READ AND PASS ON...
Empty words
After plunging nation far deeper in debt, president has no fiscal credibility
ShareThis
For fiscal 2009, the deficit was $1.41 trillion. For 2010 it was $1.29 trillion and for 2011, it was another $1.29 trillion. That’s about $4 trillion added on his watch.
This is the president who appointed and then ignored his own debt panel, which sought to trim $4 trillion from the nation’s debt over a decade. Then he offered no help to a congressional panel that tried to cut $1.2 trillion in debt over a decade.
So, having dramatically deepened the fiscal mire of the nation, and conspicuously declined to support bipartisan efforts to address the problem, the president now campaigns across the nation, blaming it on Republicans.
He throws in a heaping helping of class warfare by claiming that the wealthy are not shouldering their “fair share” of the fiscal burden, despite the fact that the top
1 percent of income earners pay almost 40 percent of all the income-tax revenue collected by the Internal Revenue Service, while the top 5 percent pay almost 60 percent. Meanwhile, about 46 percent of income earners pay no federal income tax.
Reasonable people may disagree about how much the affluent should pay, and a progressive tax system naturally will excuse many low-income earners from paying any income tax. But to claim that currently the affluent are shirking is nonsense. Especially when the person pointing the finger of blame has pushed the nation further into debt faster than any other president, including the profligate George W. Bush. The nation’s revenue problem wouldn’t be so large if it weren’t for the current spender in chief.
On Thursday, after Senate Republicans declined to renew the payroll-tax cut, he said, “Now is the time to put country before party and work together on behalf of the American people. And I will continue to urge Congress to stop playing politics with the security of millions of American families and small business owners to get this done.”
But whatever the merits of easing the burden on taxpayers, it is equally valid to argue that reducing the payroll tax that supports Social Security also undermines the security of millions of Americans who rely on this entitlement, which already is headed for insolvency. And what exactly does the president think that $4 trillion in additional national debt does to the security of millions of American families, including the children who will be saddled with this debt for decades to come?
His words would carry more weight if the president led by example. But the president who adds another $1 trillion to the nation’s indebtedness each time he produces another federal budget is no position to lecture others about fiscal responsibility.
And as for playing politics, nobody is doing this more devotedly than the president. These days he is not working with others on behalf of the American people, he is deflecting blame and sowing division in the hopes of benefiting just one American — the one who is seeking re-election to the White House.
No comments:
Post a Comment