Feb 21 2009
Today, I got a little more confidence in our new president
Why is that? Well as my regular readers may know, I’m a left-leaning libertarian (I know right?). One of the biggest reasons I can’t just call myself a progressive is that at heart I consider myself a true fiscal conservative (They’re harder to find than you’d think. The term ‘fiscal conservative’ seems to get thrown around a lot, but often times the person talking about it doesn’t know the first thing about it).
One of the issues I feel most passionately about is debt. The subject has been well documented in this blog (notice my national debt widget), and I probably will continue to document it until we truly free our country from the chains that debt brings.
Needless to say, as a fiscal conservative, the gargantuous stimulus package paired with Timothy Geithner’s plan to prop up the financial sector seemed to be a continuation of Bush’s big government policies. Yes, Republican two-term president George W. Bush, who campaigned as a ‘fiscal conservative’, played a huge role in increasing the size of our government. This increase in spending has led to a ballooning of our National Debt.
Now during the campaign Barack Obama had made a lot of statements about our debt. Since his presidency began though, the rhetoric changed dramatically. That’s why today I was pleased to hear news that Obama plans to address the issue head on.
“We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address, declaring that his budget will be “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”
The White House will be holding a summit on fiscal policy on Monday where Obama will likely release more details of the plan. Tuesday evening the President will make his first speech to Congress and will likely give a rough outline of the plan to our senators and representatives on Thursday.
A White House official, speaking on a condition of anonymity since the budget has not been released yet, said that Obama plans to focus on three central campaign promises to achieve the debt-reduction.
1. Ending the war in Iraq.
2. Letting the Bush Tax cuts for people making over 250,000 a year expire.
3. Improving government efficiency by cutting back wasteful spending.
The official said that President Obama’s proposal for the 2010 fiscal year estimates that the $1.3 trillion deficit he has inherited from former President George W. Bush will be halved to $533 billion by 2013.
Can Obama turn around an ailing economy about to enter its second year of recession and simultaneously cut in half our government’s budget deficit? I’m not sure, it seems like a pretty lofty goal, especially in only four years. I’m glad to hear this is one issue that is still on the President’s mind though. I was starting to think maybe he’d forgotten…
I’m sure he’ll forget in due time. Presidents always start out talking about fiscal discipline before they bow to the demands of the situation and/or WAshignton and welch on their promises.
http://politicalanimal.today.com/
I can’t wait to hear his speech on Tuesday.
Hey Rocky watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat, nothin up my sleeve; Oops I think I got the wrong hat. He may “end the war in Iraq” but he will simply declare victory and leave troops their to guard US interests. He may let the tax cuts expire. He may change Coke into Pepsi or help me find my car keys.. But what he will not do is significantly cut military spending… When we spend more on our military the rest of the world combined we can easily see where we could hack the budget. But I don’t think his bosses would like it very much. You know those guys who drive the weapons systems procurement and get presidents elected. They would rather see no school lunches than loose a single bullet.
I love hearing what he has to say, but I’ll reserve judgment until I see it. There’s been plenty of this type of rhetoric in the past. I hope he can actually stick to it without giving in to the special interests like most eventually do.
http://salesandmarketingtips.today.com/
the secret of being fiscally conservative and still having social programs, funding for education, help for the homeless, uninsured kids………………………… is efficiency. obama just has to hire people who will watch where the money goes, and then he doesn’t have to spend so much. the problem with the bush’s, as your chart shows, they were handing out money on purpose, pockets were lined intentionally , it wasn’t a mistake, and now all these people believe they can take advantage of government money.
nice post.
I could not agree with you more about debt. Most legislators who promote themselves as fiscally conservative are anything but. I do not want to get my hopes too high in Obama’s declaration to cut debt, but we shall see.