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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Obama - Budget - Lies

One could argue that Obama's just-announced budget is a great big lie. But let's be specific. Here are three lies...

Lie #1 -- $4 trillion in deficit reduction

"If Congress adopts this budget, then along with the cuts that we’ve already made, we’ll be able to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion by the year 2022 -- $4 trillion." -- BHO, 2/13/12

This is pure political deception. According to Obama's own budget, the projected increase in the total U.S. debt over 11 years (2012-2022) is $11.189 TRILLIION. (p. 245) There is no deficit reduction in Obama's budget. ZERO. But in Obama's world, an $11 trillion increase in the debt is called a deficit reduction. How? By taking credit for not spending money that either the government has already agreed to not spend or will not spend anyways, Obama is saying his budget saves $4 trillion. As the National Review explained:

Fully half of the savings come from the administration’s claiming as its own the $2 trillion in cuts won by congressional Republicans in the debt-limit deal. Some $850 billion comes from not spending war dollars that were never going to be spent anyway. Another $430 billion comes from jury-rigging the baseline to hide the cost of the infamous Medicare “doc fix.”

Of course, the $11.2 trillion increase is buried on page 245 of Obama's budget (see link below, download the .pdf, and see Table S-15, last line). So the fact is, Obama is lying.

Lie #2 -- Tax rate reductions amount to government spending.

This one will take a little explaining. In Obama's world, any tax rate below what he deems is the "fair share" is the equivalent of government spending. As our Marxist In Chief explained:

"Right now, we’re scheduled to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. We’ve already spent about that much. Now we’re scheduled to spend another trillion." BHO, 2/13/12

The "spending" Obama is talking about is government revenue (i.e. taxes) that the government isn't collecting because of the tax rates Obama doesn't like. So a tax rate below what Obama deems to be appropriate is government spending. Take this to its logical conclusion and the government owns all income. Anything we keep is government spending.

Lie #3 -- This isn't about class warfare

A classic debating tactic is to attack your opponent's best argument head-on with a direct denial followed by a restatement of your core beliefs which actually confirms your opponent's argument. Look at how Obama addresses the "class warfare" charge in reference to his budget:

"Some people go around, they say, well, the President is engaging in class warfare. That’s not class warfare. That’s common sense. That’s common sense. Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary when it comes to his tax rate -- that’s just common sense. Because Warren Buffet is doing fine, I'm doing fine. We don’t need the tax breaks. You need them. You're the ones who see your wages stall. You're the one whose costs of everything from college to groceries has gone up. You're the ones who deserve a break." -- BHO, 2/13/12

Here, Obama issues a direct denial to the "class warfare" charge and then proceeds to lay out the classic class warfare argument: The rich are getting tax breaks.... You deserve those breaks.... Hate the rich, hate the rich, hate the rich....

There are many more lies.

This is re-posted from Steve Elliott

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