Obama's Budget Proposal - Lower Deficit, Higher Debt, Interest Keeps Growing

Political Realities ^ | 03/05/14 | LD Jackson

[LD Jackson]

If the news from the past few days hasn't been enough to dampen your fire, try this on for size. Tis the season for budget proposals in Washington. President Obama is the first to reveal what he wants to spend our money on, with Paul Ryan soon to follow. I'll try to take a look at Mr. Ryan's, when he turns it loose, but for now, all we have to go on is what the President has listed as his priorities. My friends, it is not pretty.

It's more of the same, really. He wants more infrastructure spending, more education spending, more money to spend on creating jobs, etc. As if the government bureaucrats can wiggle their noses like Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched and produce jobs. That fairy tale has already been proven false. And it wouldn't be a Obama budget if it didn't contain at least one tax increase. Buried in the details are plans to raise more than $1 trillion in taxes over the next ten years.

USA Today - The budget President Obama unveiled Tuesday would raise more than $1 trillion over 10 years through changes in the tax code by closing loopholes, raising some taxes and cracking down on enforcement.

But the budget also cuts taxes for some taxpayers, most notably an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for 13.5 million low-income Americans beginning in 2018.

Obama's budget contains 175 different revenue proposals, of which 28 are new in this year's budget.

More than a little notable is why Obama is wanting to raise taxes, yet again. The Earned Income Tax Credit used to be for low-income workers with children. He now wants to extend it to workers with no children. He wants to pay for this by closing tax loopholes for certain individuals who make more money than he thinks is necessary. In other words, he wants to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share. More of the same rhetoric he has espoused since he took office over five years ago.

This tactic of taking from one sector of our population to give to another is nothing new and it is not the most troubling aspect of his proposed budget plan. Let's look at the long-term forecast of what his budget will do. This comes from Fox News.

• By 2024, the total national debt would rise from $17.4 trillion to nearly $25 trillion.
• By 2020, U.S. taxpayers would be paying more in interest on the debt than they would on the entire Defense budget.
• By 2017, those interest payments would be bigger than the budget for Medicaid.

I'm not the smartest fellow on the block when it comes to fiscal issues, but even I can do basic math. Even with the claim that President Obama is reducing the deficit, which seems to be more or less true, the national debt continues to pile higher and higher. We are still spending far too much money, more than we take in. Either taxes have to go up, even higher than they already are, or the amount of money the government is spending has to be lowered. If the interest on the debt continues to grow, on top of the amount of debt that is added by the deficit each year, something will have to give.

It seems to me the very foundations of our country are threatened. How can we sustain such continued growth in the national debt, without suffering severe consequences? We do not need to be focused on raising taxes to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. We do not need to be focused on adding even more to the national debt by taking over the entire health care system. If we do not take serious steps to lower the national debt, I fail to see how America can continue to stand on her own two feet. And when I say cooler heads need to prevail, I'm not talking about Paul Ryan's measly cuts that might lower the national debt over a period of 10 to 20 years. We need a completely new fiscal direction, but I'm not sure I see anyone in the government that is able to do what needs to be done.

I apologize if I sound too gloomy. I just think the insanity that comes out of Washington is growing so large, it threatens America more than any outside invader ever could. Watching our country declining is not fun, especially when it seems so many Americans care so little about what is really happening.

[RWB Patriot]

I think the US is on track to become the next Argentina.

[PGalt]

Interest in Bastiat, founders, fiscal responsibility and damage caused by socialism/totalitarianism keeps growing and is causing the boom to be lowered on these high-debt, livin’-large, criminals/elitists.

T.E.A.

[pas]

Even if he presented a good budget it would never get past Harry Reid. How many budgets have actually passed the senate during Obamas reign.

[Cruz_West_Paul2016]

hey,we all know that liberals don’t care about the debt,they don’t have to pay it back,let “The Children” pay it off for the next 100 years.

[NTHockey]

No, Zimbabwe is more like it.

[StevieRay20]

The EITC is nothing more than welfare, you arent cutting taxes by expanding it. This country has done a masterful job of couching welfare as various “tax credits”

[NTHockey]

How about somebody with cojones (I know, that’s like Diogenes searching for an honest man) introducing a “It’s For the Children” budget. Cut billions NOW, stop borrowing NOW, unplug the printing presses NOW.

Then watch the LIBs heads explode when they have to answer for not caring about children.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Since 83% of the general public does not seem to realize that the debt and the deficit are NOT the same thing, it works for him.