Obama Budget Strains Credibility

What is there to say, the president started with a budget not based real economic numbers, that wants to raise taxes on all. One that senator Gregg just pummeled him over, and that is just the beginning. In addition if Cap and Trade is not going to be part of the budget, that eliminates another revenue stream the President had factored in. By the way blaming everyone else while "calling for a new era of responsibility" is getting tedious.


From The Associated Press VIA HA

THE CLAIM: "We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have to each other, that's when we succeed."
THE FACTS: No one really knows when the recession will end. But Obama's own budget forecasts the recession will continue through this year but with a relatively shallow 1.2 percent decline in the gross domestic product.

OBAMA: "In this budget, we have made the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term even under the most pessimistic estimates."
THE FACTS: Not all credible estimates foresee a deficit halved in that time.

THE CLAIM: "Our assumptions are perfectly consistent with what blue-chip forecasters out there are saying."
THE FACTS: The Obama administration's economic growth projections are more optimistic over the next five years than those of the Blue Chip Consensus, a monthly average of 50 economic forecasts from the private sector.


THE CLAIM: Obama repeated his assertion that his housing bailout will help "stabilize the housing market and help responsible homeowners stay in their homes."
THE FACTS: Even officials in his administration, many supporters of the plan in Congress and the Federal Reserve chairman have said some of the bailout money is bound to go to those who acted irresponsibly.


THE CLAIM: Responding to Republican critics in Congress who say his proposed budget carries an irresponsible deficit, Obama said, "I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them."
FACT: Obama inherited a whopper of a deficit, much of it due to policies and spending led by Republican President George W. Bush. But the Congress, which authorizes spending and is not blameless in driving up deficits, was controlled by Democrats in the last two years of Bush's presidency.

From The NY Times

From the Washington Post:

Deteriorating economic conditions will cause the federal deficit to soar past $1.8 trillion this year and leave the nation wallowing in a sea of red ink far deeper than the White House had previously estimated, congressional budget analysts said today.

In a new report that provides the first independent analysis of President Obama's budget request, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the administration's agenda would generate deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year over the next decade -- $2.3 trillion more than the president predicted when he unveiled his spending plan just one month ago.

From The Economist:

THE Congressional Budget Office offered a bleak economic forecast in January, and a much bleaker forecast today. Republicans are "pouncing", declaring a $1.8 trillion budget deficit "generational theft". The White House is pushing back with rhetoric that should be familiar to anyone not born two months ago: CBO projections often differ from projections put together by the Office of Management and Budget. Still, the White House is worried. "Deficits in the, let's say, 5 percent of GDP range," said Peter Orzag, the director of the OMB who was hired away from the CBO, "would lead to rising debt-to-GDP ratios that would ultimately not be sustainable."

The CBO Projections:

Total Deficit or Surplus (Percentage of GDP)

The Full CBO Breakdown.

(CNN) -- President Obama presented a sober assessment of the state of the economy in his prime time news conference Tuesday, but he insisted his administration has a strategy in place to "attack this crisis on all fronts."

Jindal is defending Rush:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- -- It's OK for Republicans to want President Obama to fail if they think he's jeopardizing the country, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told members of his political party Tuesday night.Jindal described the premise of the question -- "Do you want the president to fail?" -- as the "latest gotcha game" being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans.
“Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, ‘Why no sir, I don’t want the president to fail,’ is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism,” Jindal said at a political fundraiser attended by 1,200 people. “This is political correctness run amok.”

Well The President was unhappy about that question:

(CNN) — President Obama gave a pretty tough answer to CNN's Ed Henry when asked why he waited days to express outrage on the AIG bonuses. "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak," he said. It seemed to imply the question was impertinent. "After Ed Henry, he looked like he wanted to go home," conservative talk radio host and CNN Contributor Bill Bennett said.

I don't buy it. I believe he had no clue and was "stunned" or he simply thought he could get away with it.

Well he is taking it to the hill:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby lawmakers on his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, ahead of votes in the House and Senate this week

Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad, who leads the Senate Budget Committee, has already taken a paring knife to the proposal, and the Senate is expected to vote on his version Wednesday.

"We've made hundreds of billions of dollars of changes to make this work to get down to the deficit goal and at the same time maintain the president's priorities -- education and energy and health care," Conrad said as he left a closed meeting in the Capitol, where he briefed Senate Democratic colleagues on his plan Tuesday.

Thompson calls it:

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Count former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson among the growing chorus of prominent Republicans who want President Obama's policies to fail.

Tuesday evening Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called pressure to support Obama's policies "political correctness run amok."

Related: Jindal defends those who want Obama to fail

Thompson told CNN's John Roberts Wednesday that he agreed with some of his fellow Republicans who have said publicly they do not want the president's policies to be successful.