Obama's 'Balanced Approach' Is an Unbalanced Lie

In the absence of a budget, appropriations must be reauthorized through congressional action. This is done with a continuing resolution, which essentially is an agreement that we will "continue" to do all the things we've been doing, along with as many plums for ourselves as we can squeeze in under the radar. Clearly, there is nothing frugal about this activity; it is the opposite of that, and both sides in Washington know this, yet they pride themselves on their ability to play these games with our tax dollars.

The phrase you're going to hear a lot in the coming weeks is "balanced approach" -- that is, a balance between new revenue (taxes) and cuts in spending to achieve deficit reduction. It is a bald-faced lie, and it is repeated by too many folks on the Republican side of the aisle, along with all but a handful of Democrats.

"It sounds right, though," you might say. "It sounds fair." It might be, if first, it weren't based on a purposeful misrepresentation of reality...and if our government were in fact revenue-starved. But the reality is that our federal government is receiving more tax dollars now than at any time in history. Even adjusted for inflation, Washington is raking in vast fortunes in comparison to the sums they had while winning both World Wars and presiding over the greatest economic expansion in the history of any nation, at any time.

So where's the lie? On the spending side, of course. The spending cuts offered in the balanced approach are not real cuts. They are Washington cuts, which are actually just decreases in hoped-for increases.

If the administration wishes to spend baseline plus 15%, and agrees to spend only baseline plus 5%, everyone takes credit for a 33% cut in spending.

Since the baseline assumes an increase each year automatically, any decrease in the "assumed" increase is counted as a "cut." Obviously it isn't a cut at all, but rather a healthy increase -- but who's counting? Certainly not the media.

On the other side of the ledger, however, the tax increases are figured just as we mundane citizens might expect. They are increases in taxes paid by we, the people. They are very real. So when President Obama and the socialist left (along with collaborating RINOs) claim to offer ten dollars in spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase, know that the only thing real in that equation is the tax increase. The "cuts" are a chimera.

Some good advice for the Republican leadership: when all else fails, try honesty.

Good advise, but wasted on the crew currently occupying office.

The wheels will come off before anything changes, guaranteed.

Any truth given will fall on deaf ears, consider the demographics. The majority consists now of looters (Uncle Warren) and moochers (Peggy the Moocher).
When the wheels DO come off, maybe not in our lifetime, (Japan still at it 20 years later, and we’re better at it) those entitled will burn the place down. The only good thing about that is that Rats always crap in their own nest.

The thing about a balanced approach is, it depends what items you are trying to balance. Trying to claim that preventing tax reductions for some, but not all, taxpayers, is like saying that Arafat had a more balanced approach to Jews than Hitler. It’s not balancing, it’s just socialism.

As the article says, we can easily balance the budget in 10 years without much pain, IF WE HAVE THE COLLECTIVE WILL TO DO IT and IF WE START NOW.

In Washington, they use a wondrous accounting method known as “baseline” budgeting. The money spent in the previous year becomes the baseline for the next year, and so on.

If extra money was spent last year, then that is now part of the budget baseline. Case in point: the stimulus bill totaling more than $1.2 trillion. This was an egregious abuse of the public’s money, but it wasn’t an isolated incident. Due to the miracle of baseline budgeting, we have spent that money again and again and again, during each year of Obama’s presidency. This is the primary reason why Harry Reid won’t allow a budget bill. It will cut off the spigot.

Surprised? Don’t be. This is the reality we face, and ignoring the depth of corruption involved serves only to further enable these politicians’ perfidy. Now, in this lame-duck session of Congress, we are faced again with a budgetary fight. Not an actual budget mind you, but rather another faux-budget in the form of a continuing resolution to maintain spending in order to keep the government open for business.

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