Budget “Strategy?” by Obama

The President has given public notice of his intent to instill fiscal discipline in the government operations. To implement the first step in his strategy he has submitted a budget that will produce the biggest deficit in the history of the country.

He has shown an example of his determination by announcing a freeze on spending in broad areas of the government. That freeze will take place in a year from now. A record breaking deficit is not a sufficient “stimulus” to take immediate action. It will be interesting to see what kind of freeze actually takes place a year from now.

The President spent the introduction period of his budget outline defining the causes of his financial problem. It was, of course, outlined as the fault of the previous administration. Little notice was given to the fact that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and his party controlled Congress for the two years prior to his election. The giant stimulus allocation was depicted as the life saver for all that ailed us as he took office.

I’ve been studying the proposed budget as carefully as I can with my economically untrained eyes. My budget knowledge is rather rudimentary but I understand there are two columns involved. One column is what you intend to spend and the second column is where you think you will get the money to pay for the expenditures.

The record deficit is noted in his budget but there is an interesting aspect of the presentation. Unless I am mistaken it seems that part of the income side indicates receipts from a Cap and Trade Bill. Unless my memory has failed me completely I don’t remember Cap and Trade being legislated. If my reading is correct that means that the income side includes hopes and dreams. The record breaking deficit projections may be on the way to breaking their own deficit projection before the budget year passes.

Part of the payments will be from new taxes on the rich (no surprise there). Part of the deficit will be swelled by new money flowing to the educators through a revision of “No Child Left Behind”. Grades for teacher and school performance will be modified so that increased funding will flow to schools that continue to fail in improvement. The educators will vote twice for Obama now that he is bowing to their objections to stiff responsibility requirements.

Congress has a hand in this budget process and it ordinarily is an “underhand” working the system. The outrageous Entitlements that are spent each year seem to be permanently ensconced in those seats in Congress, no matter who is sitting in the seat.

I would like to see a column in each Representatives web site that lists the Entitlement pork that he or she is responsible for spending. This will be part of my judgment for support in 2010 of any candidate. As an effort to contribute information on the subject I am identifying responsible Blogs that deal with the subject and will be sharing that information as we move towards 2010.

There is no doubt that we need a change in Congress in the next election but the change must be a useful one. Responsible alternatives need to be identified so that we do not make a mistaken change as we did one year and 2 months ago. Fiscal conservatives need our support 10 months from now. All candidates need to be on notice that we are making a careful review of qualifications