and resilience of the American people and the tough choices we made over the past 2 years helped to pull our economy back from the brink of a second Great Depression.

The only tough choice Obama made was deciding just how many trillions of dollars in new debt he was going to mire the country in. Yes, the previous sentence ended in a preposition, which is a grammatical no-no, but that isn’t nearly the no-no that exploding the U.S. economy by needless debt was. Obama is claiming that the country is pulling back from the brink of a depression. The truth is that Obama’s 2012 budget proposal, if implemented as written, would surely bring such a depression into reality. Obama’s 2012 budget proposal perpetuates the myth that money is an infinite resource. If you print it, they will come. Obama has no conception of what money really is. Money isn’t wealth in and of itself. It is merely symbolic of the real wealth that stands behind the greenbacks – or used to. Money is simply a means of wealth exchange. The greenbacks are symbolic of true wealth such as the fruits of our labor, our natural resources, and our goods and services. Printing more money doesn’t magically increase the country’s coal reserves, magnify the amount of work we can do as a nation, or grow more trees that can be harvested for the timber market. Obama’s printing of money simply devalues the dollar because there is not corresponding increase in actual wealth. That is why investors are fleeing to gold. Gold has intrinsic value. It retains its value despite the actions of the Obama Administration. The paper bills QE II is printing have no intrinsic value. This concept was demonstrated by the Germans back in the 1930s when it was a common sight to see people buying a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow full of German marks. The money was worthless, and that is exactly where the Obama Administration is leading us with its insane monetary policies.

Two years after those dark days, the stock market is booming.

The stock market is booming because the Federal Reserve is propping it up through the infusion of cash into stocks and bonds. When those infusions of cash end – so will the booming stock market. The reality is that investors who have money “stuck” in the stock market are sweating bullets. That includes people with 401K accounts. Unless their employers have given them the options of investing in gold funds and/or funds based on foreign currencies, they are screwed. As discussed previously, paper has no intrinsic value. When the market crash comes all of those investors will simply lose their investments.

Corporations are posting record profits.

True. Energy companies, for example, are making tons of cash from the run-up in oil prices. But what the Obama Administration fails to tell us is that those companies are not reinvesting their profits back into their businesses. Instead, knowing they will get burned by Obama’s socialist policies if they invest profits, the companies are simply sitting on the cash. It is the only rational approach they can take. For example, the University of Texas in April purchased a cool $1 billion in gold – transferring its endowment fund from stocks and bonds to the safety of gold. It is the same approach that major corporations are implementing. Companies are holding on to their profits and getting out of the stock market as quick as they can. Obama has created an environment in which the only rational response for investors and companies is to take defensive positions. And that is not good for the economy.

Momentum is building.

Sure it is – but what kind of momentum? It sure is not the kind Obama would have you believe. Once again, the truth is that the momentum is building for a market crash the likes of which this country has never seen. It is going to make the great depression look like a picnic. And this time the progressives won’t be able to blame it on Bush. This one lies squarely on the shoulders of such financial stalwarts as Obama, Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Louis Geithner, and Van Jones.

Yet, in America, we have always had a broader measure of economic health.

That is simply code for social justice. ObamaSpeak means socialism. ObamaSpeak means communism. ObamaSpeak means nationalizing industries. ObamaSpeak means legislating equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity. ObamaSpeak means foisting financial theft upon us in the name of Climate Change. ObamaSpeak means sticking our collective heads in the sand as the storm gathers around us. ObamaSpeak means ignoring financially sound principles and substituting them with emotional feel-good rot-gut policies.

We believe in a country where everyone who is willing to work for it has the opportunity to get ahead; where the small businessperson with a dream or entrepreneur with a great new idea has their best chance to make them a reality; where any child can go as far as their talent and tenacity will take them.

This run-on sentence is nothing but a lie. That is not what the Democratic Party believes. The Democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, and tree-hugging imbeciles do not believe in free-market capitalism. Instead, they believe in central-planning, nationalized industries, the end of capitalism, and the creation of a master class (themselves) who will call all the economic shots. In short, they believe in the Politburo approach to the American dream.

That is the genius of America.

Obama, you lie! He talks a good game – or at least his teleprompter talks a good game. But Obama is a man who famously proclaimed that he was going to fundamentally transform America. He meant it. Anyone who believes that Obama is pro-capitalism is also signed up to purchase a bridge in Brooklyn.

That spirit is what has built the greatest prosperity the world has ever known.

Obama is actually telling the truth here – but he doesn’t believe it. Saying the right thing for the wrong reason is still telling an untruth. Freedom, liberty, and capitalism have all played a key role in creating the America we all know and love. But Obama is dedicated to tearing it down. Obama is dedicated to transforming America into European-style socialism, if not worse. Obama dreams of becoming a dictator. He even admitted it once – letting us know that he craved the power of the Chinese dictator. Obama feels constrained by the limits placed upon him by the Constitution of the United States. These “negative liberties” according to Obama, prevent him from imposing his version of positive liberties upon us all. Obama’s budget proposal is intended as an end-run around the constraints of the Constitution. He intends to crash the nation’s financial system and then to rebuild the country in the classic communist model.

So even as recovery begins to take hold, we have more work to do to live up to our promise by repairing the damage this brutal recession has inflicted on our people, generating millions of new jobs, and seizing the economic opportunities of this competitive, new century.

Obama caused the recession and now he decries the damage it has done. He is a fox running amok in the budgetary henhouse of the United States. Obama shamelessly plays both sides of an argument. He tells so many lies that he is convinced we can’t keep track of them and will eventually accept whatever he is saying at the moment – perhaps from sheer intellectual exhaustion on our part. Obama’s budget has only one purpose and that is to collapse the financial strength of the United States of America. He seeks to rebuild America in his own image once he has succeeded in smashing the current system.

Blatantly ignoring the massive level of debt he has imposed upon America, Obama claims to be fiscally responsible:

We took many steps to re-establish fiscal responsibility, from instituting a statutory pay-as-you-go rule for spending to going line by line through the budget looking for outdated, ineffective, or duplicative programs to cut or reform.

Obama spoke an outright lie. Fully 60 percent of the federal budget relies on borrowing money. That is not pay-as-you-go. We are faced with a president who is a chronic liar. His budget is a lie.

The only thing standing between Obama’s 2012 fiscal year budget proposal and its implementation is the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. It remains to be seen if the Republicans have the internal fortitude to vote Obama’s Budget down. Rep. Paul Ryan has offered up his own budgetary proposal, which makes a great deal more sense than Obama’s budget. The budgetary battle of 2011 promises to be an epic struggle between Democrats and Republicans. This fight is about ideology. This fight is about the very survival of the American nation. This fight is about more than the budget. The budget is simply the means to accomplish an end. If the Republicans cave in this battle Obama will win and America will lose.

To be competitive in the 21st Century, the United States cannot be weighed down by crippling budget deficits, ineffective programs that waste tax dollars, and a Government that is not accountable to the American people.

If only Obama really meant it. God bless America. America is going to need it.

See https://t.co/CkujDVa for companion article.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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